Al Jourgensen Hates Bush And Enjoys Cocks

If you ask Al Jourgensen, the grand master of industrial music and loudmouth leader of Ministry and The Revolting Cocks, about going into politics, his answer is pretty short.

"I could never go into politics, man, too many Polaroids locked up in a shoe box somewhere. I couldn't possibly ever entertain that thought."

But if you ask him about politics and the big bad world of music, he could go on for days.

"First of all, the music business awards mediocrity at this point," declares Jourgensen.

"All people want to hear is the latest cast-off of American Idol yabbering about something. It's kind of depressing in that sense. It's not about art anymore, and I guarantee you if they thought they could make money off of it, they'd be doing it. You know what the sad thing is? They can make money off it, but nobody wants to take a chance. Everyone's almost too afraid to fart."

That's why Jourgensen started his 13th Planet label last year. He wants to release critical and explicit electro-metal hardcore albums without the pressure of dealing with the desires of big record labels. Ministry's Rio Grande Blood, an intense George W. Bush-bashing follow-up to 2004's House Of The Mole that the 47-year-old had a blast making, definitely qualifies.

"With this album, the only absolute was that there was no absolutes," says Jourgensen. "This record was a fucking joy to make because we sat down, three grumpy old men — me, Tommy [Victor] and Paul [Raven] — turned the amps up to 11 and jammed for three-and-a-half weeks.

"My only regret is that the album was already done before the first sitting vice-president to do a drive-by shooting. That is the high point of this administration for me, and I just missed it. I may have to do an addendum to it now, maybe a reissue: 'Cheney's Got A Gun.'"

The fast-paced political assault on the album is helped along by former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra on "Ass Clown." Then there are songs like "Fear (Is Big Business)" and the Bush-sampling "Lies Lies Lies," which Jourgensen believes is the best song that the band have ever recorded.

"To gather those sound-bites, I had to sit down and listen to this idiot for about 5,000 hours waiting for him to say idiotic things, which isn't exactly that difficult," says Jourgensen. "That is my least favourite part of the songwriting process for me, sitting through that idiot for I don't know how many days."

The album title is a take-off on ZZ Top's 1972 album, Rio Grande Mud, which Jourgensen decided to use after he received the blessing of ZZ's Billy Gibbons. The bearded guitarist plays on the new Revolting Cocks album, Cocked And Loaded.

"I think I got my first back seat blow job to a ZZ Top song, so I owed him big for that," says Jourgensen.

We're not sure if the head Cock got anything while listening to the Butthole Surfers or Cheap Trick, but Gibby Haynes, Rick Nielsen and Robin Zander are among the guests on Cocked And Loaded, the group's first studio album since 1993's Linger Ficken' Good.

Jourgensen will do double-duty by performing in both Ministry and The Revolting Cocks on the MasturbaTOUR, which includes these Canadian stops:

May 30-31 Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom
June 2 Edmonton, AB @ Reds
June 3 Calgary, AB @ MacEwan Hall
June 5 Winnipeg, MB @ Burton Cummings Theatre
June 7 Kitchener, ON @ Element
June 8 Toronto, ON @ Kool Haus
June 9 Ottawa, ON @ Capital Music Hall
June 10 Montreal, QC @ Le Medley
June 11 Quebec City, QC @ Le Capitole De Quebec