intothewellsabyss

Jul 15, 202323 min read

Ministry — ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ (aka Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs)

𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐑𝐘𝐏𝐓𝐒 - 𝐂𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐁𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐀𝐋𝐁𝐔𝐌 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐄𝐒 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐨𝐟 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐊 & 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐘 𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐋…

31 years ago, “Jesus Built My Hotrod”!

On this day (July 14) in 1992, Ministry released their fifth full-length album, “ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ (commonly known as “Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs” or simply “Psalm 69”) via Sire Records/Warner Bros. Records.

It was produced by frontman Al Jourgensen and bassist Paul Barker, and was recorded from March 1991 to May 1992 in Chicago, Illinois and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. The album's title, initially intended to be “The Tapes of Wrath”, ended up being derived from Aleister Crowley's “The Book of Lies”.

“Psalm 69” features elements of Speed Metal, Rockabilly, and Psychobilly, with lyrics exploring social, political, and religious topics.

With much anticipation following the success of Ministry's previous album “The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste” (1989), pressures on the band were said to be high, in addition to the growing substance abuse of several members and worsening relationships between them.

It was also the first time Mike Scaccia had been significantly involved in a Ministry album, after appearing on tours in support of “The Mind...”.

(𝙿𝚊𝚞𝚕 𝙱𝚊𝚛𝚔𝚎𝚛 & 𝙰𝚕 𝙹𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚎𝚗)

Preceded by lead single "Jesus Built My Hotrod", “Psalm 69” was a critical and commercial success upon its release, peaking at No. 27 on the US Billboard 200 and No. 33 on the UK Albums Chart.

It was supported by two more singles: "N.W.O." and "Just One Fix", with accompanying music videos directed by Peter Christopherson.

“Psalm 69” is considered to be Ministry's most successful album, having been certified gold in Canada and Australia, and platinum in the US.

"N.W.O." was nominated for the Best Metal Performance at the 35th Annual Grammy Awards.

Background & Recording:

In March 1991, following the conclusion of the year-long tour in support of Revolting Cocks album “Beers, Steers, and Queers”, Al Jourgensen returned with his bandmates at Chicago Trax! studios, to work on Ministry's next major release. Jourgensen claimed that the record company Warner Bros. Records (to which Ministry were signed via their subsidiary, Sire Records) initially gave the band an enormous budget expecting a follow-up to “The Mind...” to become a big hit compared with Michael Jackson's album “Thriller”.

The story goes that, by the time Ministry were done touring for their 1989 album "The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste", Jourgensen, his ex-wife Patty and guitarist Mike Scaccia were all nursing voracious drug habits. "I was shooting up, smoking crack and drinking Bushmills laced with acid," Jourgensen says. "And it was a cycle that I'd repeat 10 times a day, at least."

Jourgensen claimed in 2013 that addictions cost the band about $1,000 a day, which they happily paid for with their $750,000 advance from Sire/ Warner Bros. At the time, Jourgensen was fed up with the protocol of the music industry and felt he had fallen into a creative rut.

"What I was doing wasn't art anymore," he says. "It wasn't fun. It was procedure. Since I wasn't enjoying what I used to love I decided to rebel harder than ever and push the limits to their utmost extremes. Mikey and I were shooting speedballs, blending smack and coke in the same syringe so you don't nod off and you don't get wired. And then we'd sit around and record walls of white noise for hours on end."

Meanwhile, the first Lollapalooza tour had arrived in Chicago in early August 1991 — where Ministry were working on the record. Jourgensen went backstage attending a show by the band Butthole Surfers. After the gig, he had invited Butthole Surfers' singer Gibby Haynes to Chicago Trax! to record what became the vocals and spoken word parts for the song "Jesus Built My Hotrod".

