Sorry Uncle Al.... I love the with sympathy album........... all of it, and still get fucking nostalgic with everyday is halloween. I'm 48 now and still dance to it at the clubs here in Dallas Texas.
@@bradyvacationinc Ministry’s music became weaker and more generic as time went on. The last good album was “Filth Pig”, everything after that was pretty forgettable.
@@bradyvacationinc that's not cool man. I think people can like whatever. Some of the music I like probably has 10 fans on earth. Who cares? Like what moves you or you find meaningful, not what's popular. Or love what's popular, who cares? I'm gonna go listen to Ministry's Thieves. Then I'm gonna listen to Roxette. Joyride!
I wouldn't be surprised if Al Jourgensen HATES seeing old interviews of himself but the truth is he gave his most interesting interviews back in the day. He was such a smart guy and a music visionary.
of course. You know how you see stuff you did 5 years ago and cringe? Now add 3 decades to it... If you don't get douche chills from the crap you did as a youngster you might have big issues.
Wow! I have never seen this! Al so young, handsome, very intelligent, witty, personable, articulate and healthy looking. Great interviewer with great questions.
@@tikimax He is none of those things, long lost his creativity, beating same dead horse over and over again. Ministry ended with Last Sucker, everything after that is just cringy as fuck.
@@droogiesouls8635 I can't really argue with you since I haven't followed his career closely since even before Last Sucker. I had noticed Ministry was playing With Sympathy and Twitch (two tours I had seen back in the day) and watching clips of those recent shows lead me to a couple of new interviews. In those interviews I found him to still be "intelligent, witty, personable, articulate". Like many artists in their 50's, 60's and beyond, their creative peak is well behind them. And yet they often still need to make a living. So, they still churn out an album for an excuse to tour and make some cash. As long as folks are willing to show up and buy tickets I don't blame a musician for making a living.
I seriously don't think he hated the music of the album as much as he didn't want the label to get any money from the sales of it. Very much how David Lynch never talked about DUNE because the studio never gave him final cut.
So young and so inspired...this is the Al Jourgensen that had Trent Reznor & Richard Patrick swooning with motivation...Reznor worshipped Uncle Al back then according to Richard Patrick and he was blown away by him too. Something tells me Rob Zombie was a covert disciple of Al’s too around this time up until the early 90s...WaxTrax was saved by Uncle Al’s Ministry & their side projects...there would be no Front 242 or Pigface if it weren’t for Uncle Al.
It’s said that Trent got the name Nine Inch Nails and the name of the first single off of Pretty Hate Machine, Head Like A Hole from an interview of Al’s where he said his own music was driving nine inch nails into a head like a hole. I’ve been scouring the internet in hopes of finding it.
@@Greedyselfish97 I don’t know how true this may be, but I remember a while ago hearing that the name nine inch nails was referring to the size of nails being used on Christ’s crucifixion.
Won't ever sell out again? With age comes wisdom. All our heroes sell out if they live too long. Those bills aren't such a bad thing when your all beat up
Holy shite!!! Never seen this footage... never knew he even did on camera interviews at this point. No tats, coherent, wasn't totally loaded on heroin. This is music history 👍 - and 'Over the Shoulder' was inspired by the invasion of Grenada..... who knew?!?
@@GnarMarv2 yes. And if you see old pictures he really held a variety of appearances. It started with a top hat/synth pop new wave look. No studs or spikes. There's an image I saw that looked kind of like Skrillex. To then this kind of look. Then a top hat goth look. To then leather jacket/long hair/bandana. Finally arriving at the half military/Jamaican pirate/biker.
This is so great. Thanks for sharing this. The best period of Ministry. Twitch and LORAH are by far Ministry's masterpieces and 2 of the most amazing albums ever produced. Al here is the quintessential edgy hipster, and clearly high as hell on coke, speed, or both. Even down to the statement about doing all of his work in Europe - London, Belgium, or Berlin - he was a hipster edgelord. Seeing him here at this stage in his career, I can now understand how he was able to connect with Ian MacKaye to produce the 2 Pailhead records. Sad seeing Bill Rieflin here looking so young and vibrant (surrounded by that infernal cigarette smoke). I've always felt that Jourgensen was a magnet for extremely talented people who would orbit around him and his crew for awhile, then move on. He was like a mix of producer and front man. As a producer, he was able to inspire the people around him to reach their creative potential and he got results, he had an infectious drive and level of self-confidence. 10:47 this perfectly sums up the role of a producer. He also had an absolutely amazing singing voice. His vocal tone was pure gold, much like Kurt Cobain. Unmistakable and irresistible, one of a kind. 11:11 the computer and lone instrument upon which Twitch was produced was the Fairlight CMI II.
Twitch is my favorite Ministry album. It sounds very unique and is Ministry’s closest match to the EBM/Industrial sound. I love seeing this interview from then, but what I would really like to see is live video of this concert and video from any other Twitch tour concerts, beyond the very little Twitch tour video footage that exists today. Hopefully more will turn up.
He did a whole album of instrumental European type stuff once too. It was a bit too European. Weird because we grew up in the same neighborhood and nobody else was doing that at the time.
