How did you meet Al?
alj I was invited to Texas on this press junket for Gary Clail of Tackhead, and while I was in Austin I met Phildo Owen from the Skatenigs. He was going on and on about working with Al Jourgensen from Ministry and just saying how awesome he was. I said, “He sounds really cool. I’d like to meet that guy.” As fate would have it, I was in Toronto, and Ogre was touring with Ministry and they were playing in Toronto. Annette got Ogre to put me on the guest list for the show. I probably could have gotten in anyway, ’cause I was kind of a Toronto It Girl at the time—I was young and crazy and people love that. But I went to the show, and afterward I went to go say hi to Ogre, and he introduced me to Al. I went to say hello, and all of a sudden I got really shy. I was just like, “Oh, my God, I’ve just heard so much about you and I love your music.” We went back to his hotel room and he took a coat hanger and jerry-rigged the locked minibar, and we drank cheap wine in those little bottles until it ran out. And then I was like, “Well, I’ve got a loft downtown. I’ve got tons of booze there. Let’s go to my place.” So we did. I played him Chinese music, and it was kind of like young love, but he was, like, married so nothing happened between us. But it’s weird. I told my girlfriend afterward: “That’s the guy I’m going to marry.” I just knew that I was going to marry Al one day. It was crazy talk, because he was already married, but somehow I just knew.
You traveled with Revolting Cocks for a week on their first US tour.
alj After he left Toronto he sent me this FedEx, which was a big deal back then. It was like a love letter, but it was like a ransom note, in which every letter was cut out from newspapers and magazines. We just kept in touch, and then he was going on tour with Revolting Cocks, and he got in touch with me and said, “I want you to come on tour with us.” So I hooked up with them in New York and went with them all through Florida and New Orleans. They all say I was crazy on that tour and they kicked me off the bus, but they were just as wild. They were dropping LSD in their eyes, chasing each other, beating each other up, and a lot of cross-pollenization was taking place. I personally do not remember anything about handcuffs, but I was pretty wasted back in those days. I was one of those girls who you are attracted to but at the same time are absolutely terrified of. I think that was going on for Al. But everything’s true about me being completely wild and out of my mind. I scared half the band and crew on that tour. It was out of control but totally awesome. Having a woman in that dynamic sometimes doesn’t work for too long on a tour bus. I’ve been on the other side of the fence now, and I’ve had girls come on the bus who are the way I was, and I’m like, “Okay, sweetie, time to go!” But I did have an appointment to meet my parents in Niagara Falls, so I had to leave the tour anyway and take a thirty-hour train ride to meet them. And by the way, I got my own hotel room in New Orleans. Those guys didn’t pay for anything! I paid for everything, including the booze. Cheap bastards.
Did you stay in touch with Al?
alj When he was at Chicago Trax! I called every now and then, and we would talk. And once or twice a year he would call me out of the blue.
Al said he called you up to record you babbling about dream angels in a semicoherent state on “Dream Song” from The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste. When did you kick drugs and alcohol?
alj “Dream Song” was a poem I had written about a dream I had about an angel. I had no idea Al was recording me at the time, but when TMIATTTT came out and I heard the track, I thought it was a very beautiful, dark song. I got clean and sober in 1991. I knew that if I didn’t quit, I was going to die. I was living with this guy in Toronto in a squat. One night I drank a lot, and I don’t remember doing this, but I took a bunch of pills and went into a coma. I woke up three days later, blue and lying in the bathtub. Everyone I had been squatting with was gone because they thought I was dead—including the guy I was living with. I saw that I was losing my grasp on reality, so I moved to New York, where I met this really nice older Italian man, a mentor named Joey, who was born the same day as Michael Cohl. He lived in my neighborhood, and one day he looked at me with this expression of absolute fear for my sanity. I don’t remember exactly what he said to me, but that look was chilling and snapped me in two. I realized, “Okay, I need to smarten up—right now!”
