Ministry was one of the biggest bands of the 1990s industrial rock boom. The only band that was possibly bigger at the time was Nine Inch Nails. Both of the bands are unquestionably awesome.
Ministry’s music over time got heavier and heavier from their start in the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, but kept their rigid machine-like sound throughout. The height of their popularity was with the 1992 release of Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs. Two of their biggest hits were on that record. The first was “Jesus Built My Hotrod” with guest vocals by Gibby Haynes of Butthole Surfers. A completely deranged song which illustrates the “anything goes” nature of alternative rock at the time:
Another single from the record was the crushing heaviness of “Just One Fix”:
Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen was an unstoppable force at the time. He produced the Butthole Surfers record Independent Worm Saloon, which featured the song “Who Was In My Room Last Night”:
Al Jourgensen also teamed up with Reverend Horton Heat and produced perhaps their best album Liquor In The Front. “One Time For Me” was the single from that album:
Outside of all the time spent in the studio, Ministry also did a ton of touring, including as part of Lollapalooza 1992. I caught them on that tour outside of Chicago at the infamous show where the crowd tore up the lawn and threw sod everywhere. I apologize in advance for the terrible quality of this video, but it is worth checking out this footage of them playing “N.W.O.” to see just how bonkers their live shows were at the time:
After all of this, the band was feeling exhausted and burnt out. Al Jourgensen wanted to change their sound and slow things down. The first signs of this was when Ministry played Neil Young’s Bridge School benefit in 1994. They performed interesting covers like Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay”, “Friend of the Devil” by Grateful Dead and the theme from Midnight Cowboy. Keeping with the theme of the Bridge School Benefit it is all performed acoustically. Basically this was “Ministry Unplugged”:
Al Jourgensen built a recording studio in Austin, Texas and wanted to record in a more stripped down style. Less industrial, slower and heavier. He wanted the band to sound more “natural”. He and the rest of the band was also falling further into drug addiction, so the lyrics were much more depressing. The results of these recording sessions was the album Filth Pig, which is today’s pick!
| Don’t Miss A Pick! |
|---|
| Do you want to get Phil’s Phriday Picks delivered to your inbox every Friday? |
| Do you like being social? Follow Phil’s Phriday Picks on Facebook. |
One of the songs they recorded was “Lay Lady Lay”. Not everyone was on board with this idea. In fact, drummer Bill Reiflin outright refused to play on the song. He subsequently quit the group midway through the recording sessions. Filth Pig was the last Ministry record Reiflin appeared on. Rey Washam, drummer of Scratch Acid joined the group. Even though I’m a huge fan of Reiflin, I think he’s wrong about “Lay Lady Lay” because I think it’s a brilliant cover:
Filth Pig opens with one of the only up-tempo songs on the album: “Reload”. It’s almost like a “last hurrah” for their previous style. Paul Barker’s bass on this song is so heavy and in-your-face!
Conversely another one of the singles released for Filth Pig was “The Fall”. This is a slow, sludgy number that is basically Ministry playing doom metal:
My favorite sequence on the album is the one-two punch of “Dead Guy” and “Game Show”. Both of these songs are woozy, depressing, spiteful sounding epics. Parts of it sound like the band and their instruments are falling down the stairs while recording. A total “feel bad” triptych if you include the aforementioned “The Fall”.
Ministry went on tour in 1996. Recordings from this tour was released on the live album Sphinctour. You can feel the tension and angst in these recordings. A band completely teetering on the edge of sanity. Here is a stunning rendition of “Filth Pig” as an example:
Longtime guitarist Mike Scaccia left the group after the tour. He was arrested in a Wal-Mart in Texas: initially a mistaken identity for a thief but they found a huge amount of heroin on him. He went into rehab and was not making music for several years. While he did eventually return to Ministry and other groups, he unfortunately died of a heart attack in 2012.
Al Jourgensen also went into rehab and got clean soon after the Filth Pig tour.
Even though Filth Pig was recorded under the influence of massive amount of drugs and bad vibes, I think it is probably Ministry’s masterpiece. While Al Jourgensen has continued to keep Ministry going over the decades since Filth Pig (with a constantly changing membership) they have never reached these artistic heights. Ministry has put out ten records since then, but they mostly delve in watered down speed metal / thrash with really cartoonish imagery and easy political targets in the lyrics. A shell of their former greatness that reached their peak in Filth Pig. I doubt they will ever top it.
