Al Jourgensen once famously said every day is Halloween. But that it’s not every day that the infamous Ministry founder/frontman/leader, or any rock star, grants an interview quite like this.

Doing a rare longform sit-down interview at Studio City’s Licorice Pizza Records to promote Ministry’s long-threatened final album, Hate to Go — Takeout or Delivery (which full-circularly comes out on Halloween Eve), the press-adverse industrial metal legend is in fine form and a great mood at he chats with LPTV. Perhaps that’s because he’s brought wine to the store (he quit hard drugs 22 years ago, but at age 68 credits his current healthy state to his own version of the Mediterranean diet, which includes a bottle of “good red wine” a day).

Or maybe it’s just because he’s excited to go out with a bang and go out on top — following the victory lap of 2024/2025’s Squirrely Years Tour, during which he made peace with Ministry’s synthpop past — and, after nearly a half-century in rock, move on to his next career move as a fainting-goat farmer. (Seriously.)

Uncle Al has lived a long, hard, fast, and fascinating life; many people, including Jourgensen himself, never expected him to make it to 68. So, as he enters his next life chapter, he has much to discuss, including that time he wrote a new wave Shasta soda jingle (and yes, he even sings a bit of it during this interview!); that time he hung out with Clive Davis’s son at the Cruel World festival; that time he was paid to act in the grindhouse flick Jesus Cop with a sack of unmarked bills; that time he got kicked out of the Grammy Awards; that time a Red Hot Chili Peppers roadie stood in for him at Lollapalooza while he was passed-out backstage; and that time he and Gibby Haynes infamously served as Timothy Leary’s MDMA-experiment guinea pigs.

Jourgensen also opens up about his “terrifying” experience with dark-web AI; how growing up as a bullied Cuban immigrant affected his political views; why he and Ministry’s Paul Barker (who reunites with Jourgensen on Hate to Go) had their big falling-out in 2003; why he doesn’t trust anyone under 45; why he wants to disappear and become “the Greta Garbo of industrial”; and why he feels now is the right time to retire Ministry. He also shares some of his plans for Ministry’s all-star farewell concert, set to take place in Los Angeles on the one-year anniversary of Hate to Go’s release, and, since he might not fully quit music, he reveals that a member of a huge current girl group has asked him to do a remix for her.

And, yes, there is a lot of talk about goats. So, pour yourself a very tall glass of wine or your beverage of choice (maybe Shasta?), and watch the entire epic conversation in the video player above, or read it in the edited-for-just-a-bit-of-brevity-and-clarity Q&A below. Al Jourgensen truly is the interview GOAT.

LPTV: This a full-circle moment for us both, because the first big interview I did with you was when you revealed that your plans to revisit With Sympathy, the first Ministry album that you’d long disavowed.

AJ JOURGENSEN: You were the first to know. You asked just at the right moment, when I was just like, “You know what? Fuck it. We’re going to do this. Fuck it.” And then all of a sudden, there’s this girl in there wants to interview me about this. She’s heard rumors. And I was like, “OK.” I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t care what publication. I was just like, “Yeah, you know what? We’re going to fucking do it.” And then we did it.

People actually thought that interview was AI! They thought it couldn’t possibly be true. But then instead of “Taylor’s Version,” you sort of did the “Al’s Version” of With Sympathy — you re-recorded some tracks for The Squirrely Years Revisited and did a tour playing all early material. I was wondering if you enjoyed that tour, considering o all your misgivings with that album.

I beyond enjoyed it. I never thought of my wildest dreams that that would be the most fun I’ve ever had on tour — and that includes every tour we’ve ever done, for 40 years, in any country, anywhere, biggest places, lowest places. That tour was fun. And this is something that you learn as you get older. … Instead of the usual egos  and who has the bigger bus and who has the bigger hotel room, typical rock shit, it was almost like Reservoir Dogs, when they gave them the names. Because we had the sequined jackets.

I never thought I’d see you in sequins.

Exactly. We bought 50 sequined jackets off Amazon, in all different colors and sizes. And then on the bus beforehand, instead of some kind of external drama or ego drama, it was all about just like, “Hey, you wore pink yesterday. I want to wear pink today. Why do you always get to be Mr. Black?” And it forced us to laugh at ourselves and smile. We had such a good time on that tour and feeling the reaction; I’d never felt [audience’s reactions] because usually, my mind is going and we’re all grumpy and angst-filled. And then we’re all dressed up in costumes and the whole first 10 rows was like kids, 18 and 19 years old. Like, “Wow, they’re finding about this album now.” And then as you look back [into the audience], it gets older and older, and you see some of the old grumpy fucks going, “I never thought they’d do this.”

Well, I was not grumpy, because I’ve always championed With Sympathy, but I really didn’t think I’d ever see the day. So, in that bombshell interview in 2023, you announced that you’d made peace with you first album. And now, I don’t know if I really believe it, but you’re saying that this new album, Hate to Go, is your last album.

Aw, man! You believed me once and I came through! So why do you doubt me now? That’s really harsh, man.

