Al Jourgensen

I got my influences from '70s bands - Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, blah blah blah. When I was growing up, we had all these crazy bands on the Top 40. Today, if Pink Floyd released 'Money,' it wouldn't even get played. ”

We'll see if we ever do another Ministry gig again or not. I'm not saying yes or no yet. All I'm saying is I know there's no new Ministry studio CDs coming ever again. I promise. ”

I scare the neighbors, the kids... They don't come to my house for trick-or-treating, trust me. I had to buy exactly zero amount of dollars worth of candy for the past couple of years. ”

I don't want people buying my records for this summer's hit. I want people buying them because they're interested in what Ministry will have to say in the future. ”

I'm not a malicious person. When you get past the tattoos and leather, I give people a fair shake. There are periods when I've sowed some wild oats, no doubt about it. And I can party with some of the heavyweights. There are some stories about me that, yeah, where there's smoke there's fire. But sometimes the smoke is just smoke. ”

It's such a stupid thing to sign a band and then demand a hit right away to instantly recoup the money. The point is, you have to do it by building your own following, and that is not necessarily done by writing instant hits. ”

Obama might as well be president of Turkey or Brazil; it does not matter. It's the system that is absolutely flawed, where 25 or 35 or 50 people make multi, multi-billions on building Olympic structures while people live in Barbados and have no roads or clean drinking water. There's something pretty inequitable there. ”

When I'm done with something, I'm done. I don't go back and listen to and pine for my old albums, or the Lollapalooza days, or 'Psalm 69' selling millions of records. Maybe I'm really just getting old and mellow. ”

I'm envious of people that can handle the press. No matter what I say or how articulately I say it, it always comes back to the same issues. And it's getting kind of old. ”

Let's get with it, guys: You don't need to hear a Ministry song to get political. You should be political on your own. We're just a side project to society. So do I care what people think about me personally? No. I just do what I do. ”