Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen spoke on the band’s upcoming album, which will be influenced by the current US President Donald Trump. During the interview with Billboard, that came of the heels of the band’s most popular album The Land of Rape and Honey, Jourgensen stated that the band is seeking to put out as much music as they can during the so-called Trump-era.
“I have to get as many albums as I can done while Trump is still president,” Jourgensen elaborated. “And then what am I going to do: write those crappy albums that I write while Democrats are president?”
The band’s last album AmeriKKKant, was released this March, and featured heavy allusions to the current US political landscape. While it featured many lyrics that discussed Trump’s shortcomings, Jourgensen stated that it was not an “anti-Trump,” record, but rather an allegory for how the nation elected him.
“The last album was not an anti-Trump album, it was like the “how we got here” album. It kind of touched on what I was talking about with the [self-titled Surgical Meth Machine] album, how society has changed so drastically since social media because ubiquitous,” Jourgensen explained. “And in a Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker kind of way, examining the ramifications and permutations of what that entails. Trump is the perfect byproduct of the society we’ve created…”
Social media was shown to play a huge role in the 2016 election, with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO coming under fire for the proliferation of misinformation and propaganda that was spread on the platform. Jourgensen’s allusions to the popular science fiction series Black Mirror, allude to the fact that America is in many ways living its own dystopian future.
While the band is known for its darker tone and movements, Jourgensen still holds optimism that the landscape can change. “If you look back on the ’60s, we made some nominal civil rights and gender rights gains, but generally what we have to show for it is LSD and bell-bottoms and Woodstock. I’m hoping we go a little bit further this time. And I do see the new album touching on topics like that,” the singer stated.
This interview also referenced the band’s three albums that were released during the Bush era, Houses Of The Molé, Rio Grande Blood and The Last Sucker, that featured anti-Bush themes. These records gave the band a stronger political theme during the early 2000s.
“Three albums of bashing Bush… although the last one was almost like, I felt sorry for the guy as much as I felt sorry for us for having to deal with the guy. The Last Sucker was like, ‘We’re all suckers in this,’ ” explained Jourgensen.
Sonically, the album will be “far more Portishead than Motorhead,” in the singer’s words, meaning that the album will be more electronically based than previous efforts. Ministry originally started its career as a synth-pop band with their debut album With Sympathy, which was later followed up with Twitch another electronically based-effort.
Ministry will be going on their winter tour next month, starting in San Francisco, California.
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