Did you go into rehab?
alj No, I did it on my own. I wasn’t a drug addict like Al. I had experimented with drugs, but my drug of choice was alcohol. I was a garden-variety addict. At parties I’d do whatever was there as long as it got me out of my head, and I had a very high tolerance for alcohol. I preferred drinking with men because they could hold their liquor. I liked Wild Turkey. I was like a character in Barfly. But when I made the decision to get sober, the compulsion to use was lifted from me. I was very fortunate, and I attribute my long-term sobriety to my faith in Jesus Christ. I have a very strong spiritual connection that is a very important part of my life that centers me. I’ve never relapsed, and I’ve been sober for more than twenty-two years.
You went back to school in New York?
alj I went to the New School for Social Research, and I graduated with my bachelor of arts in anthropology, and then after that I went to Pratt and got my CPA. I started working as a financial consultant for sculptors, poets, writers, architects, designers, photographers, painters, literary agents. And I also worked for an arts organization editing manuscripts and presentations. My specialty was taking someone who was in the red, even though they had tons of cash flow, and helping to turn them around so they would be in the black. I loved working with artists, and I still do.
Where were you when Al called you to reach out for help the day he was on the verge of killing himself?
alj I was living in Little Italy when he called. Before that, in 1999, on the Dark Side of the Spoon tour, they were playing Roseland, and I went to the show. I got backstage just to say hey to Al, and I’ll never forget what he looked like. His eyes were black, hollow holes. He looked like one of those Grays he talks about. We hung out for a little bit, and after I left I cried for three days because I felt for sure that I was never gonna see him alive again. He called me a lot on the phone after that encounter. A few years later I was coming out of yoga class—Jivamukti—and my cell phone rang. I was walking down 4th Street, and I saw a weird number on the caller ID, but I just picked it up, and it was Al. I hadn’t talked to him in more than a year, which was the longest we’d ever gone without checking in. That scared me so badly. I had tried to find him in Chicago and couldn’t. He said he was in El Paso working on a record and that he had to come to New York. Now he had never been shy about talking about drugs with me, but whenever we spoke I always told him that if he ever wanted to get clean, he should just give me a call. I was doing a lot of volunteer work in harm reduction and needle exchange, and I was volunteering on the Lower East Side with addicts. I had a lot of friends—recovering addicts, junkies, some of them even worse than Al had ever been—and they were clean ten, fifteen years and stuff. So he called me up and said, “Y’know, I just gotta get out of here for a little while.” I knew what that meant because he hates New York. Why would he want to go there?
How did he let you know he needed your help getting clean?
alj I met him at the airport. He got off the plane, and I said, “Okay, what’s up?” And the first words out of his mouth, besides “You look really pretty,” were, “I have to get clean. I can’t do this anymore. Angie, you have to help me.” I said “I will. I told you I would, and I will.” So I called all my ex-junkie friends, and we did our form of an intervention.
What condition was he in at the time?
alj He was a hot mess, really bad. He was gray-green. He had scabs up and down his body. He couldn’t find veins anymore. He was a fricking pincushion, and he was on so much methadone, like 150mg. He’d take that shit, sit on the couch, and rock for like an hour until he stopped shaking. He left and went to Sonic Ranch to work o
n Animositisomina, but he called me there all the time and said, “You gotta come out. You gotta help me get clean.” September 11 had just happened in New York. I saw the second tower go down. I was only eight blocks away. It was the most horrible sound, and I had nightmares about that for years—being on the street and hearing people screaming. It was a really depressing time to be in New York, so I was like, “What the hell? I’ll go to Texas and be with Al.”
What happened in Sonic Ranch?
alj We had a good time. Al was making Animositisomina, and I was hanging out in the desert, which was superfun. Once the record was finished we packed up all his worldly possessions and threw them in his pickup truck, ’cause that’s basically all he had left—well, besides a gigantic IRS debt and a huge monthly alimony payment. He was planning to go live in Germany with this girl Sabina, but that all changed. He wasn’t thinking straight. He had just been pilfered to death. Everyone was taking, taking, taking, and no one gave a shit, really, including him to certain extent, because he was really fucked on methadone, crack, and heroin.