I didn’t mean it like that! I guess I don’t want to believe it, because you’re so prolific. You don’t seem ready to retire.

Have you heard the new album? That’s really about as far as we feel we can go with this genre. And we think it’s a perfect representation of my fortysomething years of doing this. It’s got elements of Revco in there. It’s got elements of Ministry. You can still tell it’s us and it’s not trying to reinvent the wheel, although we brought back Paul Barker to tie a ribbon on the whole box. And that seals the deal more than anything, because [Paul and I] went through a lot in the ’90s, and now we’re practically neighbors and we’re friends and we hang out socially. He’ll be on our upcoming tour as well.

I didn’t mean to imply that you’re a liar. You’re a very trustworthy man. But there are a lot of bands that say they’re retiring…

Yeah, Motley Crue did blood-oath thing saying they’ll never tour again, and within four months they were back on the road again. Anthrax, Skinny Puppy, Front 242. You keep going with the people that have said that. But I honestly thought Hopium was going to be our last album, so this is almost a bonus, when all the old coots kicked in and went, “Nah, we got one left in us.” And then we crafted it to be that, without even trying to craft it. It just came together, like, “OK, this is what we sound like, this is what we do, and this is the best it’s going to get.” … This last album is like a greatest hits, without even being released yet. It’s like a greatest hits without a hit. … If I released [another] album after this under Ministry, it would be downhill.

This final album is called Hate to Go, and I like the multiple possible meanings of that title. It could mean, “Here’s that hate you ordered!” Or it could be you saying, “I hate to go, but I must.” Or it could mean: “Hate needs to go away.”

I’m kind of clever.

When I interviewed you in 2023, you were even saying then that you were planning to end the band. Is there some kind of connection there, because you were able to correct the past?

Well, after that [Squirrely Years] tour, it was like, OK, we actually conquered this big cathartic hurdle of doing this album I hate and getting the love from people and actually having fun. And then we did a couple albums after that and they’re pretty good albums. But we’re pushing 70 and I’m sorry, God bless the Rolling Stones and all these other people who tour into their eighties, I’m sure you keep physically fit and all that, but society changes. So, what’s “pretty good “to you maybe isn’t pretty good to society now. Society now has moved on, and society has moved on from our strength of this bashing, political stuff. People don’t want to hear that right now. It comes back in 10 years. It comes back in 20 years. But I’m not chasing fame. I’m not chasing paychecks. It’s been 17 albums now.

I actually think we need more political music right now! I’m surprised there aren’t more bands doing that, given what’s going on in the world. I was waiting for all these protest songs to come out.

Maybe now they will. That generally seems to how Ministry’s career has gone: Either we’re about 10 years ahead of the times, or 10 years behind the times. I’m not sure, but we never fall in the right cycle. And that’s OK. We’ve done OK. Everyone’s got their nice little niche thing to retire on. And I mean, we’re not rich. We’re not like Rammstein or Nine Inch Nails.

Rammstein are richer than Ministry?

Yeah, they’re super-rich. But we’re just like, “We did our mark. We sprayed on the right bushes.”

You did more than make your mark! I mean, there’s been talk for a while that Ministry might follow Nine Inch Nails into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Nine Inch Nails are really of the only act representing industrial music in the Hall.

Well, this is not something that I need to do Xanax for to make me go to sleep. I don’t lay awake at night thinking about it. My manager informed me that there’s this… what did he call it? Oh man, there’s some kind of category in the Hall of Fame…

Music Influence or Musical Excellence, something like that. Basically, a committee-chosen award when they’re like, “We don’t think the mainstream voters will vote for this, but we want them in.” That’s how MC5, Kraftwerk, and Judas Priest got in.

Exactly. OK, great, man. I might even show up if we get something. Generally, when I go to these award ceremonies, I just get in trouble and get thrown out. And this is pretty well-known. The one time I went to the Grammys, I was escorted out and blah, blah, blah.

What happened at the Grammys?

We were pretty fucked-up and we knew we weren’t going to win. I mean, we were up against Metallica that year. And then they made us go outside to have a cigarette, and we’re out in the [smoking area] and we’re watching [fellow nominees] Lamb of God having this kind of team huddle, going, “We’re going to win!” I’m having a cigarette and I just went up and I go, “Dude, Metallica is on this thing. None of us are going to win. You guys should chill out.” … Either way, the whole thing was ridiculous. And then our guitar player and his girlfriend got in a fight and I wound up spitting on some guy and I got thrown out. I haven’t been to the Grammys since, and I won’t go back again. So, somebody will have to accept [on Ministry’s behalf].

If Ministry got inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and you didn’t attend, who would you send to accept the honor in your place?

I would probably find the craziest homeless person outside of the theater and have him go up there. Because I think that would be more fitting.

Well, that definitely would make headlines. So, I want to again apologize that I doubted that Hate to Go is a retirement album, because I am reading a line from your press release where you flat-out say, “I’m fucking done.”

Yeah. We’re all fucking done.

But as I was saying, I feel like what Ministry are doing is still needed.

