With one week left of rehearsals, I had no bass player and no guitar player. So I got two El Paso locals, bassist Eddy Garcia and guitarist Rick Valles, both of whom used to play in Pissing Razors. We rehearsed intensively, around the clock for that last week, and pulled it off. Those fuckers saved my ass. I can never say a bad thing about them. Of course, there had to be drama and trauma for the Evil Doer tour, otherwise it wouldn’t be Ministry. During the end of the rehearsal party I broke my elbow—and we were supposed to hit the road the next day. Fucking typical.
I broke my elbow trying to jump a fire engine. Eddy, Mikey, and I had gone to Graham’s Corner to celebrate, and I was roaring drunk. I heard this vehicle coming around the street, and I thought for sure it was a fire engine. I went hauling ass across the parking lot at closing time to jump on the back of the fire engine, like Iggy Pop had done. That song “Fire Engine,” which RevCo covered on Cocked and Loaded, is about Iggy hopping onto a fire engine because he knew it was going to the LES in New York, and he wanted a free ride to score drugs. So I hear this vehicle and I’m thinking, “Yes, I’m gonna be just like Iggy!” I scream, “Fire Engine!” and jump on the fucking thing. I’m at the side door, and I pulled down my pants and mooned the driver. It was a street sweeper with yellow lights, not a fire engine. I was yelling stupid drunk shit at him. He said, “Get off my fucking truck!” I yelled, “Fuck you!” And he said, “Oh yeah? Fuck you!” Then he turned right into a curb and I went tumbling into a parking lot and smashed my elbow. I found out later from Eddy, who turned out to be his old friend, that the guy was a murderer who had been in jail for eight years and had just gotten out. He was on a work-release program, driving city trucks. I went to see my doctor, and he fixed me up with a cast that I could still play in. Then, two days later, we were on the bus and somebody came out of the bathroom, slammed open the door, and the edge of it smashed into Mikey’s elbow and cracked it. So now we were both in casts. Angie wouldn’t let us party. At the end of the night we had to sit there and ice our casts on the bus alone. We hated that tour.
Because Mikey and I were in lockdown, the Evil Doer tour was a pretty uneventful until we tried to get into Canada. Eddy was out of his mind when we got to border patrol. The custom’s officer came on our bus and asked Eddy who he was and what he was doing—pretty basic questions that are easy to answer even when you’re wasted. For the life of me, I don’t understand why cops can’t come up with challenging questions to ask people they suspect of being under the influence. Say the alphabet and touch your nose? Walk a straight line? I mean, c’mon. Well, the straight line thing can be a challenge, but why don’t they ask questions that require serious thought, like, “Explain your proposal for health care reform?” or “If the mortgage rates stay under 4 percent and unemployment rises above 8 percent, what are the chances of finding good Mu Shu pork in the mall cafeteria?”
Unfortunately, the cop in Canada didn’t need any such brainteasers for Eddy, who blurted out, “I’m homeless and parentless and have no destination!” That’s not the right thing to say to a custom’s guy. Officers promptly dragged Eddy into their interrogation room and started to search our bus. Now, here is a tip for any young bands who have drugs on their bus or in their van. Leave burgers or pizza out; it distracts the guard dogs. They will go straight for the food and forget about the pot, coke, anthrax spores, or whatever else you might be hiding. Not that I advocate traveling with any of that stuff—I’m just saying.
The one day that I wish the police had been in the right place at the right time was December 8. We were playing the Newport Music Hall in Columbus, Ohio, the same night Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell was shot and killed down the street at Alrosa Villa while playing with his new band, Damageplan. Dimebag had actually called Angie about a week before Columbus and said, “Man, let us get on your show. We’d be happy to open for you.” But we were supposed to be in Mexico City two days after Columbus, and Angie was neck-deep in all this stuff from the customs incident. What’s more, she couldn’t just add them to our bill because we already had bands we were playing with, and the venue had their set times all scheduled; Damageplan had their gig booked too, with a guarantee they would have had to get out of. So Angie said, “I’d love to, but I can’t switch your show to ours at the last minute. I wish you’d called me earlier. As a matter of fact, you should have opened for us the whole tour.” So he apologized and said, “Okay, we’ll just do our show.”