He said you got him clean in New York before Ministry made Animositisomina.
alj I’m not gonna say that he was clean then. I would say that his clean date is probably September of 2002. That’s when he did his last crack. Before he got clean he had to get out of the environment he was in, get away from the people he was surrounded by. We left Sonic Ranch and headed to New York. Al was driving his truck, and he’s detoxing off the methadone. He jumped off at 15mg, and I talked to my ex-junkie methadone biker-dude friends, and when I tell them that, they’re like, “I jumped off from 5mg and I cried like a baby.” And here’s Al, jumping off 15mg and driving, gritting his teeth. We kept seeing signs to Graceland, and he said, “Uhhh, do you wanna go to Graceland?” I told him I had never been there and I’d love to go. So he said, “Okay, let’s go to Graceland. Let’s make a pit stop.” That’s what I love about him. He’s so spontaneous. He drove a little more and then said, “They’ve got a place called Heartbreak Hotel. Why don’t you call to see if we can get a reservation?” So I called up and got a reservation. We drove a little closer and there was a sign that said, “Chapel.” And he said, “Hey, they got a Chapel in the Woods there at Graceland. You wanna get married?”
You got married in Graceland?
alj Yes. But after he said that I asked, “Was that your proposal? ‘Wanna get married?’” He said, “Well . . . yeah.” So I called the Chapel, and they were booked for six months ahead. Then, as fate would have it, they called back because they had a last-minute cancellation and a spot opened up, so we got married at Graceland. It was just us and the minister. Then we jumped back in the truck and headed for New York. We got a really good doctor, Dr. Goldberg, who was Abby Hoffman’s doctor, and he helped Al get off the rest of the methadone he was on. I do not recommend detoxing at home. Not only is it completely dangerous; it’s also very difficult on your partner. He literally had such bad cramps that he was rolled up in a ball. I had to change the sheets every hour. Sweat was pouring off of him, and he couldn’t get comfortable. He said it felt like ants were crawling all over him. They gave him Catapres (Clonidine), but his tolerance was so high that shit wasn’t helping at all. He really needed to be in a hospital (which he hates), so he chose to suffer through it, which was hell to watch.
Al said he considered himself an atheist until he suffered a ruptured ulcer and almost died. He added that making it through three brushes with death is too much of a coincidence and that there’s gotta be some force that wants him to still be here.
alj First of all, I disagree that he was an atheist. I don’t believe that. I think Al is a very spiritual person, and I think he has great, forceful energy. He can will things to happen. He’s a very strong being who can will things into motion. He’s just not always connected. He wasn’t an atheist; it’s just that spirituality wasn’t important. It wasn’t in his range. It wasn’t a priority of any kind.
When Ministry were selling a million records and touring as one of the main acts on Lollapalooza, Al wasn’t happy. He says he hates being onstage and didn’t want to be a rock star, just a musician.
alj If you take away all the smoke and mirrors, Al’s really a very quiet, private, shy person.
Where does all the rage and the pain in Ministry come from? Was he programmed to rebel, or did he have a difficult upbringing that led him to lash out?
alj He didn’t have a hard life, per se, on the outside, because his father, Ed, provided very well for his family, and he had a really nice upper-middle-class existence for a while. But I think the pain came from being abandoned by his real father. If you read [the works of developmental psychologist] Erik Erickson, he talks about levels at which abandonment and rejection at various ages manifest themselves later in life. Al had an early abandonment, plus his mother, God bless her, she was a baby having a baby. He was brought to a new country, not speaking English, living with a white man who wasn’t really his father. And he witnessed his grandmother die of face cancer. That’s gotta take its toll on a child. I’ve been with Al for more than ten years now, and I cannot tell you the exact root cause of his deep-seated anger. But whatever happened I’m sure it was really bad. I do know that rejection, abandonment, and betrayal can cause a lot of damage.
He said his grandmother was his moral compass.
alj People are always scared to meet Al, but I tell them that he is, like, a really nice Cuban Midwest guy. And he still has a strong code of honor. As much as there’s all this other crap that’s on top, it’s smoke and lights. It’s part of the circus. Al would never steal from anyone, and he would never rip anyone off. He would never purposefully hurt someone who hadn’t hurt him. I mean, if you hurt Al, it’s a different story. If you do it first, he’ll kill you. If you punch him first, he’s gonna pulverize you.