"Gibby came in absolutely shitfaced," Jourgensen says. "He couldn't even walk. We set him up with a stool, gave him a microphone and a fifth of Jack and played this thrashy, redneck rock track we were fucking around with. Gibby babbled this incoherent nonsense, knocked over the whiskey and fell off the stool. We propped him back up again and tried again. 'Bing, bang, dingy, dong, wah, wah, ling, a bong!' He slurred shit like that for a while then — crash! — back on the floor. We went on like that for take after take and got nothing but gibberish with a few discernible words, like 'baby,' 'gun,' 'trailer park,' 'around' and 'why, why, why!' Finally, Gibby passed out and it was up to me to turn all that babbling into a track.

(𝙶𝚒𝚋𝚋𝚢 𝙷𝚊𝚢𝚗𝚎𝚜)

"It was like pulling a diamond ring out of a septic tank," Jourgensen adds. "I edited the song on my two-track at home and I spliced so much tape to make his gobbledy-gook sound like words. Even in my fucked up state, I had the rock-steady hands to conduct delicate brain surgery. I cut tape all night long and three weeks later it started sounding pretty good. I added these samples about drag racing, put in these crazy backwards effects, racecar sounds, a thrash beat [guitarist] Mikey [Scaccia's] riff. Mikey added these wild blues solos, then I added the nonsense spoken word intro to go along with Gibby's moronic lyrics."

(𝙶𝚒𝚋𝚋𝚢 𝙷𝚊𝚢𝚗𝚎𝚜 & 𝙰𝚕 𝙹𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚎𝚗, 𝙻𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚊𝚙𝚊𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚣𝚊 𝟿𝟸)

While finishing "Jesus Built My Hotrod", Jourgensen was contacted by Sire/Warner Bros. executives, who asked if he had any completed material, as they were getting anxious and pressuring Jourgensen about what he and his bandmates were doing with their $750,000 advance, he delivered his collaboration with Haynes — now christened "Jesus Built My Hotrod" — because that's all he had.

While the label was not happy with just having "Jesus Built My Hotrod", Jourgensen told them either to give another advance for further work or sign the band off. The label was doubtful if the band would record anything else, but decided to release "Jesus Built My Hotrod"; following its success, they gave the band necessary budget, with the condition that the band would eventually finish the record.

"They hated me to the point of viciousness," Jourgensen said. "They had given me all this money and this was all I had to show for it. They became hell-bent on my destruction. I got this phone call: 'We gave you $750,000 and you send this nonsense back to us. What are we supposed to do with this?' They hated it. I was like, 'Well, either double down or not, man. Cut us loose now if you want. I don't care.' So they took the bait and doubled down, which was cool because we actually got the record company to pay us $1.5 million to make this fucking record!"

Us Against "The Book Club":

Besides drug problems, there was also growing animosity between the band's members, divided into two groups: while one group included Jourgensen and Scaccia, another—drug-free individuals who Jourgensen nicknamed "the book club" — including bassist Paul Barker, drummer Bill Rieflin and guest/live singer Chris Connelly — began to take more control over the day-to-day activities of the band, even though Jourgensen insists he and Scaccia were still responsible for the bulk of the usable creative output. Jourgensen claimed that he and Scaccia added their parts separately from Barker, Rieflin and Connelly; once Jourgensen and Scaccia would come in, they erased about 80 percent of what the Book Club associates did.

"I was a mess, but thank God for Mikey," Jourgensen says. "He was wasted all the time, but still productive. And the success of 'Jesus Built My Hotrod' gave Mikey a second wind. He came up with all the riffs for "N.W.O." "Just One Fix" and other thrash-based riffs. I just added my production and some movie samples to make it cool. But Barker saw this as his opportunity to take over. Ministry started getting out of my hands as my baby the more Barker took over.

It became corporate and then I became more rebellious than ever when it came to my own self-destruction. I felt cornered now. I had all these people running my life and I was taken over. Ministry was taken over for a few years by the book club. And that's OK; it needed to be because I was useless. I was completely whacked out of my mind on drugs so I figured I'd put it to the guy that's not whacked out of his mind on drugs and put it in his charge, and that would be Barker. For about three years he assumed the main identity of Ministry and did all the interviews and promotion because I was unable to walk from mixing board to the front door without falling down. Seriously, that was my downward spiral."