This was awesome. Al rarely hits on Twitch any more, but it was a lifeline to the weird kids (like me) in high school in the 80s. Just saw Ministry on Saturday. Seeing him again in September in Cleveland.
Something you don't see anymore - a good interviewer - who researches and remembers his guest's information and facts about the band, and the music, labels, everything - and relaxed in his atmosphere. I truly miss that. Down with wiki - hit the streets.
@@leroyanthony449 right, I was talkin' bout him - it's something you don't see - today it's like they roll out of bed after a rough night and read the paper in front of them. It's a sad state of affairs that nobody remembers the work it took to get to where we are at - so it will be lost, so will the talent of the ones being interviewed are starting to become watered down and shallow, plastic. Save the whales!
I miss this world. I miss the underground. Being less connected… there was mystery to life. There was bordom. There was your thoughts. I don’t know if we were better people then, but we were happier…. On a path to self actualization perhaps, without even having a need for such words…
Time may change you, but you can't change time. Greetings from UK, would you say Zeigeist is always the NOW?, definitely a shame we have to move on!, we've had it good though.
There are demos of With Sympathy floating around containing interviews with Al stating he was shopping the album to major labels. The songs are virtually identical to what ended up on the album. So of course he wrote it. It was made before he ever signed to Arista.
It's a great album for an 80s Synth-Pop album. The musical landscape was very different back then. Hardcore had gained a lot of influence over the youth and underground scene by the mid 80s and Al wanted a piece of that energy. He felt he had to disown With Sympathy to get any respect from a large segment of his target audience. And he was right to an extent. Kids today are much different. They realize they can love Land of Rape And Honey, Twitch, Psalm 69, AND With Sympathy all at the same time. Back in the 80s, things were very tribal and your musical tastes had to conform to what was accepted by the tribe you wished to belong to. It was all very silly to be honest.
@@NachtSchreck13 That's crazy , until this day , even on the recent "yahoo" interview (which is awesome actually) he goes on about how he practically didn't write the album, definitely didn't write a few of the songs at all and that "they " wrote the songs and/or made him sing them..etc.. a certain way.
It's hard to know what is true with him at times because he was under the influence and embellishing. And even now his memory is kind of bad where he contradicts himself even in the same interviews. I agree that he likely mostly went against his early synth pop sound because he was changing his taste and styles were changing. Synthpop wasn't the cool thing any longer by the early mid 80s. A lot of it had become mainstream music and not underground edgy in the US. It seems he felt he had to find the next sound which became much darker and hard rock metal influenced. It's likely drugs played a part. It lost too much beauty and became dystopian chaos, almost like a bad psychedelic trip instead of a surreal positive experience. Electronic music did eventually also get more ambient and IDM and it's a shame he didn't or couldn't go that direction instead of metal noise sounding.
I reckon Arista had some influence/guidance on With Sympathy.. but very little. There's no chance they wrote songs for him, or demanded he be pop or new wave. Al already was pop and new wave at that time. Listening to their live gigs around that time, they play the with sympathy material with such conviction. I think Arista merely gave a bit of guidance on streamlining that pop sound a bit more. After it's release, Al was already getting into more underground or hardcore music and decided to go a different direction with Ministry. It is what it is now, but it's a shame he abandoned With Sympathy so viciously, and later Twitch. They are brilliant albums
I Love pretty much every song Al Jurgensen ever put out. He's a musical genius. I saw them at Sick New World festival in Vegas last month and Ministry stole the show
Al Jourgensen Interview - April 20, 1986 - Virginia Theatre, Champaign, Illinois, USA. muthas against punx? refer to psychotic Lancastrians against brains..... good family innovation eventually bites back.
This is a rarity among rarities. I had no idea that the backing band was called Crucial for a bit. And apparently there was going to be a 5 song EP (probably tracks later put on Trax!Box), a video for "We Shall Cleanse The World" and a video planned for the unreleased aggressive remix of "The Angel"! It was cool to see the late Bill Rieflin at the end.
@@b.l.fisher8230 I think that became the "Box Set/Wax 019" project. All instrumentals done by this incarnation of the band, minus Al. Roland's piece recently was released with the Wax Trax documentary. ruclips.net/video/ga2RV4VjQMI/видео.html&ab_channel=WaxTraxRecords
I'm impressed with this interviewer honestly (Where are these people now??), he didn't look the part but he did really well. Good shit. Also, Al is full of it, all his albums are good regardless of what he thinks :P I did like his response about listening to good music tho, fuck being judged by what people think influenced you. Family entertainment, lol.
I can totally understand what AJ was trying to say about his 1983 album "With Sympathy". In my opinion, I don't care about the way that album came to be, because it really gave AJ a time to shine as a pioneer that took complete control of the reigns and his style and become who he was to date. The Genius behing Ministry. Now that I think about it retrospectively.
Digging and searching for the good music was a total Chicago thing (grew up a couple blocks away from Al's parents) . We all did it, and our pirate and indy stations were totally innovative until recently. I grew up on weird music from all over the world because of Chicago.
