MINISTRY : I wanna be your dog...to bite you !

We had a very friendly meeting with Paul Barker, with Al joining us for the photo session.

-Here we have your new Lp, ‘Animositisomnia’ : could you explain this title ? it can be read in both ways, backwards and forward : but does it symbolize too the union of Al and Paul in the battle ?

-PB : Yes, we could say that ; that wasn’t necessarily an aspect of the title but, as a palindrome, it’s true. Basically, the whole concept at the name, at the artwork is that religious strife and human condition is an everlasting situation, there’s nothing new about it, those symbols could be corporate logos, dollar signs, euro signs, pound signs, whatever, it’s all interchangeable : the aspect of the sheep is populous but also it’s basically the notion that the sense of mediocrity prevalent in the western society is a kind of premature death, where you’re alive but like a kind of zombie. That’s perpetuated by all the governments, that’s what they want, they want people to simply consume as opposed to challenge what’s happening. By the same talking not everyone is an artist, not everyone has the will to create, and not everyone is interested in changing the world, but the world will change, regardless !

-The cover remembers me of an old Stooges single, ‘Jesus loves the Stooges’, with a dead animal’s head on the cover...

-PB : I don’t remember it, but we love those guys, so !

-Is it a central, a general theme for the Lp ? You said the world is more dangerous, so the art have and music to be too...

-P B : I guess that I will have to say that, at first, we write music which is in function of where we are at that time, during that period of time it takes to compose the music and complete this music. Obviously, some songs demand that they have a different approach, and so of course you have to think about them in different terms, but I don’t think that, before we started working on this record, we knew that the songs was going to be like this or that. Of course, once we were in the studio we started working on the music, and they demanded direction. And then, as Al was putting vocals, they all came together and we changed them up some more.

-How do you share roles within the band : do you have specific roles ?

-PB : Basically, there are no rules : I end up playing bass most of the time, and Al plays most of the guitars, but on this record we changed up some things, we both played keyboards and we had a drummer, Max Brody, who also helped to co write some material. We did some work at my place, Al and I both have pre production studios in our house, little work stations. For the lyrics, it depends : if I’m going to sing a song, then I’m going to do the lyrics, and Al does the lyrics for the rest of the songs. But what was cool on this record was that Al started last year writing, so he was constantly with a note book and were just writing. So he had many different ideas to choose from to try and find the correct idea and some of the correct expressions which would be suitable for any song. Of course, then we had to modify the lyrics for the songs, because then, when you start putting down the vocal ideas, once you’ve figured how you’re going to sing it, you still have to change the lyrics so they fit properly.

-It’s your first lp for Sanctuary, after Warner : are you happy with this choice ?

-PB : Well, yes, because when we started to look around for a label, basically everyone was offering us the same conditions and we realized that what was great about Sanctuary is that they are hard rock label, rock is their forte, and so we wouldn’t have to battle with the promotions department, because they know the market very well, they know where to put ads, that sort of things, and they’re very comfortable with us, they know that what we are giving in too : we like rock’n’roll there’s kind of a sort of psychological condition that they understand, that they can deal with. Sanctuary is concentrated on heavy rock music, and labels want successful records more than anything else. But we did what we wanted previously as well, obviously because there would be otherwise many records that sound like ‘Psalm 69’, which was a successful record !

-Did you see the movie ‘bowling for Columbine’, what do you think of it and the free guns in America ?

-PB : I haven’t see it, but I have heard about it, and I understand what the point is the nature of the Americans being very adamant and very impatient that everyone is allowed to have weapons if they want to : that’s a double edged sword, because on one hand you want to be able to have this notion of freedom, which is just a fucking illusion because in western society there are no new frontiers, it’s not like the fucking wild wild west ! The NRA people, their primary concern is being able to defend themselves against the government taking over their lives or against armed intruders, against thieves, that kind of shit, it happens of course, it happen everywhere in the world, people get robbed and whatever, but no more than anywhere else, so it’s not as though there's an epidemic although it might seem like there’s one, because the press always sensationalized that whole thing about those two sniper dudes, in Washington : how many people are there in the USA ? 300 millions ? And just 2 of them went crazy ! That’s pure sensationalism. But unfortunately, I don’t have any other comment because I haven’t seen the movie.

-Is it harder to be out of the norms of mainstream in USA since September 11 ?