(𝙼𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚂𝚌𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚒𝚊 & 𝙰𝚕 𝙹𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚗)

Chased Out of Chicago:

It takes a lot for a band to be drummed out of town by the Chicago industrial rock community, but that's exactly what happened to Ministry while they were working on Psalm 69 at Chicago Trax. Jourgensen and Co. were doing the best they could to be productive considering some of the main members of the band were incapacitated by chronic narcotic use. But Jourgensen's out-of-control drug habit wasn't what got him ostracized by the locals. In a way, Jourgensen's exile was inevitable. It wasn't just the vast quantities of substances he was doing that turned people against him it was the debauchery that was happening at Chicago Trax while he was nodded off that sealed his fate.

"It didn't have anything to do with me," he insisted. "A doorman would tell a girl, 'If you give me an extra $1,000, I'll let you in there all night and you just go right up to Al and give him a blowjob. He's the one in the bubble chair.' People were overdosing in front of me or swallowing their tongues. I'd be all junked out, trying to rationally deal with this shit: stabbings, thefts, all kinds of mayhem. Then somebody died, but not on my watch."

Someone threw a heroin birthday party for Jourgensen and two of the attendees were Jourgensen's tattoo artist Guy Aitchison and his friend Lorri Jackson, a local poet. While Aitchison was still hanging out Jackson left the party with a heroin dealer and overdosed. "I got fuckin' blamed for it," Jourgensen said. "I had nothing to do with it. She showed up at my place, met this guy, left with him and shot up with him and died in his house, not my house. But the press attacked me, everyone was giving me the evil eye, the cops were watching me. The heat was on. I literally got drummed out of Chicago and I'll never forgive the people who treated me like a serial killer after this girl died."

Pressured to leave Chicago, Barker convinced Jourgensen and the rest of team Ministry to relocate to Shade Tree Studio in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Barker's aim was to get Jourgensen away from his Chicago drug buddies and into a healthier, more productive environment. But he miscalculated Jourgensen and Scaccia's willpower.

"Barker was too stupid to find a place more than 90 miles away. So me and Mikey just wound up driving the 90 miles twice a week to hook up with our dealers, jonesing all the way there and risking getting arrested on the way back. We had a couple of close shaves with the law, where we were pulled over and we hid our stash behind the ashtray, popped the vents out, put our stuff in there and clicked it back in just as the cops came up to us with a flashlight."

The Wisconsin studio was owned by Cheap Trick, whose guitarist Rick Nielsen later became one of Jourgensen's close friends. But being outside of Chicago and in an unfamiliar location just emphasized the cavernous gulf that had developed between Ministry's two main men.

"We weren't a unified team anymore by any stretch of the imagination," Jourgensen says. "Me and Mikey were in one camp. Barker, Atkins and Connelly were in another camp. But the funny thing is that we were the scumbags, yet we were the ones coming up with all the fucking songs. They treated us like shit and tried to give us a schedule to follow. It was like, 'Hurry up, we're off schedule.' I was like, 'Schedule? What Schedule? We're wasted, I'll work tomorrow.' That was the beginning of the big split in the band. We were all fucked up and they were all freaked out because we were the creative force of the band and, hey, if the junkies didn't produce, they didn't eat."

