I’m Just Trying To Wrap Everything Up With A Nice Little Bow

Ministry‘s Al Jourgensen has made it no secret that he’s planning the end of the band’s career.

Jourgensen has previously stated the band is plotting one final record after Hopiumforthemasses featuring former member Paul Barker, as well as re-recordings of the band’s earlier material that he’s long hated. For those unaware, Barker played for Ministry between 1986 and 2003, performing on everything from The Land Of Rape And Honey to Animositisomina.

Now in an interview with Rolling Stone, Jourgensen elaborated on his plans, saying he’s hitting the studio to re-record some With Sympathy and Twitch tracks now that Ministry‘s performance at Cruel World has wrapped up.

“As soon as we’re done with Cruel World, I go right in the studio,” said Jourgensen. “And most of these songs are already done because we had to rerecord them just to know how we were going to sound. So they basically just need to be mixed. It’s just going to take me a couple of weeks. Then we shop it to the highest bidder, whoever wants it. And then at that point, I start working with Barker.”

As for retirement, Jourgensen said he hoped to be done by now, but of course COVID screwed up his plans.

“I’m 65 now. I was hoping to retire at 65, but two years of Covid made it so I can’t afford that yet. So I’ll do another couple years, and then that’s it. There’s no point in touring. And touring gets harder as you’re older anyways, and I don’t really want to do the whole casino circuit.

“All I really want to do is film scoring. I get to stay at my house, and I work out of my house. And so I’m just trying to wrap everything up with a nice little bow, exorcise all demons, and put Ministry to bed.”

As for that Cruel World performance, Ministry busted out a boatload of With Sympathy and Twitch tracks that they haven’t played since the ’80s.