Watching this video helps me understand SO much better why Trent Reznor looked up to him. He's always seemed so trashed from the 90's on that I never knew he could be so lucid and sane.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s NYC where NYHC, metal and punk ruled, (CBGBs was like a second home to us as well as Coney Island High, the Pyramid, the Bank, etc.)we had No Wave (but by the time I was a teen Lydia Lunch was into Poetry and James Chance was doing I don’t know what) but Industrial bands were few (we had Bile and a few) I always wish I made it to Chicago !!!! Wax Trax had their Night of Chaos at the Limelight back then I saw Meat Beat Manifesto with DJ Zero and Consolidated one night as a 16 year old - back then you could get into the clubs if you knew the door guy which my friend did - That’s about as close as I got. The Limelight is now a shopping mall, all the clubs closed. It was such a great time for all of us back in the 80s and 90s in NYC. I lived in a squat and in an apartment where we paid $150 a month each for rent. I worked in a coffee shop on St Marks and was able to pay rent and live large.
Wish we could have done a foreign student exchange or a prisoner swap or something - was fortunate to have spent my youth hanging out at places like Wax Trax!, Limelight, Warehouse, Metro - one of my best friends was the nephew of John Medusa , (was friends with the family and they would will call us past the line and straight in to the club, lots of nasty looks from those in line, gotta admit, felt pretty cool) but we always wanted to to NYC, to have been able to get into CBGB's was like a dream very, very few of us could afford. Would have loved to be in your shoes !
Some of his mannerisms here remind me of Zappa, especially the response about "Over The Shoulder." Al's a cool guy, I'm so glad I learned about him recently!
thank you!!! his voice...no doubt. i never yet been to a show, so far....so i barely got internet. didn't even recognize him! he's been THAT the WHOLE time??? wow
Wow. Al Jourgensen before he turned into a mere caricature of himself with all those face piercings. He was once a handsome guy....LOVED "With Sympathy," a true 80s classic!
Have no idea who is the interview but he did a amazing job he totally did a good and entertainment interview very different from what we see nowdays when some annoying reporter keeps trying to make dumbs jokes and interrupting the artist all the time
I remember Al sending me a letter talking about a new 5 song ep, a ‘severe’ mix of “Everyday Is Halloween” and a video of The Angel directed by Sleazy.
It's a well-known fact that Al HATES With Sympathy, and that's too bad-for many fans, it's his best work, and sounds nothing like what came later under the Ministry banner, but that's his prerogative. Personally, I love the With Sympathy album and still listen to it to this day. Funniest thing I've seen with regards to this is a picture of Al a few years ago holding a sign saying, "Will sign a copy of With Sympathy for $1000". :D Cool interview, though-thanks for posting it!
Actually, he's re-evaluated the album in recent years and now sees it differently. He sees it as the album that put him on the map and actually has some good concepts and ideas in it. Sometimes the years can soften an opinion on a product. Maybe his thoughts at the time were based on his experience in making the album and his lack of control over the production.
I love that Al has come to peace more with the album With sympathy..he's decided to actually retire ministry by remaking With sympathy and coming full circle. I love it
He did use amphetamines around that time (allegedly that's what Twitch was named after), but from what I gather, his severe drug habits got progressively worse through the late 80s to the 2000's. Al also isn't exactly the world's most credible autobiographer, so take anything he says with a grain of salt.
@@hogmjr makes sense, there's some songs on it he doesn't even seem to contribute much to. Honestly, I always felt like Mind was a step down from LoRaH, too spotty in quality and consistency
According to his autobiography he had quite a few memories to reflect on during the making of Twitch and the MIATTTT. They did have a big bag of hallucinogens during MIATTTT and it messed with them quite a bit. But Dark Side of the Spoon is the album he says he has zero recollection of. He thinks his substance abuse got so out of hand that his mind wasn't able to create any new memories during that time.
The same thing happened to Mobb Deep - ie. the label micromanaged their first album, the got ridiculed for what came of it, so they doubled down on their own style for Da Infamous.
Meanwhile fast forward 10 years in 1996 and Al is wearing a diaper, shooting heroin and paranoid enough to wear a bullet proof vest on stage cause he thinks people are out to kill him. Not making any of this up. Watch the Fix Ministry documentary if you want to know why people think he's nuts. By the end of his drug run in the late 90's/early 00's he was living in a crackhouse. I believe some of his toes were even amputated. He also has a book where he talks about alot of this stuff. Probably even way crazier stories than what I mentioned. Part of the reason Paul left ministry was cause he was sick of cleaning up after Al.
When I was 16 I found a record tape labeled Ministry With Sympathy. I put in in listened for 10 seconds and was like this is the Ministry I like then I recorded over it with Eugene Oregons collage radio punk rock show. Then 20 years later I pain a lot of money to buy it, lol.
I wish he had stayed beautiful and intelligent. Sadly hes changed so. I had their album Twitch and strangely enough it was introduced to me at a Christian music festival by called Jesus 86 in 1986 by some attendees. I still laugh about discovering them at a christian concert.