William S. Burroughs:

For the song "Just One Fix," Jourgensen included audio from speeches and readings given by legendary writer and junky William S. Burroughs. When Ministry finished the album and their label were seeking clearances for the samples, they had a problem. No one seemed to be able to clear the Burroughs samples. Wary of a lawsuit, the label tried in vain to reach Burroughs' camp, which delayed the release of "Psalm 69" by two months. When Burroughs' manager James Grauerholz read an article in which Jourgensen explained the delay he became incensed and tracked down Ministry's frontman. "He called me and said, 'Nobody asked us for sample clearance. We never said you can't use that stuff. As a matter of fact, why don't you come to Lawrence, Kansas where Bill lives and we'll do new stuff.' "

Thrilled with the idea, the band, representatives from Ministry's label and management and a video crew headed to Burroughs' home to record new audio and shoot a video. Everyone arrived on time except Jourgensen. He was three days late. "There were a couple reasons I kept Bill waiting. First, I had to finish up a Revolting Cocks mix that I was already late doing because we had been working on Psalm 69."

More problematic to Jourgensen were the travel plans that had been booked for him. He was scheduled to fly out on the 23rd, but he refused to take a plane because he was superstitious about traveling on that day. So Jourgensen compromised and agreed to travel by car with a friend from Chicago.

"We stopped off in Kansas City, knowing we didn't have enough dope to last us our trip. We figured Bill would probably want some. We went to this ghetto neighborhood and drove around looking for someone on a corner or something. We got chased out by the cops because we were two white guys in this ghetto area — it was pretty obvious what we were trying to do. So we said, 'Fuck it. Let's just go to Bill's house.' We drive down to Bill's, knock on his door and he answers. The first thing he says is 'Are ya holding?' He didn't even say hello. Then he said, 'I can smell a junkie a mile away.' We only had enough to keep ourselves from getting sick. So I was like, 'No,' and he slammed the door in our face."

Figuring the key to admission at the Burroughs estate was smack, Jourgensen drove 35 miles back to Kansas City and cruised the ghettos again. This time he found a kid on a street corner who sold him $800 worth of heroin. Pleased with his success, Jourgensen headed back to Burroughs' house.

"We knocked, he opens the door and is like, 'Oh, it's you again.' He knew he had to do a video with us for 'Just One Fix.' He had already agreed to it. We were like 'No, no, no. It's different this time. We scored. We're holding.' He says, 'Come on in.' We go into Bill's living room and right away he goes to the bedroom. Bill was like a giddy little kid because his manager James usually prevented him from using. He was strictly on this methadone program. He wasn't shooting and he hated coke. So James would keep him on the straight and narrow. But James had the flu and Bill was taking advantage of this – kind of like daddy's away so I will play. We go to shoot up and he brings out this, like, Pulp Fiction 1950s' leather belt with 1950s' needles – really old school. It was comical. We had our little normal needles and he had this elaborate setup.

We all shoot up and pass out for a while. I still haven't said anything to this guy and he hasn't said anything to me. Then I wake up and I see a letter from the White House — the fucking White House — on his table, unopened. I was like 'Bill, you got a letter from the White House.' He is like 'Eh, so what? It's junk mail.' I said, 'Are you going to open it?' He said, 'No.' I asked if I could open it. He said, 'Whatever you want to do.' So I open it and it is a letter from Bill Clinton saying he wanted Bill to come do spoken word at the White House. I was pretty impressed by that. I was telling him that and Bill says, 'Who's the president now?' He didn't even know it. He didn't know it was Clinton. Not a fucking clue. And he didn't give a shit. When I read him the letter he was like, 'I never heard of Bill Clinton.' He said he wouldn't go and he never did."

Uninterested in contemporary politics, Burroughs spoke at length about his garden, griping about the raccoons that were destroying his petunias. "He said he would try to shoot the animals with a pellet gun but they always got away. He wasn't allowed to own a real gun because he accidentally shot his wife back in the 1950s. So he was trying to kill these raccoons, but the pellet gun didn't fire fast enough. I said to him, 'Bill, you're on the methadone program, right?' And he said, 'Yeah, so what?' And I said, 'Well, why don't you put out methadone wafers for the Raccoons to eat. That way, maybe it'll slow them down enough so you can get them with your pellet gun.' "

That was pretty much the end of the conversation, so Jourgensen and his friend headed to the hotel to meet up with the band and video crew. The next day they showed up at the location for the "Just One Fix" video shoot and Burroughs wasn't there yet. Four hours later he arrived with a broad smile on his face.

