Overview

The high-octane, no-holds-barred memoir by Al Jourgensen, legendary godfather of industrial music and founder of Ministry. Al Jourgensen wanted to be a musician but he became a rock star, and it almost killed him. During his career, Jourgensen has explored electronic, industrial, metal, punk, and even country music with Ministry, The Revolting Cocks, Lard, and other bands. Along the way, he engaged in all the rock star cliches of decadence and debauchery, even inventing new forms of nihilism. Despite all of this and heavy IV drug use beginning at age fifteen, Jourgensen managed to create seven seminal albums. After twenty-two years of heroin, cocaine, and other substance abuse, he cleaned up, straightened out, and found new reasons to live. Filled with humor, heart, and tragedy, Ministry depicts a renegade iconoclast in an epic story of tempting fate, beating odds, and putting together the pieces of an unraveled life.

Full Product Details

9780306823978

Table of Contents

Reviews

Under the Radar, Spring 2013 In the colorful and often highly amusing anecdotes recounting his years as a musician, Jourgensen covers his time with Ministry and Revolting Cocks in high-flying detail. Revolver, June/July 2013 A tale of outlandish debauchery and mayhem...Like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas crossed with The Dirt, it's both insanely compelling and compellingly insane. Texas Monthly, July 2013 Jourgensen [is] poised to forever raise the bar on tales of rock star excess with a new memoir, Ministry. ..The book offers a laundry list of degenerate behavior and near-death experiences. But where most rock and roll biographies and memoirs end in the subject's demise or redemption, the arc of this one is a lot murkier. Examiner.com, 7/1/13 One needn't be intimately familiar with Ministry's musical mayhem to enjoy Ministry. ..Entertaining, enlightening--even inspirational...A riotously revealing retrospective that cements Jourgensen's place in the modern rock lexicon while chronicling the decades-long descent into drug addiction that nearly cost the Ministry maverick his life. RollingStone.com, 7/8/13 Few musicians have indulged in the sex, drugs and rock & roll lifestyle with such death-defying fervor--and over such a long period of time--as longtime Ministry leader Al Jourgensen. Now, his tale is on display for the whole world to read...A roller-coaster read. In addition to going behind the scenes for the creation of such industrial-metal classics as The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste and Psalm 69, Jourgensen dishes dirt on many renowned names whom he's crossed paths with throughout his career. MTV Hive, 7/10/13 Just open the book and throw your finger on any given page, and you're liable to hit a sentence that makes you thank god you lived long enough on this planet to read something this batshit crazy...The m

Author Information

Al Jourgensen created seven seminal albums. After getting clean in 2002, he produced another five Ministry discs. He lives in El Paso, Texas. Jon Wiederhorn is a senior writer at Revolver and contributes to SPIN and Guitar World. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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