Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen explained why he never felt bitter toward bands like Nine Inch Nails, who took Ministry’s industrial metal template to chart-topping, multiplatinum heights in the ’90s.
Jourgensen discussed his influence on the industrial metal genre in a new episode of The Magnificent Others With Billy Corgan, which you can hear below.
Rather than view his musical successors as his rivals, Jourgensen considered them all to be part of the same alternative music continuum.
Why Al Jourgensen Was Never Bitter About Nine Inch Nails’ Success
“Trent Reznor started out as a roadie for us,” Jourgensen said. “Next thing I know, he’s on the cover of Rolling Stone and we’re still slogging in the trenches. His roadie was Marilyn Manson, [who] then overtook him. So it’s kind of like this tree. But not one minute was I ever bitter about that. I cheered them on. I’m like, ‘This is great.'”
Jourgensen was quick to note that neither he nor Reznor “created” industrial metal, but they both combined various influences to create something fresh. He also discussed his extensive work with Wax Trax! Records, the Chicago-based label that focused heavily on industrial and punk music in the ’80s and ’90s.
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“I call what I do ‘collage rock,'” Jourgensaid explained. “For not one second did I ever feel bitter or anything about the success of other people. I was actually glad to see them go on their way, and to carry on what we were trying to do from the beginning of Wax Trax!, which was basically upend music and the music industry.”
Did they accomplish that? “Well, to a certain extent. We’re still back to the same old crap now,” Jourgensen lamented.
“We were a bump in the road, just like grunge was a bump in the road,” he added. “We were flavor of the month for a while, and that’s good, but you have to take it in perspective, especially if you know the people. Trent’s just a great guy, so why would I be upset with him? And Trent never said, ‘I invented this stuff.’ Trent was always very magnanimous and said, ‘No, I learned my chops from these knuckleheads.’ And the media loves to build these feuds and this and that, but, nah.”
Watch Al Jourgensen on ‘The Magnificent Others With Billy Corgan’
Why Ministry Are Calling It Quits After Next Album
Ministry are currently working on their purported final album, after which Jourgensen plans to fold the band.
“My ears are tired from music,” the frontman recently told Full Metal Jackie. “The reason I say that, and that’s the reason I’m ending Ministry, it’s not so much for any health reasons or any kind of band conflicts or anything like that. It’s just that my ears are tired. I’m starting to find myself really slapping myself on the wrist, not repeating stuff that I’ve done before and trying to keep going further. It gets harder as you keep going.”