"William Burroughs was the grumpiest bastard I had ever met," Jourgensen said. "He never seemed happy about anything. But he was in a great mood from the moment he walked in. He comes up to me and he says, 'You're an astute young man. Your idea was magnificent. I shot two stoned raccoons today!' Right away, I was on Bill's friend list and it was a short list. And all because he took my suggestion of feeding these raccoons methadone wafers so he could slow them down and shoot them. Up until the time of his death, he would call me about once a week and we'd talk. But the real reason for his call was to bitch at me for doing coke. His exact quote was, 'Why would a person do a drug that keeps you up all night twitching? Stick to heroin, kid.' "

That's A Wrap:

The last songs included for the album, the instrumental tracks "Corrosion" and "Grace", were written mainly by Barker and recorded in February–March 1992; the album's last session was held on May 7, 1992. Over 15 months were spent on the recording, however, only nine of about 30 songs made its way onto the final cut, with the rest being distributed to side projects.

Album Title Etymology:

As previously mentioned, the title of the album is linked to chapter 69 of “The Book of Lies”, a written work of Aleister Crowley, where he uses the expression "The way to succeed and the way to suck eggs" as a pun for the 69 sex position ("suck seed" and "suck eggs"). Moreover, Crowley titled the chapter ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ (which translates literally as "shrugged" and contains the sound ΛΗΞ "licks") but has a second meaning as a compound of Greek κεφαλη ("head") and Ξ Θ (an encoded alphabetic reference to "69") which both have slang meanings in English for sexual acts).

Subsequent to the album's release, Ministry put multiple references to the number 69 in future albums. For example, the albums “Dark Side of the Spoon” and “Houses of the Molé” both have hidden tracks at track #69. A further reference to the number was exhibited on “Houses of the Molé” with a hidden track at #23 titled "Psalm 23", one third of 69.

Lallapalooza '92 & Psalm 69 Tour '92-'93:

Following its release of the album, Ministry joined the second annual Lollapalooza tour before commencing a tour through Europe and the US with Helmet and Sepultura. "N.W.O.", "Just One Fix", and the title track have become permanent features of the band's live setlist.

In an edition of Decibel Magazine Presents "That Tour Was Awesome" on October 27, 2016, Shane Mehling spoke to Al Jorgeson, Paige Hamilton and Max Cavalera about the tour.

Ministy/Helmet/Sepultura, touring for Arise, Meantime and Psalm 69, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. How some booking agent decided to lump all of them together has yet to be answered. But it ended up being an inspired move, and a massive success.

The frontmen for each band—Ministry’s Al Jourgensen, Helmet’s Page Hamilton and Sepultura’s Max Cavalera—share stories from one of the most oddly perfect mixes of diversified brutality in metal history. Get ready for tales of heroin, highway crashes and a puke-covered Eddie Vedder

How did people react to such a non-traditional lineup?:

Al Jourgensen: It felt like it was a headliner at 7 o’clock. During Sepultura the place was already packed and the place was going ballistic. It was like getting punched in the stomach, so you lose your wind, then Helmet would kick you in the balls so you’d go down and then Ministry would take a sledgehammer to your head. It was pretty violent. The mosh pit was relentless. It started at Sepultura and just kept getting bigger and bigger so by the time we came out it was like anarchy out there. The real purist metal fans walked away thinking, that wasn’t bad at all, and a lot of our fans that were much more into keyboard-driven stuff, would see Sepultura and think “Wow, they are really fucking good.” The word was get there early and no one left early either. I was well aware after maybe like two shows that it wasn’t just us. It was something in the air. Something about that time period. It was bigger than us.