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chapter 14
Animositisomina—Twice the
Animosity, Half the Substance
Once the buzz from the wedding wore off, reality set back in. And for the first time in twenty-one years I couldn’t cloud it with narcotics. It’s one thing to stay off drugs, but living in the normal world without being heavily anaesthetized after decades of being a junkie is a real mind-fuck. I had panic attacks. I’d hyperventilate. I was insecure about writing and playing without being loaded. And some of the people I was hanging out with were still using, which made staying clean even harder.
The whole recording cycle for Animositisomina, started in an ominous way that foreshadowed the whole experience. We flew in from Austin during the worst dust storm in the history of El Paso. When we landed on the runway it looked like Mars. There was red sand everywhere. The sky was yellow, and I took that as a sign. Even when I was doing hallucinogens with Tim I never stared up at a yellow sky; at least there weren’t any spiders. The owner of Sonic Ranch Studio, Tony Rancich, met us at the airport and he and Barker headed to baggage check. I said, “Uh, I just gotta use the bathroom. Can you get my bag for me?” I didn’t go to the bathroom. I got back in line and tried to book a ticket to Austin. There was one guy ahead of me in line, and then Tony and Paul saw me and said, “You don’t have any bags!” I was busted.
Sonic Ranch is a huge residential studio in an area overlooking Mexico about thirty miles east of El Paso. The whole time we were there we could see Mexicans swimming across the Rio Grande and using the trees as cover to cross the border. And every night border patrolmen were there to round them up and send them back. But some of them got through. I say, “Welcome to Texas, Puta Madres! Drive friendly, the Texas Way!” Skrew guitarist, Adam Grossman, who played on the record, suggested the place to Barker because it was so remote—and it might help me stay clean. Thanks a lot, Adam. Never ask me to produce another Skrew record for you.
To be honest, Barker had more to do with that record than I did. I had to turn it over because I wasn’t healthy yet, mentally or physically.
I was a mess, and I didn’t want to be there. But what a great idea: help a guy kick a twenty-year heroin, coke, and meth habit by making him do a record and putting him in the studio in the middle of nowhere. I wasn’t happy about that one at all. And neither was Rey, who had just gotten clean as well. Actually, he was more miserable than I was, if that’s possible. I suffered in silence. He complained about everything, from the beats he was playing to the sound of his drums to the food. Part way, through, Angie said, “I’d never met anyone that I actually wanted to be on heroin until Rey.” He couldn’t handle it, so we had to let him go. We replaced him with Max Brody for most of the record.
Louis Svitek and Adam played on most of the record. Angie sang backup on “Lockbox.” We did a Magazine cover “The Light Pours Out of Me,” which we had been playing live for a long time. That was cool, I guess. But I didn’t think the songs held up. I wasn’t even drinking, and I’ve never done anything good artistically without alcohol.
Animositisomina was a perfunctory album to help get me out of my contract with Sanctuary Records. It was like Iggy Pop doing vacuum cleaner noises to get out of his Arista deal. They had to push me in front of the mic in a chair. I’d be doubled over in pain, and someone would say, “Action,” and I’d start screaming, “Blah, blah, blah, blah!” Done. Then they’d have to wait an hour for me to recuperate. Really, that album was a non-album, but it was definitely an exercise in endurance. My ulcers had probably already started, only I didn’t know it, and I had to deal with people I did not want to be in the same fucking room with. I just wanted to smash a bottle over their fucking heads. I didn’t like the music; I didn’t like the vibe. And I didn’t like the fact that I had to put the name Ministry on the record. I felt like I was being held hostage. I’m sure there’s some good stuff on there, because if you have been schooled doing music, every dog’s ass winds up in the sun. But it’s my second least favorite album to that first sonic abortion With Sympathy. There was no sympathy there. It was just use, use, use. Get your shit together so we can go out and be rock stars again.
Ministry Page 30