I'm glad he's come around on With Sympathy in recent years. For a new wave synth pop album, it was edgier and darker than a lot of the stuff that was coming out at the time. Would have been cool to see them tour with Depeche Mode but at the same time I would have hated to see them stuck doing synthpop their entire career, then we wouldn't have gotten their fantastic metal albums. Maybe they could have spun the new wave synthpop thing off into a side project.
william s burroughs impersonation almost perfect, guess he doesn't had run for president as al suggested. the world would have been a better place, and with lots of good smack
Al looks like Travis from the movie Taxi drive.
Al has always been Travis.
Decent.
A tip : you can watch series on KaldroStream. Been using them for watching a lot of movies these days.
@Lee Ford Definitely, been watching on KaldroStream for months myself :)
@Lee Ford Definitely, have been using Kaldrostream for years myself =)
What a guy. So happy he's still with us and keeps making music.
Shame that the music he makes these days sucks so bad.
@@A_Final_Hit A link to your Discogs page would be appreciated.
Al will never die
@@A_Final_Hiteh it’s decent. This era to Filth Pig are untouchable for sure though
Sorry Uncle Al.... I love the with sympathy album........... all of it, and still get fucking nostalgic with everyday is halloween. I'm 48 now and still dance to it at the clubs here in Dallas Texas.
I think he’s warmed up a bit to the early Ministry tracks,
He doesn’t talk harshly about them anymore.
What about the brilliance of "Twitch".
Check out the live version of Halloween he did recently. Maybe a year or two ago anyway. Dave Navarro is on guitar. Cool version, I think!
@@bradyvacationinc
Ministry’s music became weaker and more generic as time went on.
The last good album was “Filth Pig”, everything after that was pretty forgettable.
@@bradyvacationinc that's not cool man. I think people can like whatever. Some of the music I like probably has 10 fans on earth. Who cares? Like what moves you or you find meaningful, not what's popular. Or love what's popular, who cares? I'm gonna go listen to Ministry's Thieves. Then I'm gonna listen to Roxette. Joyride!
I wouldn't be surprised if Al Jourgensen HATES seeing old interviews of himself but the truth is he gave his most interesting interviews back in the day. He was such a smart guy and a music visionary.
Very true
...and still IS.
of course. You know how you see stuff you did 5 years ago and cringe? Now add 3 decades to it... If you don't get douche chills from the crap you did as a youngster you might have big issues.
He looked better with short hair
@@spacefertilizer its still short, bald, the long hair are extensions!
Wow! I have never seen this! Al so young, handsome, very intelligent, witty, personable, articulate and healthy looking. Great interviewer with great questions.
He's s till all of those things (minus the handsome and healthy parts!)
@@tikimax He is none of those things, long lost his creativity, beating same dead horse over and over again. Ministry ended with Last Sucker, everything after that is just cringy as fuck.
@@droogiesouls8635 I can't really argue with you since I haven't followed his career closely since even before Last Sucker. I had noticed Ministry was playing With Sympathy and Twitch (two tours I had seen back in the day) and watching clips of those recent shows lead me to a couple of new interviews. In those interviews I found him to still be "intelligent, witty, personable, articulate". Like many artists in their 50's, 60's and beyond, their creative peak is well behind them. And yet they often still need to make a living. So, they still churn out an album for an excuse to tour and make some cash. As long as folks are willing to show up and buy tickets I don't blame a musician for making a living.
With Sympathy is still one of the greatest synthpop albums of all time.
Agreed
I seriously don't think he hated the music of the album as much as he didn't want the label to get any money from the sales of it. Very much how David Lynch never talked about DUNE because the studio never gave him final cut.
Maybe but that's not saying much lol
💯
It blew me away when i bought it on release. Twitch was so different but those are my two favorite albums by him.
Baby Al! I love this. What a cool look at one of my artistic heroes.
I love this so much...I've never seen a Twitch era interview and Al so young. Even in '86 he hates With Sympathy, wow. Thank you for posting this!
He shouldn’t have made it, then.
@@Andyface79 He's trippin. With sympathy is good, at this point he was all about being hevy
So young and so inspired...this is the Al Jourgensen that had Trent Reznor & Richard Patrick swooning with motivation...Reznor worshipped Uncle Al back then according to Richard Patrick and he was blown away by him too. Something tells me Rob Zombie was a covert disciple of Al’s too around this time up until the early 90s...WaxTrax was saved by Uncle Al’s Ministry & their side projects...there would be no Front 242 or Pigface if it weren’t for Uncle Al.
Pretty Hate Machine was kind of a synthesis of Twitch and Land of Rape.
Trent said that he got the name of Nine Inch Nails from Al describing Ministry's music being like "a nine inch nail hitting your skull".
@@trembling3674 This one Genius note about "Head Like a Hole". genius.com/Nine-inch-nails-head-like-a-hole-lyrics
It’s said that Trent got the name Nine Inch Nails and the name of the first single off of Pretty Hate Machine, Head Like A Hole from an interview of Al’s where he said his own music was driving nine inch nails into a head like a hole.
I’ve been scouring the internet in hopes of finding it.
@@Greedyselfish97 I don’t know how true this may be, but I remember a while ago hearing that the name nine inch nails was referring to the size of nails being used on Christ’s crucifixion.
Wow, Al is so young and really talented, especially back then.