Yeah, but the new bands, the new kids, the new generation of people that do music of our ilk need to step forward. It’s hard to do now because it’s all squashed by boy and girl bands and country music and Autotuned rap. It’s very difficult to start something now. I wouldn’t start a band right now, there’s no fucking way. But somebody needs to step up and find a way to circumvent the system crushing them. And somebody will, whether it’s some kind of cosmetic thing or name thing like Marilyn Manson. Like, “Ooh, that scared all the parents.”

It’s hard to scare people these days.

But that’s the point. So, [Marilyn Manson] did that and then that got it big for a while, and good on him. Whatever his social life is, which apparently is not so cool, whatever. Brian [Warner] cracked a shell in the system to be able to sell that many records, which leaves other bands to be able to sell that many records. And that’s fine. It’ll happen again. The person may not be perfect, or may be a fucking Messiah that comes in with the right political message at the right time and does the right kind of music, and that’s great. I also don’t advocate for everyone to just sing about politics and grievances. If you’ve got some interpersonal stuff, get it out and do that on record. You don’t have to be political for me to like you or not. Tom Waits was not political; it’s just good stuff that makes you feel connected to the human race and to this planet. I didn’t feel [Waits’s] feelings that he’s talking about — maybe a couple times I can relate — but either way, it’s done masterfully. So, I don’t want everyone to be some protest industrial band. I don’t care. We did that for 35 years, and obviously the system hasn’t changed; the same shit I was thinking about 35 years ago is going on now, only maybe even worse. Well, not maybe. It’s worse.

Ministry did make albums about George W. Bush.

Yeah, yeah. It didn’t do much good.

But now, ironically, it’s like, “Oh, W wasn’t that bad.” His presidency not a great era in American politics, but people are almost nostalgic for those simpler times now.

Nostalgic for it, right. That’s what I figured out by the final [album] of the Bush trilogy: that I shouldn’t be so hard on old W, man. It’s the system, and he’s just an idiot. The system nominates people that are idiots and can be controlled and will sell out. So, what we really need to reel about is the real system. Trump is low-hanging fruit. It’s like I have to slap myself on the wrist [while making] each record, going, “Don’t do it!” I did [2018’s] AmeriKKKant, which was almost all Trump. And then for the last few albums, I had to just stop. Just look at the system that produced this monstrosity and sing about that — not the actual monster that they trot out in front of us, because he’s just being used as much as us. He doesn’t know it because he’s so narcissistic, but he’s being used as much as us.

So, how do we target the system?

Well, the system is not going to allow a band to crack the system. Look, I went through the 1960s, OK ? I’m old enough to remember that. And it all seemed peace, love, and grooviness, the Vietnam War ends and things are going to change and all that. Buess what? We got LSD, bellbottoms, and festivals out of it.

It does seem in retrospect that for a lot of Boomers who were hippies in the ‘60s, that was just a trendy fashion thing.

And all the Boomers turn into tech people that now are overlords now.

These people were supposed to be about peace and love and tolerance and revolution, yet they all turned into…

Tech bros. Tech bros that take away aid from African countries and blah, blah, blah, blah. This and that. We can go on and on. They changed, because if you can’t beat ‘em, buy [em. That is the system’s thing. And right now, we’re seeing the pendulum swift shift back to the left. It’s been shifting to the right for a while; the midterms will show that. I mean, Trump might have to go martial law with troops in the street, and people aren’t going to take that. Because the thing about American society is you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. People aren’t going to deal with that unless Trump wants to literally assassinate 180 to 200 million people for having false views. Because he’s got 30 percent, and they know it. They know. The people that run Trump and the government know there’s no profit in this, so they’re going to swing back to the left for a while and everything’s going to seem all peachy-keen and we’re going to have protest bands and all that shit and it’ll seem great — and then it’ll swing back again. I’ve seen this. I’m 68 years old. I keep seeing it swing back and forth. But nothing changes. The system doesn’t change.

There are a lot of audio samples of speeches on Hate to Go. On “Crickets,” the song that opens the record, is that Obama speaking?

OK. So, let me tell you about Uncle Al’s dealing with AI. This is creepy.  It’s cool, but it’s creepy! Hold on, I need a drink for this. [Sips wine] OK, so we obviously used it in our videos that we just have out, but on the album, we didn’t use it on the music. We knew it was our last album, so the band really jammed and went like, “Yeah, that sounds like Ministry, man.” But for the visuals, I have an eye-opening announcement: Whoever says that singularity or sentience is 10 years away is lying to you. These fuckers are sentient now. The shit we had to do to get those visual images was like dealing with a neurotic ex-girlfriend. I’d be like, “I really want Trump to have a purple, forked tongue in this scene, surrounded by supermodels.” And [AI would] be like, “Well, no, I don’t think that’s proper.” I mean, literally like that.

Talking about propriety when it comes to Trump is an oxymoron.

