Ministry are set to release their 15th studio album, Moral Hygiene, on October 1st. The pioneering industrial act is also celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and Heavy Consequence caught up with legendary frontman Al Jourgensen to discuss the new LP, the band’s career, and more.
Moral Hygiene has been a couple years in the making, with Jourgensen telling us back in 2018 that he was planning to start on a new album in January 2019. The LP is the follow-up to 2018’s AmeriKKKant, a highly political effort that tore into the Trump administration’s policies.
On the new album, Jourgensen continues his social and political commentary on songs like “Alert Level,” “Good Trouble” (a tribute to late activist John Lewis), and more.
Once again, Jourgensen has come up with a clever play on words for the album’s title, Moral Hygiene, telling us, “Originally, the album was titled Truth Decay, and then Obama put that line in his book when it came out, and everyone started using it,” the Ministry mastermind told us. “So, it’s like ‘Damn, man, I’m always like two weeks ahead and a dollar short.’ And I was having a lot of dental work done during quarantine year, so I’m like, ‘OK, we’ll stick with that’ … instead of oral hygiene, we made it Moral Hygiene.”
One of the album’s songs, “Sabotage Is Sex,” features former Dead Kennedys singer Jello Biafra, who collaborated with Jourgensen in the past in the group Lard. In fact, Jourgensen told us that a new Lard album is also on the way. And furthermore, he has an additional new Ministry album already written and largely recorded.
Ministry are set to embark on a fall tour with Helmet and Front Line Assembly in support of Moral Hygiene and to celebrate the belated 30th anniversary of The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste. The industrial pioneer is not so certain the tour will go off as planned, given the recent rise in COVID-19 cases due to the Delta variant.
“I’m with the Foo Fighters on this one,” Jourgensen said regarding his position on vaccines. “Mandate it. If you want to go to a restaurant, why should you be able to just put other people in danger because of your own selfishness. Me, of all people, you know this from my career, I do not trust government polices, but I do trust science.”
Jourgensen also gave his assessment of the Biden administration’s first six months, weighed the chances of Ministry being enshrined into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame following Nine Inch Nails’ induction last year, and offered his thoughts on the band going strong for 40 years.
Watch our Zoom interview with Al Jourgensen above, and pre-order Moral Hygiene here. You can also pick up tickets to Ministry’s upcoming tour via Ticketmaster.
Trouble viewing the player above? Watch the interview on YouTube.