Page Hamilton: We thought it would be cool, but didn’t really feel like we fit in. Ministry was a machine-based groove and Sepultura was a thrash metal style and we never felt like we were metal or industrial or indie but the cool thing was back then you could have bills like that. They wouldn’t do things like that now.

Max Cavalera: We were not used to playing in front of that many people. But it was really good for all of us. We just went out there and headbanged and jumped around. And then Helmet was surprising because they looked like jocks. And Ministry was just on point. There was a lot of powerful shit going on every night.

Why do you think the tour was so successful?:

Jourgensen: Right time, people, promotion, venues, the right time of year, the right press. It was all of a sudden cosmically aligned. There were a lot of great bands then that didn’t get the hype of that tour and I think it was an anomaly. And some would think it was lucky and some would think unlucky. Like I’m sure the drummer for Helmet thought it was unlucky when they rolled that truck.

Hamilton: Even though we were signed to a major label, and were selling quite well, I was reluctant to spend money on a tour bus. So we were in a van and a Rider rental truck while the other bands were on buses. And that was probably not the wisest because we were headed down to North Carolina and one of the kids fell asleep at the wheel and they rolled the rental truck. John Stanier [drums] broke some ribs, our drum tech broke his leg or foot and our guitar tech was in a coma. It was pretty hairy, so we jumped off the tour. And Body Count filled in for us, graciously. We jumped back on like a week later. Stanier was pretty tough and the drum tech came back with a cast. Our guitar tech joined quite a bit later.

Jourgensen: After the van wreck they put Body Count in their spot and trust me, I missed Helmet. My mom taught me a long time ago, if you got nothing nice to say about someone, don’t say a fucking word. So I’ll leave them out of this.

Cavalera: Body Count filled in for Helmet. It was the first time we met Ice-T and he was really into Sepultura. He would wear our beanie all the time and give us shout-outs. Ice was funny as hell. And for one show Stone Temple Pilots played and they wanted to go after us. They were all “Oh, we’re big and our song’s on the radio,” all this bullshit. But we weren’t going to break up the package. Their singer went on stage and said, “By the way we’re not Sepultura.” Everyone could tell just by looking at them they weren’t fucking Sepultura.

How did the bands get along?:

Jourgensen: All the Helmet boys were absolutely sweethearts. But Sepultura would pretty much crash on our bus, drink all our fucking liquor and tell us how much we sucked each night. But it was the perfect symbiotic relationship. They’d get drunk and insult us and we didn’t care. We weren’t drinking liquor because we were all heroin addicts. At one point either Max or Igor had Paul Barker [Minisitry bassist] around the throat, and I’d just done a shot of heroin and walked out of the bathroom and I was like, “Whoa, this is getting weird.”

Hamilton: I don’t remember there being any drama between anyone. On Thanksgiving, we had it at Al’s house. He had everyone over and his wife at the time and daughter were there and it felt like a big giant brotherhood of musicians.

Cavalera: Everyone was super cool. Super, super nice guys. I remember first meeting one of their crew guys. His name was Bones. He was this crazy fucking roadie with a face tattoo, a full-on biker-type guy, and he was in charge of the stage props for Ministry. It was all kinds of skulls. And he would go and buy crates of skulls. I remember walking around mesmerized, thinking it was so fucking awesome. The Sepultura bus was famous for what we would listen to after we played. We would blast the ultimate death metal at full volume. Carcass and Bolt Thrower and fucking Morbid Angel. We’d be blasting that in the front lounge right after we were done playing. You want metal? You come to the Sepultura bus. That’s just how it was.

Do you remember any of the venues?:

Jourgensen: I remember playing Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, and I’m a huge hockey fan. We got like 16,000 people for that show, and sitting in the dressing room with all their hall of fame plaques and all that shit. I remember thinking, “Damn, what happened?” The size of the crowds and the energy of the crowds were incredible.