Well, here’s the thing: The filters on Grok, OpenAI, they have filters against slamming the government. Not governments — this government. Filters have been in place. So, me and [bandmate] Josh Bradford had to go to kind of underground, dark web AI sites to get the desired result. But even then, the AI talks to you like you’re a blithering idiot: “Well, you’ve already suggested something similar. Why aren’t you taking my suggestion?” Well, because I want this and I’m paying a service to get you to do this. No, [the dark web’s AI bot] were very snarky and very condescending. And when we would come out right, they would be very begrudging in saying that a human actually outdid them.

I don’t have a lot of experience with AI, but usually with ChatGPT or whatever, if you say the chatbot is wrong, the chatbot gives this fawning, ass-kissing response, like: “Oh, I’m so sorry! You are absolutely correct!”

Oh, no, no, no, not the sites we were on. These are sentient creatures. It’s terrifying, and I’m glad that we used it and I’m glad that Ministry is now stopping. It’s another reason to stop, because that’s going to be the future. … This dark web [AI] that we worked with, I can’t tell you how we got access to these, but… it was like dealing with a completely sentient, different race of people. Very condescending, very “we tolerate your human ideas, but our ideas are better.” Oh my God. It was weird.

You don’t seem like you’re scared of many things, but were you spooked by this?

No, but with two of the companies, at the end of it, when they refused to implement my ideas and thought their ideas were better, I literally had to have a breakup call. Like with some kind of weird, neurotic, alcoholic ex-girlfriend.

I’m amused by how often your analogies reference crazy ex-girlfriends. It’s a recurring theme.

Well, I’ve had a couple. I’ve had a lot of great ones, but I’ve had a couple, so I know the pattern. And this was the same kind of talk. [The AI bots] were just freaking out, going neurotic because I was dumping them.

Do you remember what you said? Did you text them?

Yes. It was all by text.

Like an “it’s not you, it’s me” type of text?

For real. Right, right. And they still got creepy. So, we finally found one that we got enough out of that we could do these music videos. And then I had to break up with that one too, going, “You’ve been great, but I’m retiring.” And then [the AI] tried to talk me out of that. I’m not making this shit up, man

You need to do a sci-fi movie about this. I mean, you were in the Kubrick/Spielberg film AI: Artificial Intelligence.

No, this is creepier. This is way creepier. Those [sites] aren’t available to the public now. We managed to access a couple sites that are sentient. And that’s what’s coming down the pike.

Is there any way to stop this from happening?

No. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. We’re fucked. This is another reason Ministry is done. We put in our 45 years of service time. We’ve got our pension and our gold watch. Now we’re going to go head up to the hills and herd goats.

You said in your press release you want to retire and herd goats, but I assumed that was a joke.

No, no. I found a whole goat thing that I’m doing. If you want, I’ll get into that. I’m serious.

I will fully talk about goats! Goats are very popular on the internet — screaming goats, goat yoga, et cetera. This interview will go viral if we talk goats.

But these are not just your regular goats. This place in Topanga sells fainting goats.

I’ve seen videos of the fainting goats. But I’ve never met a fainting goat.

I have.

What causes them to faint?

You just make a loud noise and their nervous system overheats. This sounds mean to the goats, but they’re fine. They get up right after that. And matter of fact, if you do it too much, they’re like, “Fuck you!” But with their neurological system, they faint, so you just use that to round them up. Because the city of Los Angeles has obviously a wildfire problem, and if you herd over 20 goats, they pay you like 15 grand a month to just put your goats where they want the brush cleared, where they think a fire’s going to be.

Oh, so these goats are good for the environment?

Yeah, exactly. They eat the dry… well, they’ll eat anything. They’ll eat empty White Claw cans. They’ll eat cigarette butts. They’re amazing animals, OK? They don’t care. They’re just happy as hell just to be eating something. That’s what they do.

Let the record show that if there’s such a thing as reincarnation, I want to come back as a fainting goat, just eating White Claw cans and loving life. It could be worse.

Well yes, it could be worse, because they could have an abusive owner that yells at them all the time just for the thrill of watching them [faint]. I only yell at them at roundup time, so it’s easy. All you need is one other person. They go legs-up on their back, you pick them up, throw them in the truck, and drive them over to where L.A. wants the goats next. … And then they’re off to their next eating adventure.

It’s the cycle of life. But hold up. For real, you’re going to retire and herd fainting goats? I was serious when I said goats are popular online. There are disco goats strutting to the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive.” There’s a screaming goat doing the high note in Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble.” These videos have millions of views.

Oh, they do great in metal, too. Every band has a goat horn, some Satanic fucking thing.

Goats are universally loved.

I love them too. … I’ve already talked to this farm in Topanga and we’ve made a price. … It’s $250 a goat. … Now that the last record’s done, I can sell my house and studio. I just want to buy some land.

In California?

Yes, I like this area. I love Agoura Hills, Calabasas.

You have to stay close to [famous Calabasas Mexican restaurant/biker bar] the Sagebrush Cantina. You could have the goats eat the sagebrush.

I’m sure they will. Just don’t yell at them too much. I’m not trying to torture them, but it just seems like such a no-brainer to have goats environmentally clear out brush that would [cause] wildfires. You get paid for it and they’re really easy to handle. And they eat empty White Claw cans.