-PB : Yes it is, because what happen is that the conservative have a stance which is now a popular stance, and there’s a lot of people who are not willing to take responsibility for their lives and that snowballs when they’re in a society that they’re not responsible for themselves, and they need to be told what to do, they’re afraid of other people being allowed to do what they want to do, they’re afraid of people with their own ideas, and perhaps they’re afraid of change. It’s going to happen regardless, conservatism is a slow death, basically : people have to change. In the United States, unfortunately, when laws are passed, normally there’s one good idea that creates the passion to try and pass a law, and let’s say it’s something like the tort reform, which is to change the way that people can sue other people or corporations or maybe they wanna have a limit on the amount of money that somebody can win through a sue, or maybe they want to change the parameters whereby one is able to sue, you take a simple idea like that, and there might be two pages or five pages or ten pages to this law ; then, all the other lawmakers in the government keep adding their own laws, which is absurd. By the time that it gets to be voted on, by the house and by the senate, there might be twenty five other laws in there, one of them might be something like money to build roads in the back of Tennessee, money to allow a pipeline to be built, so that’s other bullshit that gets added to the law, and everybody knows that the initial idea is so good that it has to pass so they shove all this other crap in there, and then what happens is that if lawmakers look at that and say that they can’t pass this ‘cause there’s too much bullshit on here, they look like they don’t want the original idea. Well they’re not against the idea, they’re against all that is called ‘pork’, just fat, they’re against all the added shit that gets on it. That’s the way it works !

-Casey Chaos and Marilyn Manson said that they would never want to live anyplace else than USA, because, as it’s one of the most crazy and paranoid country of the world, where else could they have so much inspiration : what do you think of it ? Could you do Ministry’s music wherever it is ?

-PB : Ok : to live in Hawaii, for example, it’s too much an idyllic kind of paradise ! But, you know, what inspires Ministry is everything, all the art and literature and the human condition and politics, and not just the United States that we care about. It’s very easy to poke fun of the United States because we know about it, it’s where we were born, even if, actually I was born in Cuba ! And where we grew up, and in some ways it’s almost too easy because so many people are so fucking stupid : I’ve have seen in the newspaper today that two kids who were obese and wanted to sue McDonalds because they think that McDonalds made them obese. That’s the most asinine kind of position because obviously, you don’t have to eat there. It’s like suing the tobacco companies because you got sick because you smoked. The idea is : look at your fucking life, nobody’s telling you what to do, take your responsibility for yourself ! If you don’t like the way that you live, then fucking change it ! But many people just don’t think about it. I would prefer to live outside of the United States, I don’t have any kind of , let’s say, a very little love for the country, and I think that by large Americans are as stupid as anyone else in the country, or in the world. I think that I would like to live in Spain, that’s something I’m interested in. I love Europe, absolutely.

-Could you present it to us, for example what are the main differences with ‘Dark side of the spoon’ ?

-PB : I would say that ‘Dark side of the spoon was a very difficult record to make, we were pretty unhappy, we threw out an album's worth of material halfway through it and the reason was because we just worked it to death, we just weren't inspired by that music. If you spend too much time on it, you’re losing your perspective, so on this record Al and I have decided that we wouldn’t do that, we would do whatever we could to make sure that it did not happen. One thing we realized was, when we were working on the last couple of albums, that there’s so many distractions : we were in Chicago, we have a studio there, we have a lot of friends there, there’s four rooms in it, there’s a building with four different studios, so you have a bunch of people running around, it was distracting, and also because we were frustrated because we couldn’t feel the songs anymore, many things like this, it’s overall extremely difficult and so, as I said, the main thing we wanted to do on this record is to get away from all of that shit and just make music because for the love of making music, to see if we could do that one more time. So, we went to this studio in Texas, outside of El Paso, in the middle of nowhere, where there are no distractions. This place was fantastic : it had room and board, a housemaid to take care of your laundry and anything, there was a cook, so you didn’t have to worry about that, all we had to do is get in the studio and create, that’s fantastic ! Overall, the feeling on this record for us is that we came out of the studio with a record that we are happy with and we’re still, we can still talk to one another, and laugh, and that’s very important.

-You are, once again, producers of this album : have you never been tempted to call another producer ?

-PB : This would change many things, and primarily, the sound quality is one thing, and we change, undoubtedly we change, so obviously because of the amount of time that we spent trying to complete records in the past, lots of my friends said that we should consider using a producer if for no other reason that somebody else would have an opinion to help you, to finish with your record, because of course when you do everything by yourself, you have the time to try so many ideas and be satisfied and so forth, and once again, as I said, we decided that we were going to do less experimentation and more just straight raw expression and just do it, just hammering out and just see what happens that way.

-Al and Paul, you are still teaming together in Ministry : is it the ideal partnership for both of you ?

-PB : I suppose, in many ways, because we are allowed to do whatever we want, take time to do what we want, and as long as we still think that we have ideas to be expressed, then I’m sure that we will continue.

-When Ministry started, with a DJ and single member, he has been influenced by post punk, but also by the electro and industrial European movement in the eighties : how do you see the return of those influences today, when Depeche Mode, Soft Cell or Bauhaus are being like rediscovered ? With amusement ? Disdain ? Or you don’t care at all ?

-PB : Obviously, I know that it’s like an eighties kind of music resurgence, it’s a fashion, it’s a cyclical thing, obviously because, five years ago, it’s punk rock which was before post punk, and what does that mean ? That 80’s hair metal bands are gonna be popular again, because that’s the thing that came after, or the new romantics or that kind of shit is gonna come back ? Or worst ? What is worst ? It doesn’t matter because creative people who can develop their own sound and come up with their own voice, they take their influences from everything, so it doesn’t matter : there’s always been bands that sound like other bands, but they just do it because of the fun of it or they want to become stars, making money, until they do whatever they’re told. That kind of things always existed, there’s nothing unique about that. Is it amusing that the kids are once again interested in wearing skinny ties ! And little buttons ! That’s cute !