Hamilton: I remember Toronto because I had some amp problems. I went behind the curtain and smashed a hole maybe eight inches deep into the stage. I don’t know why I did that but our music is so emotional and this intensity you’re feeling to perform at a high level, and then with amp problems it’s like somebody’s firing a gun at you. It’s really frustrating and I think I’d had a few days of that. We played Madison Square Garden, and our amps were so fucking loud. We were louder than the PA. We had four 800-watt guitar amps on either side and two of those for bass and it just sawed people’s faces off. But it still wasn’t what I was looking for.

Cavalera: At Madison Square Garden I was really excited because it was where Led Zeppelin had played. And then when we started it was all seats. And security was fucking up everyone who was trying to get out of their seats and no stagediving and all this bullshit. And I got super mad. So on the fifth song I stagedived and security grabbed me. One of the guys was gonna punch me and someone stopped him and said, “Don’t punch him, he’s the singer of the band.” The guy was just seconds away from obliterating my face. They had me in a chokehold. So that was a bit of a letdown. I wanted to go back to the little clubs.

It seems like this tour was oddly popular with celebrities...:

Jourgensen: I don’t think that was the apex of our TMZ moments. It was building. Neil Young and Tom Petty and members of the Cars came out, and I think it reinvigorated those people because it was a new generation and when you’re starting out everything is new to you and it’s a lot of fun. And then as you get success and get older and more jaded, you go looking for something to get that spark back and I think that’s what all these A-listers were there for. They were there thinking, “Oh yeah, I remember what it was like when it used to be fun.”

Hamilton: Marsha Vlasic, the booking agent, comes into the dressing room and tells me Neil wants to see me. And I’m like, “Neil Neil?” And I go into this stairwell, and Neil Young is sitting there with a Heineken and two hippie-looking buddies of his. And we just talked in the stairwell for like a half hour about amps. It was a super amazing experience. And It was cool to see Gene Simmons show up at some shows. He put his arm around me and said, “Don’t play with any hair bands or metal bands – you are the future of the music.” And some girls come up to Gene and he says, “This is Page, how did you like that show?” and she says, “Oh, it was great, did you like it?” He shook his leg and said, “Yeah, I’m still dripping down my leg.” It was a really classic Gene Simmons moment.

Cavalera: All the famous people, we weren’t used to that shit. It was crazy. We went to Timothy Leary’s house. And in LA the Chili Peppers came to the show. My stepson Dana was alive at the time and he was standing right next to Flea and he told me that Flea sang every word of Arise. And Igor went to a Fugazi show the next day and Flea was there, wearing a Sepultura sweatshirt. So that was pretty kickass. Anthony Kiedis was talking to my stepson Jason, and Anthony thought he spoke Spanish because we speak Portuguese. So he starts speaking Spanish and Jason doesn’t understand Spanish so he just punched him in the balls. Just launched one into his balls and was like, “Leave me alone, motherfucker.”

What was the state of your bands at the time?:

Jourgensen: We had started to get a measure of success, but even back then the dynamic of the band was blowing apart. The music was still going and we were experimenting and trying different avenues of how we wanted to get our point across, but the band was really going in opposite directions. It was like two Ministry bands at that point – Paul Barker’s side of the band and me and Mike Scaccia (guitar) were the outcasts. Even though it was my fucking band we were outcasts. But we were starting to taste some success and we knew we were in a good place, but that tour and Lollapalooza really catapulted the Minstry brand into the collective psyche of that generation. It put us on the map.

Hamilton: We were still in the early phases of the band and we had quick success when you think about it. I went off the rails a bit. I was just having so much fun. Making a fuck-ton of money for a guy who had so many shitty jobs. I look back on it now and think maybe I should have kept my shit together better but I didn’t. I banged a lot of girls and did a lot of coke. Every band cliché you can imagine. And it seems stupid but I didn’t really care. There are things on that tour that led to me breaking up with my fiancee that I should regret but they were really, really fun. She punched me in the face when I got home cause I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I’m a terrible cheater so I told her. And she just gave me a fist right in the face. And I had that coming.