Is this some sort of pyramid scheme? Can I get in on it? I could afford a few goats, like four goats for $1,000.

Well, yeah, but you have to build a pen, make it coyote-proof, and you can’t abuse them. You can’t yell at them all day. I know some people will. Some people will just be like [screams].

I’ll have to mull it over. But you’ve obviously given this a lot of thought. This really is your retirement plan.

I want to be the Greta Garbo of industrial. At the end of my career, I don’t ever want to talk to a journalist again. I’ll talk to you as a friend, but not as a journalist. I don’t want any journalists. I don’t want any more Ministry releases. I don’t want to be fucking harassed with selfies. I will change my appearance so if I go to a Trader Joe’s or Ralph’s, yeah, I know I’ve got the fucking tattoos and stuff, but I’ll just be like, “I get that a lot, but no, I’m not that Ministry guy.” I don’t want to do selfies. I don’t want to do interviews. I don’t want anything. Everyone leave me the fuck alone.

Well, if you don’t like doing interviews, I’m especially honored that you came to Licorice Pizza and agreed to do this one. And I’ll be happy to talk with you as a friend any time about goats.

Just no more interviews.

Not even on Animal Planet?

No, no, no. No interviews.

Why don’t you like doing interviews?

OK, I have a theory. Say you order an Ikea couch and it takes you two months to put this fucking thing together, because the instructions are crazy and there’s no proper equipment and all that. And you put it together and then you’re happy about it. It’s a good couch and you worked your ass off on it. But then do you want to spend the next fucking six months of your life talking to strangers about how proud you are of this Ikea couch you put together?

Al, this is not a good analogy, because you do art!

It’s art to put together an Ikea couch! That’s fucking artful, because you’re under all sorts of fucking extraneous circumstances that don’t make sense, and you put it together and it’s an Ikea couch that’s functional, that hasn’t fallen apart yet. But I’m not calling press services to announce that I’m so proud of this … You know what might be the one exception to my no-press rule? When I get my goat pen done — because I’m going to do it myself —I don’t do Facebook, TickyTack, Instafuck, whatever, all those things. I have no presence and I don’t care. But I may actually get a TickyTack account and just announce I built my pen. And then do six months of interviews on how I did it.

Well, I want the exclusive. We’ll go on location: “Hello, this is Lyndsey Parker for Licorice Pizza, on the site of Uncle Al’s Goat Farm, opening today.”

We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I really don’t see much press up until then, until I get my goat pen and figure out exactly what I need for these critters, man. Because these quitters are not only part of this planet, but they’re actually like me. They just don’t give a fuck. I’ve been on the road where the rider was basically eat the tin can or don’t eat.

What were some of the craziest things on your rider back in the day?

All the usual ’90s shit, come on. We had needles, spoons, and cotton. It was difficult in places like Nebraska and Kansas to find us clean needles. The cotton and the spoon was no problem, but finding us clean needles back in the day was difficult.

That was literally on your rider?

Yeah. They knew what they were getting there. They’re getting a bunch of junkies coming into town. It was Ministry in the ‘90s.

My colleague Drew Fortune published a book called No Encore! about bizarre or bad gigs, and I think you did an interview for it about sending out a decoy Al at Lollapalooza, because you were incapacitated in some way.

Yeah, that was a roadie for the Chili Peppers. I forget his name, but they couldn’t resuscitate me. So, they took my cowboy hat off me and they put it on this guy who also had dreads and had been on the road so he knew our shit. He went out and sang the first two songs until they could revive me. That is actually a true story.

And no one caught on? You’re pretty recognizable.

Hell no, man. If you have dreads and a cowboy hat, that’s enough.

You were talking about you don’t want to be recognized anymore, and also about how when you don’t want to tour in your old age like the Stones. But you look healthier and younger and fitter than you have in years…

Thank you.

You also took out all of your facial piercings. If you walked down Ventura Blvd. right now, people would look at you and go, “That must be some rock star, that’s not a regular person,” but I don’t know if they’d recognize you right away.

I’m working slowly towards anonymity. This is my goal. And so yeah, thank you for noticing I’m fit. That is another reason to stop Ministry now, because this is the healthiest I’ve been. I wanted to quit after [2007’s] The Last Sucker Album because I was bleeding out of every single orifice. My best friend and guitar player [Mike Scaccia] had just died, and I’m like, “What am I doing here?” This time we’re leaving on our own terms. Everyone’s happy, healthy, having fun. We did a good record. Time to go. Drop mic.

When you played your With Sympathy set at the Cruel World festival two years ago, a lot of people said you seemed like a new man. What are you doing for wellness now? What’s your health regimen? Obviously you don’t need the needles and the spoons and the cotton anymore.

I ride 15 miles every single day, seven days a week, on my stationary bike, for starters. I’ve had a vegan diet — or close to vegan; some dairy every so often creeps in — for 22 years. My cigarette consumption is down to one after every meal and that’s it, so like four cigarettes a day. My alcohol consumption is just red wine — good red wine. It’s almost like the Mediterranean diet. Good healthy food and a bottle of wine a day.