Won't ever sell out again? With age comes wisdom. All our heroes sell out if they live too long. Those bills aren't such a bad thing when your all beat up
Holy shite!!! Never seen this footage... never knew he even did on camera interviews at this point. No tats, coherent, wasn't totally loaded on heroin. This is music history 👍 - and 'Over the Shoulder' was inspired by the invasion of Grenada..... who knew?!?
He also looks very military.
@@te9591 prob just steping into the goth aesthetic, its crazy at how different he looks
@@GnarMarv2 yes. And if you see old pictures he really held a variety of appearances. It started with a top hat/synth pop new wave look. No studs or spikes. There's an image I saw that looked kind of like Skrillex. To then this kind of look. Then a top hat goth look. To then leather jacket/long hair/bandana. Finally arriving at the half military/Jamaican pirate/biker.
He does some interviews since 81, in the wax trax documentary you can see, at this point he was leaving all that gothic, new wave behind.
@@te9591 this is at a time when everyone and I mean EVERY 1 wore Cosby sweaters and had mullets.
its funny how Ministry fans value "With Sympathy" alot higher than Al actually does.
I always consider revco the third version of ministry. The with symphony , 12 inch singles version I do love dearly too
The real Ministry is With Sympathy, Twitch & Land of Rape and Honey. Anything after that is fake.
Al Jourgensen in general is just an artist❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
This is so great. Thanks for sharing this. The best period of Ministry. Twitch and LORAH are by far Ministry's masterpieces and 2 of the most amazing albums ever produced. Al here is the quintessential edgy hipster, and clearly high as hell on coke, speed, or both. Even down to the statement about doing all of his work in Europe - London, Belgium, or Berlin - he was a hipster edgelord. Seeing him here at this stage in his career, I can now understand how he was able to connect with Ian MacKaye to produce the 2 Pailhead records. Sad seeing Bill Rieflin here looking so young and vibrant (surrounded by that infernal cigarette smoke). I've always felt that Jourgensen was a magnet for extremely talented people who would orbit around him and his crew for awhile, then move on. He was like a mix of producer and front man. As a producer, he was able to inspire the people around him to reach their creative potential and he got results, he had an infectious drive and level of self-confidence. 10:47 this perfectly sums up the role of a producer. He also had an absolutely amazing singing voice. His vocal tone was pure gold, much like Kurt Cobain. Unmistakable and irresistible, one of a kind.
11:11 the computer and lone instrument upon which Twitch was produced was the Fairlight CMI II.
Twitch is my favorite Ministry album. It sounds very unique and is Ministry’s closest match to the EBM/Industrial sound. I love seeing this interview from then, but what I would really like to see is live video of this concert and video from any other Twitch tour concerts, beyond the very little Twitch tour video footage that exists today. Hopefully more will turn up.
He did a whole album of instrumental European type stuff once too. It was a bit too European. Weird because we grew up in the same neighborhood and nobody else was doing that at the time.
I've heard that he disowned Twitch as well... but that was his best album. Ministry is just another metal band now.
@@AKITMTwitch was great. Anything post Mind... is just second-rate heavy metal. The RevCo stuff from that era was also awesome
@@haljalykakik2384 Agreed... and I actually love With Sympathy. Twitch was great because of Adrian Sherwood I'd wager.
Agree, Twitch hit the Houston clubs hard, Over the Shoulder was huge in the Texas clubs in 1986-1987 era. It was great! Love With Sympathy as well!
Holy crap this is an amazing interview. Thanks for posting.
This was awesome. Al rarely hits on Twitch any more, but it was a lifeline to the weird kids (like me) in high school in the 80s. Just saw Ministry on Saturday. Seeing him again in September in Cleveland.
- What are your plans for Ministry in the future?
Al - This isn`t even my final form
Oh wow! There’s hardly any Twitch era footage or content this is amazing
Something you don't see anymore - a good interviewer - who researches and remembers his guest's information and facts about the band, and the music, labels, everything - and relaxed in his atmosphere. I truly miss that. Down with wiki - hit the streets.
Watch narduar
@@leroyanthony449 why
@@JSTNtheWZRD he literally does what you're saying interviewers don't do these days
@@leroyanthony449 right, I was talkin' bout him - it's something you don't see - today it's like they roll out of bed after a rough night and read the paper in front of them. It's a sad state of affairs that nobody remembers the work it took to get to where we are at - so it will be lost, so will the talent of the ones being interviewed are starting to become watered down and shallow, plastic. Save the whales!
Nardwuar vs. Ministry.. why didn't it ever happen? .. would've been great!
Been looking for this for years thanks a lot for uploading brilliant footage and finally back on RUclips! 👍
It was yanked twice before and I'm not sure why.
Damn Al looks so young. Damn I love older electronic music
I miss this world. I miss the underground. Being less connected… there was mystery to life. There was bordom. There was your thoughts.
I don’t know if we were better people then, but we were happier…. On a path to self actualization perhaps, without even having a need for such words…
Time may change you, but you can't change time. Greetings from UK, would you say Zeigeist is always the NOW?, definitely a shame we have to move on!, we've had it good though.