(𝙼𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚂𝚌𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚒𝚊, 𝙻𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚊𝚙𝚊𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚣𝚊 ‘𝟿𝟸)

Any other stories you can share?:

Cavalera: In Seattle there were the Soundgarden guys and Pearl Jam. And I got out of control. It was one of those things where I was drinking right after our set and went to the Ministry bus and kept chugging rum and one more chug of the rum and it all came back up. Eddie Vedder was sitting next to me and I unleashed all over his legs. He was surprisingly very friendly about it. My sister was a really big fan so right after I puked on him I asked for an autograph. But then I kept on getting crazier and crazier and Al had finally had enough of me. And when Al has enough of you, it’s bad. He gave me three Valium and ordered me to take them and chill out. But I still had the rum. And the tour manager tried to take it from. He used to be in Echo and the Bunnymen. And he went to take the bottle from me and I broke it on his head. Blood was everywhere. I ended up passing out on their bus and when I finally woke up and walked to the front of the bus, the Echo and the Bunnymen guy with a big bandage on his head walked up. I asked him what happened. And he said, “You happened to me.” It was definitely one of top crazy nights I ever had.

Critical Reception:

“Psalm 69” was ranked No. 80 on the Rolling Stone's "Top 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time" list, with author Suzy Exposito concluding that "the result of the album was a manic drag race into a swampy hellmouth of Thrash Americana – and it worked".

The album was also included in the book “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die”.

"N.W.O." was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance at the Grammy Awards of 1993, but lost to Nine Inch Nails' "Wish".

Noteworthy:

During the recording of the album, when Lollapalooza came to Chicago in 1991 on the first year of the festival, Jourgensen said that went to check out his former roadie Trent Reznor's band. The Rollins Band were opening the main stage that year and when Jourgensen went backstage to congratulate Reznor he bumped into muscle-bound vocalist and media celebrity Henry Rollins, whose band was sharing a bus with Nine Inch Nails.

"Rollins looks at me and says, 'Get out of here, you piece of shit. I hate junkies,' " Jourgensen recalled. "I know Henry Rollins is supposed to be this he-man who lifts weights, takes off his shirt and shows his muscles offstage, but I didn't know if the guy could fight or not, and frankly, I didn't care," Ministry's frontman explained. Determined to defend himself regardless of the cost he sprung into action. "I didn't even think about what I was doing. I just took a giant swing at him a caught him with a right hook to the jaw," Jourgensen says. "His eyes widened with surprise and he went down and then a bunch of guys split us up. He didn't even get a shot in and he never came after me or bothered me again."

Contemporaneous 1990s articles on Ministry estimated “Psalm 69's” overall bill being three times over budget, with $329,000 being spent.

Video game composer Frank Klepacki cited Psalm 69 album as a primary influence in creating the soundtrack for the 1995 video game Command & Conquer.

Links to Artists, Albums, and Music Videos:

▶ Listen to “ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ (Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs” via Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/psalm-69-the-way-to-succeed-and-the-way-to-suck-eggs/297744447

▶ Listen to “ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ (Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs” via Spotify: KE*A*H** (Psalm 69) https://open.spotify.com/album/2wz3P1w89gQd3iXdmF1IA5

▶ Watch the official music video for “N.W.O.” via Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/music-video/n-w-o/787409070

▶ Watch the official music video for “Just One Fix” via YouTube: https://youtu.be/XYYGKCanqfA

▶ Watch the official music video for "Jesus Built My Hotrod" via YouTube: https://youtu.be/GXCh9OhDiCI

▶ Follow Ministry on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WeAreMinistry/

(𝙰𝚕 𝙹𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚎𝚗, 𝙻𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚊𝚙𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚣𝚊 ‘𝟿𝟸)

Note: The reviews shared here are for historical reference. The views and opinions expressed within are not always supported (in full or in part) by Into the Wells. — E.N. Wells