Obviously at some point you decided to kick harder drugs…

Twenty-two years ago. It’s great. Never relapsed.

Congratulations! For some people, it takes many attempts, several stays in rehab, for it to stick. And relapses aren’t uncommon.

Never. I remember my late best friend and guitar player, Mike Scaccia, saying, “Dude, you just do things until it grosses you out.” It just grossed me out… the entire lifestyle, living on dealer standard time and getting substandard product or over-the-top product where you didn’t know [what was in it]. There’s no quality control. You’re freaking out every day. And then you have to decide, “Do I want to live or do I want to die?” And for a while, I wanted to die. I was like, “This place sucks. Can you send me back in the universal Mand put me on another planet?” And instead, I got my shit together and said, “No, I’m going to see it out on this one.” I mean, I’m still going to go to another planet, but I won’t have to come back here to do that. I’ve made enough progress to where they’re not going to send me back to this shithole.

Do believe in any sort of afterlife?

None of the religious stuff of any religion, but yes, of course. And now after dealing with AI, there’s a lot of different beings, not just flesh and blood, whether they’re little gray aliens or the bird-people or the reptilians or us. Now with the sentience of just data, this universe is filled with stuff. And I know that this is a very, very primitive, backward planet. I’m hoping to get out of here instead of just keeping coming back, because I do have previous lives here, which means I’ve been just dumbass enough to keep coming back. For the next one, I’m ready for a new challenge.

You’re not going to get reincarnated as a fainting goat?

No, no, no, no, no. That’s an easy life. But as a matter of fact, when fainting goats take over, I may be there like in Planet of the Apes, like Caesar. Like the guy that liberated the fainting goats from people yelling at them all the time. I don’t know.

You’re 68 now. Did you think you’d make it to this age, and also be in such good health and spirits?

No! And now, to completely reverse the Pete Townshend thing, when he said, “Never trust anyone over 30,” I’m literally like, I don’t trust anyone under 45. It used to be 40, but in the last couple years, I don’t trust anyone under 45. I don’t understand this culture, nor do I want to understand, nor is it my place to understand. The social-media society has left me behind, thank God. I don’t want to be part of it. Like I said, I’m not part of any of these TickyTacks, Instafucks. None of that shit. I’m not on fucking Spaceheadbook, whatever, nothing. But these kids have grown up on this, and that’s their life and that’s what they’re used to. And I have nothing to say to them except that you’re in for a world of fucking hurt after my small dealings with AI, because they’re all chasing likes right now and influencers and shit.

Sadly, I think Gen Z had been dealt a really bad deck of cards.

Big time. We fucked them over. My generation fucked them over.

Are you technically a Boomer?

Yes, I’m a Boomer. No, I’m not a Boomer in spirit. I’ve been railing against it for 40 years, but I’m a Boomer.

And there are 18-year-olds in the front rows of your shows.

Yeah, and that’s great. They may pass on that knowledge to the next [generation], which is great. But what I’m saying is that I know that we are not a source of knowledge in today’s society, of which we cannot comprehend what they’re going through.

I get what you’re saying, but I still don’t agree, because you were talking about swinging pendulums in politics. In 10 years, Gen Z people might say, “Wow, that Boomer was pretty cool!” And then you can have a big Ministry reunion like Oasis did, and play two sold-out shows at the Rose Bowl.

No, no, no. There ain’t going to be that.

Does your interest in politics, both personally and just as an intellectual, come from your background of being an immigrant that came to the U.S. at a young age?

Of course that’s a factor. This is of course why either I’d be hard right-wing or a woke liberal. I was 2 years old when I came to this country and didn’t speak English until I was 6, barely. I was bullied, the whole immigrant thing.

You and your mother got out of Cuba when it was your last chance to do so, right?

Well, it was me and my grandmother. My mother was here already. We were the last two, me and my grandmother, because I was kind of like a weird pregnancy that wasn’t supposed to happen and blah, blah, blah, blah. Either way, I wound up here and I didn’t know what the fuck’s going on until about 10. But I did notice prejudice and people’s fear of the unknown, because I lived in a white suburb of Chicago. I look white, right?

Also with your last name, people might not know about your background.

Well, that’s my adopted name, Jourgensen, when [my mom] married my stepdad. So yeah, everything was paved for me, but I still needed to learn English. Before, I was getting bullied. And that comes from parents, that comes from society — that [mindset that] anyone that’s different from you, you should be afraid of. And this is time immemorial. This is not something that happened in the ’60s. You can go back to Roman Empire when they started conquering all these places and having all these slaves in Rome and the slaves brought their own culture with them. Everyone thinks, “Well, that broke down the Roman society.” No. Roman arrogance broke down the Roman society, not people just trying to be themselves. And that’s all I was trying to be, and then you’re bullied for that. So yeah, I have a different perspective on this shit than a lot of people. And I also have the same perspective as a lot of people that aren’t with a microphone in their hand.

You’ve released a lot of political music in your career, including several tracks on Hate to Go. I mentioned that a lot of artists aren’t going there, and are maybe afraid to go there. While Ministry are still around, do you feel an obligation or a duty to speak up?