So, so true. Now we're all bored because of overstimulation and information. There's no mystery to life anymore.
He admitted he wrote the album, at least. Usually he denies that he wrote it. Well, it's good. He ought to be proud of it.
There are demos of With Sympathy floating around containing interviews with Al stating he was shopping the album to major labels. The songs are virtually identical to what ended up on the album. So of course he wrote it. It was made before he ever signed to Arista.
It's a great album for an 80s Synth-Pop album. The musical landscape was very different back then. Hardcore had gained a lot of influence over the youth and underground scene by the mid 80s and Al wanted a piece of that energy. He felt he had to disown With Sympathy to get any respect from a large segment of his target audience. And he was right to an extent. Kids today are much different. They realize they can love Land of Rape And Honey, Twitch, Psalm 69, AND With Sympathy all at the same time. Back in the 80s, things were very tribal and your musical tastes had to conform to what was accepted by the tribe you wished to belong to. It was all very silly to be honest.
@@NachtSchreck13 That's crazy , until this day , even on the recent "yahoo" interview (which is awesome actually) he goes on about how he practically didn't write the album, definitely didn't write a few of the songs at all and that "they " wrote the songs and/or made him sing them..etc.. a certain way.
It's hard to know what is true with him at times because he was under the influence and embellishing. And even now his memory is kind of bad where he contradicts himself even in the same interviews.
I agree that he likely mostly went against his early synth pop sound because he was changing his taste and styles were changing. Synthpop wasn't the cool thing any longer by the early mid 80s. A lot of it had become mainstream music and not underground edgy in the US. It seems he felt he had to find the next sound which became much darker and hard rock metal influenced. It's likely drugs played a part. It lost too much beauty and became dystopian chaos, almost like a bad psychedelic trip instead of a surreal positive experience. Electronic music did eventually also get more ambient and IDM and it's a shame he didn't or couldn't go that direction instead of metal noise sounding.
I reckon Arista had some influence/guidance on With Sympathy.. but very little. There's no chance they wrote songs for him, or demanded he be pop or new wave.
Al already was pop and new wave at that time. Listening to their live gigs around that time, they play the with sympathy material with such conviction.
I think Arista merely gave a bit of guidance on streamlining that pop sound a bit more.
After it's release, Al was already getting into more underground or hardcore music and decided to go a different direction with Ministry.
It is what it is now, but it's a shame he abandoned With Sympathy so viciously, and later Twitch. They are brilliant albums
the Burroughs goof at the end is gold....hahaha!
I am loving this interview.. how have I never seen this??!! 😍
I Love pretty much every song Al Jurgensen ever put out. He's a musical genius. I saw them at Sick New World festival in Vegas last month and Ministry stole the show
I always thought he was a music genius as well. He was so innovative for the 80s
Al Jourgensen Interview - April 20, 1986 - Virginia Theatre, Champaign, Illinois, USA. muthas against punx? refer to psychotic Lancastrians against brains..... good family innovation eventually bites back.
Thank you for this video! I’ve been searching for this interview forever!
That last bit with Bill Reiflin.....Awesome!!
I love my Al Jorgenson approved tires. Thanks for your continued salesmenship Mr. Jorgenson.
What happened to "The Angel" remix? Did this ever see the light of day anywhere?
Insane how much he changed in just 3 years. From 83 to this
Probably the drugs
Drugs and male pattern baldness
I was actually trying to find this interview.
This is a rarity among rarities. I had no idea that the backing band was called Crucial for a bit. And apparently there was going to be a 5 song EP (probably tracks later put on Trax!Box), a video for "We Shall Cleanse The World" and a video planned for the unreleased aggressive remix of "The Angel"! It was cool to see the late Bill Rieflin at the end.
Been dying to hear that remix of The Angel for years, did it ever make it out as a bootleg?
What happened to the Crucial e.p.? Did it get folded into the Land Of Rape & Honey album?
@@b.l.fisher8230 I think that became the "Box Set/Wax 019" project. All instrumentals done by this incarnation of the band, minus Al. Roland's piece recently was released with the Wax Trax documentary. ruclips.net/video/ga2RV4VjQMI/видео.html&ab_channel=WaxTraxRecords
Seen RevCo and Ministry together a couple times. Badass shows.
Whoa random awesome upload on RUclips 👌👏
Done a little coke there, Al?! This is historic. Thanks so much for sharing it!
Watching this three weeks before I turn 50, and it's amazing to me that I heard about the Revolting Cocks before Ministry 🤘
I'm impressed with this interviewer honestly (Where are these people now??), he didn't look the part but he did really well. Good shit. Also, Al is full of it, all his albums are good regardless of what he thinks :P I did like his response about listening to good music tho, fuck being judged by what people think influenced you. Family entertainment, lol.
I can totally understand what AJ was trying to say about his 1983 album "With Sympathy". In my opinion, I don't care about the way that album came to be, because it really gave AJ a time to shine as a pioneer that took complete control of the reigns and his style and become who he was to date. The Genius behing Ministry.
Now that I think about it retrospectively.
Uncle Al is so charismatic here. I love it!
