IRT Magazine

Ministry is a band that has been around a lot longer than most and maintains a level of success that most bands from the 90’s would give their right arm for. They are recording a new album for release this fall and have added Revolting Cocks’ (a Ministry side project) guitarist Sin as a permanent guitarist. I recently talked to Sin about his experiences with the RevCo/Ministry camp and his days as part of Porn auteur Matt Zane’s band Society 1. Society 1 was known for crazy on stage antics including suspending Matt from hooks though his body. From that to the notorious bad boys in Ministry, Sin has seen a lot in his short time in the biz. How did you hook up with al? I stated about a year ago. Last March I came up and started to do rehearsals for the Revolting Cocks. That’s when we first started working together. Not writing material, just working on stuff with the Cocks. I went on the road with the Cocks and that’s how our musical endeavor began. While we were on tour he asked how I would feel about writing some stuff fro Ministry. That’s how that whole thing started. How did you become a full time member of Ministry? That didn’t come about till about November when I came out to start recording material for the Ministry album. Did you record with the Cocks on their last record? No. I came in right after that for the tour. I was the live guitar player. How was that tour? Any crazy stories? Oh man! That tour was out of control. It was blast. It was a zoo every single night. We had a few guest players come out on the road. One show that sticks out is at the Chicago House Of Blues show when Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick came out. I’m a big Cheap Trick fan so it was crazy having Rick come out at sound check and me showing him the guitar parts. For me that was insane. He came out and did Fire Engine with us. That’s probably the most fun I’ve had on tour in a long time. It reminds me of when I was just starting out and playing in garage bands and just doing it for fun and your love of music. Through years of touring you kind of lose that. Not that it’s not fun anymore, but it becomes somewhat routine and the business side of it makes it feel that way. But with that tour it was just a total blast. I know that Society 1 did some crazy shit on stage. Who had the crazier tours Revolting Cocks/Ministry or Society 1? Its two totally different things. Society 1 was much more of a shock rock type of band. Not that we didn’t take pride in what we did musically, but we also did a lot of things on stage to get a reaction and shock people. With Ministry and RevCo it was a different vibe. It was crazy in more of a traditional rock-n-roll sense. There was a lot of destroying hotel rooms and lobbies and trashing back stage dressing rooms. What were some of the things Society 1 did to shock people? We did the suspension thing. We did it at the Download festival in front of 35,000 people. Where do you go form there? We were a band that loved to push buttons. And we found the buttons to push. Nudity on stage, simulating sex acts on stage while we were performing. Did you get a lot of hate mail? Oh man we used to get everything from religious groups to feminist groups. We used to have picketers at our shows. You are writing stuff with Al. Is he open to the stuff you bring to the table? I didn’t know what to expect when I first came out to Texas. I had never written anything with anybody else outside of my old band. I was nervous when I first came out here because I didn’t know what to expect. But I was pleasantly surprised to find him open to ideas and suggestions. We work very well together in the way we bounce ideas around. Al is a guy who I’d looked up to for years. I try and learn from him and his experiences as much as possible, but he is a very open minded guy who is always asking for my thoughts and ideas. It’s been a complete blessing. I can’t tell you haw great it’s been writing with him. How far into the new Ministry album are you guys? I’d say we are about 75% done. We’ve got about 10 songs done down and have another two or three to go. It’s sounding phenomenal. It’s going to blow people away. I think we’re bringing some of the older feel to it with a bit of a modern twist. I think old fans will dig it and newer fans will REALLY dig it. I think we are going to make people notice that we are musical as well. The last few Ministry albums have been very political. Is it the same with the new album? It’s going to tie in with the Bush administration and his cronies. It will probably be the last statement dealing with that. Who else is on this record? On this record is myself, Paul Raven (who was on the last record), Tommy Victor (Also on the last record) and Al. Is that going to be the touring band? Yes. I’m pretty sure keyboardist J.B. will be around as well. I’m not sure right now what the drummer situation is. Who’s been playing drums on this record? It’s all been programmed so far. But that’s’ not to say we won’t bring someone in to go over what we’ve done. Do you have an idea when the new album might be released? It will be out mid September. -

interview by Brad Filicky

Last Modified : February 20th, 2007
Filed under : interviews
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