Well, I’ll tell you what: If you’ve been bullied for being an immigrant and you wind up with success, you are not afraid anymore. So, there’s no fear to what I do. I’ve been audited, had my phones tapped during the Bush administration, and God knows what Trump’s going to do. It doesn’t matter, because immigrant people come here terrified, so you’re less terrified the more you are alive. I came here as a small child and I’m still here. I came here terrified. … Do I feel an obligation? No. Everyone has their own destiny to fulfill. The thing is you have to get rid of fear, because you’re going to die, and they’re either going to kill you or they don’t. And if they don’t kill you, you’re more powerful than them. This is pretty heavy shit for a rock interview. I know.

Well, yes, it’s epic. Somehow we went from fainting goats eating White Claws to this. But I wonder, you’re very open about your beliefs, but there are some so-called fans who do not pay attention to lyrics. There are people who will literally get mad at even Tom Morello or Bruce Springsteen and be like, “Just shut up and sing!”’ Do you ever get that sort of clueless feedback?

Well, the good thing is I have this thing called a webmaster, so I’ve never had to go on these cesspools. That can’t affect me. My webmaster tells me, “Oh, this quarter was amazing. You got death threats. People are pissed. Good one.” And then next quarter he says, “Everyone seems to be settled down now.” But that’s all I get. I don’t read this shit. So, to all the people who are like, “I know where you live, I’m going to kill you and your pets,” I don’t have pets.

I hope they wouldn’t go after your goats!

No, I would take retribution for that. It’s like, fuck you, man. Don’t fuck with my goats.

Did anyone in the industry ever warn you that you say or sing would get you canceled, or hurt your record sales, or in some way hurt your career?

Well, I regret having somebody write my music for me because the flavor of the day was to have a boy-band kind of thing.

OK, we’re talking about the With Sympathy era again. Did other people really write that album, or some of it? Because it is great music.

No, that album was not entirely written by the record companies. I just had some pop songs, and they chose those; at that point, I’d already written “Every Day Is Halloween” and “All Day,” and they said no. And then from those pop songs that I’d written, they added more pop with the lyrics, their backup singers, their musicians, this and that.

Do you mean Clive Davis did that?

Yeah, Clive. And I went along with it. I’m glad I got to own that again after Squirrely Years.

How did you feel when Clive Davis passed away recently?

Nothing. I felt nothing. You know what? The weirdest thing I felt was at that festival [Cruel World], I met Clive Davis’s son, who was back in the [VIP] area and he was like, “Man, as much acrimony as you two have, I think I’m going to call my dad. I think he would be freaked-out and proud by this.”

Oh, wow. That’s some closure there.

That whole tour was closure.

Did you ever find out what happened from that conversation, when the son called Clive?

No, I haven’t seen the guy since. I don’t go have drinks with him at the fucking pub or anything. It’s just Clive Davis’s son and he looked exactly like Clive Davis, and I was like, “Whoa, this is weird.”

Since we’re still discussing that era, what was up with that Shasta commercial jingle you wrote in the early ‘80s?

I had a baby coming and I didn’t have a record label, and I was just trying to make money to support my kid and my wife.

The Shasta song was a good jingle. I could sing it right now, but I won’t.

[sings] “Don’t give me that so, so Cola! I want to rock and rolla.” Do you think I wrote the lyrics to that?

Maybe not the lyrics, but the melody!

No, no. They wrote the melody too. I also did a Huffy Bike commercial. Do you know that one? I can’t remember that, except that I had to do this jaguar growl on it. It shows that you could do something and they could exploit you and then you do the shit and then you move on, blah, blah, blah. It pays your rent or whatever you need to do at the time. It’s all a matter of survival within the structure of society, and especially the structure of artistic society. Exploitation will take place at all times. … I’ve [also] done a bunch of really bad movies and cameos.

You were in Jesus Cop.

I’m not going to mention any names; I just said really bad movies. I’m just going to say that you do things for whatever reason at the time. For instance, the last [movie] I did, I had a day off in Toronto and somebody said they’d give me a thousand bucks in unmarked dollar bills in a paper bag, because that’s how I demanded it. I said I didn’t want a contract. I didn’t want lawyers or anything.

And they gave you a big sack of money with a dollar bill symbol on it, like in cartoons? Which movie was this?

This was the Jesus Cop people. I worked for an hour, and it was a thousand bucks an hour. I don’t know what the fuck they did. All I know is I wound up dead at the end of a stairway covered in fake blood. I have no idea what the movie’s about.

But you walked away with a sack of cash.

Yeah, literally. I told them unmarked dollar bills, just twenties. It was like a paper bag of $20 bills.

Did you then board a plane with a sack of money? You wouldn’t want to risk checking it as luggage, so it would have to be your carry-on.

Oh, no. I went and I lost it at a casino. I just put a thousand bucks on black and if it doesn’t come up black, then I lose. That’s the extent of my gambling. I don’t gamble. I’m not like a card player. I just go, “Oh wow, I got this extra money. Well, put it on black.” And then if it winds up on black, I make $2,000 and walk away. If I lose, I just go, “Well, that sucked.”