Deep also, uncle AL on full cylinders here
The definition of a stand up guy. He’s one of us. A goodfella.
accept we he puts od'ing girls in trash cans
Uncle Al - kicking ass from the beginning!!!
Digging and searching for the good music was a total Chicago thing (grew up a couple blocks away from Al's parents) . We all did it, and our pirate and indy stations were totally innovative until recently. I grew up on weird music from all over the world because of Chicago.
Every moment or interview from this guy makes him sound like a really nice and decent guy.
Watching this video helps me understand SO much better why Trent Reznor looked up to him. He's always seemed so trashed from the 90's on that I never knew he could be so lucid and sane.
Only lucid and sane for a few short years, then. I wonder which version Trent looked up to.
I can’t get over how much of a hottie Uncle Al was in his younger days! 😍
Al was a hottie 😻😻😻
He was so hot 😍!
Because of the odd size of youtube on my big screen....looked like the Girl w/ The Pearl Earring with a ball gag. Someone needs to paint that.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s NYC where NYHC, metal and punk ruled, (CBGBs was like a second home
to us as well as Coney Island High, the Pyramid, the Bank, etc.)we had No Wave (but by the time I was a teen Lydia Lunch was into Poetry and James Chance was doing I don’t know what) but Industrial bands were few (we had Bile and a few) I always wish I made it to Chicago !!!! Wax Trax had their Night of Chaos at the Limelight back then I saw Meat Beat Manifesto with DJ Zero and Consolidated one night as a 16 year old - back then you could get into the clubs if you knew the door guy which my friend did -
That’s about as close as I got. The Limelight is now a shopping mall, all the clubs closed. It was such a great time for all of us back in the 80s and 90s in NYC. I lived in a squat and in an apartment where we paid $150 a month each for rent. I worked in a coffee shop on St Marks and was able to pay rent and live large.
Wish we could have done a foreign student exchange or a prisoner swap or something - was fortunate to have spent my youth hanging out at places like Wax Trax!, Limelight, Warehouse, Metro - one of my best friends was the nephew of John Medusa , (was friends with the family and they would will call us past the line and straight in to the club, lots of nasty looks from those in line, gotta admit, felt pretty cool) but we always wanted to to NYC, to have been able to get into CBGB's was like a dream very, very few of us could afford. Would have loved to be in your shoes !
Some of his mannerisms here remind me of Zappa, especially the response about "Over The Shoulder." Al's a cool guy, I'm so glad I learned about him recently!
great interview
Damn, he looks so young...
thank you!!! his voice...no doubt. i never yet been to a show, so far....so i barely got internet. didn't even recognize him! he's been THAT the WHOLE time??? wow
maybe back then, not now (or, 2010+) his shows are recycled canned performances- really boring. not worth going to. best show Ive seen was dive (2000)
Wow. Al Jourgensen before he turned into a mere caricature of himself with all those face piercings. He was once a handsome guy....LOVED "With Sympathy," a true 80s classic!
Shows what you know. He's trashing that album, telling his audience who and what he really wanted to be and he became who he was on the inside.
"a mere caricature of himself" LMAO dumbest comment on the page. Looking normal is a caricature.
@@HumanoidMachine And yet he performed songs from that album very recently after 40 years which can be seen on RUclips
@AvioftheSand yeah he came around but it took him a while
He got all the piercings in one go because his daughter basically called him a pussy.
Great upload! Thanks!
Woww!!! Young Al!
Beautiful man...Genius musician 🖤
Very cool! His book is intense as hell
Twitch is by far my favorite album and era
i miss THIS al jourgensen. the elderly metal head jourgensen just... depresses me.
Have no idea who is the interview but he did a amazing job he totally did a good and entertainment interview very different from what we see nowdays when some annoying reporter keeps trying to make dumbs jokes and interrupting the artist all the time
I remember Al sending me a letter talking about a new 5 song ep, a ‘severe’ mix of “Everyday Is Halloween” and a video of The Angel directed by Sleazy.
Oh man he was looking quite normal at that time :-D Keep going dude! P.S. Nice cap!
Jougensen says he listens to "The Right Stuff" fuckin HILARIOUS to those of Us who remember New Kids On The Block.
As a Cuban/American who started listening to Ministry back in the late 80’s I had no idea Alejandro Ramirez Casas Aka Al Jourgensen was Cuban.
With Sympathy is still one of fav.
With Sympathy is my favorite Ministry album. Funny how that goes
I personally dig deep for music that is mind blowing, underground gems! I won't settle for mainstream $h¡T!
With Sympathy is a GREAT ALBUM!!!
He was so lucid, drugs and alcohol didn't do him amy favors. Effigy and Halloween rocked
Did anything ever become of the Crucial side project?? Been listening to industrial/Ministry for thirty+ years and this is the first I’ve heard of it.
Holy shit, the William Burroughs impression at the end… 😂😂😂
Sorry Uncle Al With Sympathy is awesome. And shows that you can make new wave! HA!
That ending was gold. Lol
I can’t believe I just turned 8 when this interview happened
Same with me.
Insane how much older he looked ten years later during the Spinchtour in 1996. Drugs had taken their toll.