-You covered in this lp a Magazine’s title : ‘Light pours out of me’ : why this choice ?

-PB : It’s not embarrassing ! We happen to be doing that now, on the heels of this kind of like post punk resurgence ; we grew up in the 70’s, and when punk came about, it had a huge influence on us, and post punk even more, because it was so great, it was like 25 excellent bands that all sounded different, all using the same fucking instruments and yet somehow their had their own voice, they developed their own style : do you hear that today ? You don’t. You hear kids who grew up listening metal or industrial or techno or whatever and all they want is sound the same than other bands. It takes a fairly creative soul who is able to take all the influences and make something that sounds unique, unmistakable. I’ve seen so many of those bands : I’ve seen Killing Joke, Bauhaus, The Pop Group, PIL, Siouxsie and the Banshees, but Joy Division wasn’t my cup of tea : they were too ‘simple’, in a way, for me. Gang of Four, Television, New York Dolls too, which is not post punk at all, Roxy Music in 75, something like this. The reason because we did that song is because we love Magazine and always have, and we played that song until about 92 as an encore song. Al heard a bootleg CD, on the song was so horrible on it that he came into the studio one day and said : ‘Ok Paul, today, we’re gonna this song, and we’re do it good !’ But we didn’t know if it would be on the album or just used as a B side, but I think that it works perfectly on the context of the CD.

-Did you stop definitely all your side projects as Revolting Cocks, Lard, Satan Bucks and the 666 shooters ?

-PB : No, we didn’t, we wanna work on a Lard record, but the problem is that there’s only so many hours in a day, I have a family, it’s extremely difficult. Al is doing some production work for the band, and he has been asked to, I suppose, that's what Al would say ; but Max Brody who worked with us on ‘Animotisomina’, he and I played the show on Halloween 2001 and we’re gonna play another show and that music is going to be released on Ipecac records, the name of that project being ‘Pink amble ‘.

-You are ZZ top and Led Zepp fan, but what do you listen today ? I’ve heard that specially loved jazz and country music : Johnny Cash ? Nick Cave ?

-PB : I like classic country as well : I don’t listen to a lot of country, Al is more into it, but if I did, it would be Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, early Johnny Cash ; Al is more into that, he listens to Georges Jones, The Frezelles, this kind of stuff, more than I am. I think this new Nashville country bullshit is absolutely disgusting. It’s just like rock’n’ roll, cheesy rock’n’roll, very boring, very mediocre, very middle of the road. I love strange music, like Xenakis, Giorgy Ligeti, Scott Walker, Nick Cave : we both love him, and I saw the Birthday party way back then. I only met him one time, and we had a nice conversation. We were huge fans ! Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, and I was very happy for her opening for U2, to me that’s really cool, because those know what they are, like ambassadors or something, but at least they have interesting bands opening for them. At least !You know what I love too ? Those two Serge Gainsbourg’s tribute CD by Mick Harvey, and Serge Gainsbourg in general, he made a great job.

-You appeared on the Artificial Intelligence movie : how did it happen and do you have other cinematographical projects ?

-PB : Right now, we don’t have anything else as far as cinema is concerned. A friend of mine is working on a TV show and maybe he’ll want me to help him to work out some music for that, but that is music. The way that I’m thinking about this is kind of humorous because we’ve got a call, out of the blue, asking if we wanted to supply some music for this Spielberg movie of a Stanley Kubrick screenplay. And we said of course, we wanted to do that ! What a better filmmaker ? Obviously, there are few awesome filmmakers, Wim Wenders is totally fantastic, and one of my favorite movies is ‘Wings of desire’, it’s so bad ass ! I love it when it’s difficult, I hate it when it’s boring, like: here you go, you’re supposed to laugh now.

-And do you appreciate David Lynch ?

-PB : Of course, but part of the problem is that there’s so many clichés : we love those filmmakers, but unfortunately, if you want to be a hip person, you have to like this kind of shit, and that stuff kills us. Of course, we like David Lynch, there’s no question about it, but it’s almost de rigueur to mention his name. I love those movies, ‘Pi’ and ‘Requiem for a dream’ by Darren Aranofsky and their soundtracks too. Well, to go back to film, we were told that Stanley Kubrick really loved Ministry and we had no idea how that could be, but it makes sense, it makes sense that somebody might have turned him on to it, because obviously he's the kind of guy who’s interested in off beat, challenging music : if you look at his movies, the way that he does his movies. So we are very interested in film, and so we’ll have to see what happens.

-Next ? Projects ? A European tour maybe ?

-PB : Yes, in February (in fact, 28th February, at the Elysée Montmartre), as the cd is supposed to come out the third week of february.

(Interview made December 3rd, 2003 in Paris)