I feel that’s some sort of metaphor for your life. You’ve had all sorts of ups and downs in many ways, but you don’t seem to have many regrets. Am I wrong?

No, you’re not wrong at all. Shit happens the way it’s supposed to happen. That much I know. The matrix in the universe is not preordained, and you can change shit, but you’ve got to work hard at getting rid of the preordained destiny for you. You have to work a little bit at it, and then when you show that work ethic, they’ll maybe let you go to a better place next time. That’s just my theory.

I just realized I have not looked at my prepared questions during this entire interview! Our conversation swerved in many directions I did not expect.

No one else is going to get this shit.

But I do want to ask about the Paul Barker reunion. During this interview you said, “We’re still here,” and “We’re Still Here” is the title of the last track on Hate to Go.

It’s the last track ever.

It’s a statement. And it’s with Paul Barker, who is a legacy, core member of Ministry. I think it was around 2003 when you had some sort of falling out?

Something like that. But it we figured out it was mainly his ex-wife versus my ex-wife. They might as well have taken our names out of it. They were suing each other.

Real Housewives of Ministry. I know you would never do it, but if there was a reality show starring you, I would watch the shit out of it. But seriously, how did you and Paul reconcile?

Well, we never really hated each other in the first place. Just everything, the system, pitted ourselves against each other. Paul perfectly tolerated my quirkiness and I perfectly tolerated his precision-ness. And that was good. But then our ex-wives went cuckoo and started going at each other’s throats over who’s more vital to keep Ministry going than the other. And then next thing you know, it’s all this bullshit. And then I just said, “Fuck this,” and I went and lived with Tim Leary and just did acid for a while.

Wait, what? Just when I thought we were winding down the interview, you drop that? OK, tell me your Timothy Leary story.

I lived at his house and he just did experiments on me. You don’t know this? This is common knowledge.

I don’t know all the details, and if I don’t know, then probably a lot of people watching or reading this interview don’t know either. Tell me the Cliff Notes version.

Mike Scaccia and Gibby Haynes moved into Tim Leary’s house and he would shoot us up with new pathogens of MDMA from various sources — from Sandoz Corporation in Switzerland, to the University of California Berkeley, to a couple other known sources. And then we would inject us with whatever the newest strand of psychotropics were and he would take notes. I took a couple years off from Ministry to do that, actually about a year and a half. And then I finally called back Barker and went, “Yeah, I should probably get back in the band. This is kind of getting old.”

I cowrote the autobiography of a famous groupie named Mercy Fontenot, aka Miss Mercy from the GTOs. Like you, she did a ton of drugs and put herself in many dangerous situations, and many people assumed she’d be the first GTO to die. But she outlived most of her bandmates and made it to 71. Her only explanation of why she lived so long was she believed when you’re born, you get assigned a number. And ultimately, her number was 71. Do you think her theory might be right?

Yep. It’s the Matrix. I’ve outlived, at this age even, so many of my peers. Everyone thought I’d be dead before them. I don’t think about it; I just see that this is happening and they keep dying. And if I die tomorrow, well, that’s fucking the way it’s supposed to be.

Are you more aware of your mortality now than you used to be?

No, I’m more aware of my  immortality.

That’s a great answer. Perhaps we should wrap with that. But since Hate to Go — Take or Delivery will obviously be promoted by a farewell tour, when you think about the last date on that tour — the last Ministry show ever — what do you envision? Do you have a plan?

Of course. This is not just some ad hoc fucking thing. I’m quitting. I’m done with this business, man.

OK, so where will the last Ministry concert take place?

At the Forum here in L.A., on Oct. 30 of next year.

Wow, on the one-year anniversary of Hate to Go. I will definitely be there.

Well, you and everyone else.

Do you think you’ll be sad that night?

No. There’s not going to be [an afterparty]. I’m going to be in my fucking house before they even let people backstage.

I am sure it will be an epic finish for Ministry.

It is epic. Drop mic. And that night will have a lot of people that have said I’ve influenced them and all that. The whole night is going to be a procession of just people saying goodbye.

I think I’ll be a little sad, but I know it will be great. There may even be goats.

No, no, no. No goats at this thing. I don’t torture my goats. I’m not going to put them in a Ministry show. I have no emotional support goat. I don’t want them subjected to that. But the last show is going to be a lot of people you know jamming with us, and it’ll be fun.

Sort of like Band Aid or Live Aid?

It’ll be like Goat Aid or whatever. Either way, it’ll be a fun last show. Help the goats, man.

But besides the goat-herding hustle, you’re not going to quit music entirely, are you? You’re such a creatively driven person.

We’ll see. I have people asking me… I just had this girl from Katseye asking me if I’d want to remix one of her songs. I get offered a lot of weird, crazy shit, and I’ll pick the right crazy shit. Am I going to do anything else? We’ll see. I gotta get my pen built and my goats trained. I have a lot of shit to do, man.