And he looks even worse now. Maybe not Chet Baker bad, yet the face is prematurely ravaged. But he's alive.
a perfect example of why AJ is one of my idols
I loved that random stuff at the end. Was that a William Burroughs impression?
It's a well-known fact that Al HATES With Sympathy, and that's too bad-for many fans, it's his best work, and sounds nothing like what came later under the Ministry banner, but that's his prerogative. Personally, I love the With Sympathy album and still listen to it to this day. Funniest thing I've seen with regards to this is a picture of Al a few years ago holding a sign saying, "Will sign a copy of With Sympathy for $1000". :D Cool interview, though-thanks for posting it!
Actually, he's re-evaluated the album in recent years and now sees it differently. He sees it as the album that put him on the map and actually has some good concepts and ideas in it. Sometimes the years can soften an opinion on a product. Maybe his thoughts at the time were based on his experience in making the album and his lack of control over the production.
He needs to revisit the old stuff.
I love that Al has come to peace more with the album With sympathy..he's decided to actually retire ministry by remaking With sympathy and coming full circle. I love it
“Life keeps slipping away ...Monkey kills without hesitation “
I'm drunk,, is that Bill Rieflin at the end?
Omfg Al is sooo young!!!
is that bill rieflin at the end? I bet Crucial was everyone from The Blackouts
yes
Al should be in the rock Hall of Fame.
Already Hall of Fame for WaxxxTraxxx. That is plenty
Rock Hall is too commercial
With sympathy one of my favorite albums, its a fun album. The business probably sucks, but al's voice is so pure on that album.
Al appearing cognizant even though I read that he barely remembers the Twitch era from all his drug taking then.
He did use amphetamines around that time (allegedly that's what Twitch was named after), but from what I gather, his severe drug habits got progressively worse through the late 80s to the 2000's.
Al also isn't exactly the world's most credible autobiographer, so take anything he says with a grain of salt.
The mind is a terrible thing to taste is the album he almost dont remember shit
@@hogmjr makes sense, there's some songs on it he doesn't even seem to contribute much to.
Honestly, I always felt like Mind was a step down from LoRaH, too spotty in quality and consistency
According to his autobiography he had quite a few memories to reflect on during the making of Twitch and the MIATTTT. They did have a big bag of hallucinogens during MIATTTT and it messed with them quite a bit. But Dark Side of the Spoon is the album he says he has zero recollection of. He thinks his substance abuse got so out of hand that his mind wasn't able to create any new memories during that time.
Al Jourgensen for president!!!
The same thing happened to Mobb Deep - ie. the label micromanaged their first album, the got ridiculed for what came of it, so they doubled down on their own style for Da Infamous.
is that Bill Rieflin at the end?? R.I.P.
Northern Illinois, yeah baby! Love you uncle Al! Pailhead Trait forever!
Gotta love this guy
I don't understand why people call this man crazy...his music is wild and awesome but his personality is super laid back.
Meanwhile fast forward 10 years in 1996 and Al is wearing a diaper, shooting heroin and paranoid enough to wear a bullet proof vest on stage cause he thinks people are out to kill him. Not making any of this up. Watch the Fix Ministry documentary if you want to know why people think he's nuts. By the end of his drug run in the late 90's/early 00's he was living in a crackhouse. I believe some of his toes were even amputated. He also has a book where he talks about alot of this stuff. Probably even way crazier stories than what I mentioned. Part of the reason Paul left ministry was cause he was sick of cleaning up after Al.
A video of the song THE ANGEL? I NEVER SEE HERE IN RUclips ALSO I DIDN'T KNOW EXIST THAT VIDEO!!
I freaking love With Sympathy. I’ll never consider it a sell out. It’s so iconic 🖤🖤🖤
Al understood everything decades before the others. It marked an incredible growth of badness in his music
Whata nice guy back then...
Good interview
When I was 16 I found a record tape labeled Ministry With Sympathy. I put in in listened for 10 seconds and was like this is the Ministry I like then I recorded over it with Eugene Oregons collage radio punk rock show. Then 20 years later I pain a lot of money to buy it, lol.
I wish he had stayed beautiful and intelligent. Sadly hes changed so.
I had their album Twitch and strangely enough it was introduced to me at a Christian music festival by called Jesus 86 in 1986 by some attendees. I still laugh about discovering them at a christian concert.
What kind souls, introducing you to music that didn't suck.
I remember wearing ministry shirts back in the day and Christians thought it was a religious group 🤣
Angel remix? NEED!!!!!! I wonder what ever became of it.
A copy made it to the Wax Trax store back in the day, and hasn't been heard since. Just waiting for Al to release it ;)
I really liked this interview lol, the interviewer seemed cool
I'm glad he's come around on With Sympathy in recent years. For a new wave synth pop album, it was edgier and darker than a lot of the stuff that was coming out at the time. Would have been cool to see them tour with Depeche Mode but at the same time I would have hated to see them stuck doing synthpop their entire career, then we wouldn't have gotten their fantastic metal albums. Maybe they could have spun the new wave synthpop thing off into a side project.
william s burroughs impersonation almost perfect, guess he doesn't had run for president as al suggested. the world would have been a better place, and with lots of good smack