Ministry’s frontman Al Jourgensen started a new musical project called, Surgical Meth Machine.
Surgical Meth Machine is a collaboration between Jourgensen and his longtime audio engineer Sam D’Ambruoso. “We decided to cut out the middle-men,” Jourgensen said in an interview with The Metal Hammer Magazine Show. “Me and him are doing this music that’s just eyeball-popping. There’s nothing under 220pbm on there. It’s not for the faint of heart.”
When asked to describe what the Surgical Meth Machine material will sound like, in the interview with The Metal Hammer Magazine Show, Jourgensen compared his new sound to a track from the Ministry album From Beer To Eternity, called “Side F/X Include Mikey’s Middle Finger”. It was one of the last tracks that the band had worked on prior to the death of Ministry’s guitarist Mike Scaccia in 2012.
“Imagine a whole album of that – this is what we’re going for now. Straight mayhem,” Jourgensen told The Metal Hammer Magazine Show. He added that, “People are probably going to dismiss it as craziness – and that’s good. Craziness develops a future in music. You need the crazy.”
Despite the death of his good friend and bandmate, Jourgensen is taking the current incarnation of Ministry on the road to support the band’s most recent release, “Relapse“.
He spoke to The Metal Hammer Magazine Show, about the album, the tour, and the possibilities of future Ministry recordings, saying:
“We’re going to do one last tour as Ministry, maybe even another tour, because people seem to want to see it. As far as future studio releases, since Mikey’s death, I decided it’s not the same. It would be like Zeppelin playing without Bonham or the Who playing without Moon or something like that. Me playing without Mikey doesn’t seem right.”
In recent years, Jourgensen has struggled with his health. In 2012, he was admitted to hospital in Paris, France, after he collapsed in the middle of Ministry concert. And, in 2014, he checked himself into rehab to address his alcohol dependence.
On the professional side, Jourgensen hasn’t had it easy either, there had been a claim that he was working on project with Lil’ Wayne and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame. Reznor, later, denied his involvement in any collaboration and stated that he has not heard from Jourgensen in number of years. And, Jourgensen chose to write a memoir that detailed Ministry’s rise to fame, his personal relationships, and his struggles with drug addiction and alcoholism over the years.
Lastly, if Jourgensen weren’t busy enough with Surgical Meth Machine and Ministry’s tour, Loudwire notes that he is “also working on another musical project called Dubwesier, a serial killer novel, a second autobiography and documentary on his life and possibly a film based on Al’s first autobiography.”
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