MINISTRY were the opening act for MEDIUM MEDIUM on our first or second US Tour. The late great RUTH POLSKI had booked the tour, Ministry were based in CHICAGO then and were working with a great Chicago label called WAX TRAX, most of the Wax Trax stuff was produced by an incredibly talented English guy called IAN BURGES. Ministry had just recorded ‘COLD LIFE’ an inspired and brilliant track, which sounds as good today as it ever did. AL JORGENSON and I became friends and I in fact helped his then manager get them a deal with ARISTA in NEW YORK, where they did the WORK FOR LOVE ALBUM, great songs great album but, lackluster production from one of the guys from THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS.

Al and I lost contact in around 84/85? About the time Ilona and I signed to EMI,I think the last time was in Germany when Al myself, Ilona , ALAN VEGA and one of the guys from KRAFTWERK were hanging out together. Ministry changed dramatically over the years and it was almost fifteen years before Al and I bumped into each other again. Much had changed, Al had spent over ten years on heroin, which had certainly had its effect on him, and certainly on the type of music he was making. Gone was the warm, open, kind, optimistic guy of the early eighties, to be replaced by a bitter aggressive paranoid ex alcoholic ex junkie who saw threats and conspiracies everywhere. Perhaps because I reminded him of the 'innocence' of the past early days, Al asked me to work with him again, and after much soul searching I finally agreed to go to EL PASO in WEST TEXAS (where Al lived and still lives) to do the film//visual concept (a clip of which is featured here) from the ‘HOUSES OF THE MOLÉ’ Tour. It was, one must say an ‘interesting’ experience, and not one I would perhaps wish to repeat, but there were high points. Working with my young editor AUSTIN RHODES and his charming KOREAN WIFE CAROLINA was one of them, meeting TONY RANCICH a charming and most generous man, who owns SONIC RANCH STUDIOS where we lived and worked which is thirty miles from El Paso and right in the middle of the dessert with the Rio Grande and Mexican border behind it.

Al hates all this early stuff and has tried very hard to distance himself from it, but the early stuff is certainly the best stuff. All the 80s material from COLD LIFE, WORK FOR LOVE, HALLOWEEN, and all the more ‘EURO INDUSTRIAL’ 80s MINISTRY, shows Al at his very best and most creative and also what a great songwriter he was. Al spent a lot of time in EUROPE in the mid 80’s in both LONDON & BERLIN, he had always been a huge ‘EUROPHILE’ and knowing that my EX PARNER was ADRIAN SHERWOOD, and liking what Adrian was doing with ON YOU SOUNDS he had hooked up with him and become very influenced by Adrian’s mastery of sound. Also spending a lot of time in BERLIN he had become friendly with EINSTURZENDE NEAUBAUTEN, and had become hugely influenced by their CONFRONTATIONAL INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONIC MUSIC.

The 'HEROIN YEARS’, saw Al turn MINISTRY into a virtual parody of itself and the band became almost a satire on AMERICAN ROCK METAL MUSIC, with INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONIC undertones, complete with cowboy hats, long hair, bandanas , black leather, tattoos, and the whole American Spinal Tap Rock Cliché Kit. This was not without its high points, the 2000 MINISTRY SINGLE–JESUS BUILT MY HOT ROD, was a masterpiece of PERFORMANCE ART, featuring the excellent GIBBY HAINES from THE BUTHOLE SURFERS on vocals, who incidentally is a charming amusing and very educated man. AL these days professes great respect for people like OSSIE OSBOURNE, BLACK SABBATH etc., which is odd, because people and bands like this were for Al in the early days absurd objects of derision. One can only assume that having created the ‘PERFORMANCE ART METAL PARODY’ and the PERSONA to go with it, somewhere along the line, in the heroin fug, the persona took over and Al forgot who he really was! Working with him at the time of the HOUSES OF THE MOLÉ ALBUM, there were moments when just the two of us would be hanging out together, when I would see occasional flashes of the old Al, but, sadly, once other people were around, the persona took over.

In the early days Al was always amusingly 'camp & androgynous' (in a Chicago kind of way that is!) and this is still recognisable in the later Ministry even under the layers of leather and metal. Perhaps this is why he felt he needed to adopt such a 'cartoon butch hardman' persona, which ironicaly has resulted in Ministry having a huge gay following, which for the latterly somewhat 'homophobic' Al, is the stuff of band dreams!