When we pulled into the venue, this car parked behind our bus and stayed there for hours. I looked out the back window and thought, “Who the fuck is that guy?” Our tour manager, Gord Spencer, went to check, and the car immediately sped off. I’m pretty sure it was Dime’s killer, Nathan Gale, and he realized the bus wasn’t Damageplan’s bus but rather ours, so he got the fuck out of there. We went onstage and were in the middle of our show when all of a sudden twenty bouncers went running to the side of the stage and just stood there. I knew something was wrong, but no one told us what had happened because we needed to finish our set. When we got off stage Angie and Gord told us that Dimebag was shot at a venue a block away. Mikey and I rushed to the hospital to see if he was okay because no one had any details. No one knew that four people were killed, including Dimebag, and seven others were wounded. The hospital was filled with police cars and ambulances, and we saw trails of blood from the front door all the way down the hall, so we knew it was bad. We weren’t family, so they wouldn’t let us see him, but we sat at the hospital for a couple hours until we heard Dime was gone. We didn’t see Dime’s brother, Vinnie Paul, or his longtime girlfriend, Rita Haney, or anything. Just blood trails. Finally we left, and that’s when we found out what happened. That was one of those freaky moments when I didn’t know if I really heard what I just heard. I just didn’t want to believe it. But I couldn’t deny reality—that’s one thing I’ve learned over the years.
chapter 16
Rio Grande Blood
and Other Cocky Shit
If anyone ever tells you the First Amendment is all you need to protect your right to free expression as an American citizen, I have a charming piece of real estate to sell you in Detroit. By law you can say anything you want as long as you’re not presenting a clear and present danger, provoking violence, or inciting illegal action and as long as your utterances aren’t an imminent threat to national security. That’s all true. But since 9/11 the Patriot Act gives the government the right to investigate anyone it considers subversive to their interests. And they can be pretty vindictive to entertainers who take pot shots at them.
I don’t know if anyone from the Bush administration ever heard Houses of the Molé, but I do know the IRS harassed me and Angie seven times. That’s the first thing the government does when it has a vendetta—it sicks the IRS in the hope it’ll find something dodgy in your finances. Look at Al Capone. He was a notorious criminal, and the only thing they could bust him for was tax evasion. Fortunately I pay my taxes. But we got hassled and audited. There’d be a knock at the door, and Angie would have to come up with all the proper receipts for all the business expenses they were investigating. It’s a good thing she has all that under control; otherwise, I’d probably be in a cell with Al Capone.
During the Bush years the IRS was relentless. We were fucked with so much by that administration. Payback’s a bitch, so I sang about it. I made my point clear, I think. We were completely harassed. One day a government agent knocked at our front door, stating that our IPS address had been used to hack into a bank account and asked if he could he come in and check it out? I think he tapped our phones. They treated us like criminals, not activists, so I sang about it.
Ministry did a couple more tours, and Angie and I saved enough money to buy our compound in El Paso. Then we built a huge studio on the property—13th Planet Studio. That’s the name of our record company as well; we’re fully autonomous. We’ve done albums by Ministry and Revolting Cocks, Prong, Ascension of the Watchers, wh
ich is Burton C. Bell from Fear Factory’s gothic-rock side project. I’ve produced a bunch of stuff here for other bands and worked on remixes. It’s the best investment I’ve ever made. We’re still a small operation with a shoestring and tampon budget. We got nothing. But we don’t want to be more. We like what we do. We’ve got our studio, our corporation, and that’s all we want. No one has to get booked on Dancing with the Stars or American Idol. I can work on my own stuff anytime I want, and maybe some records will take off and others will flop. Who cares? We’re with friends, and we have the luxury of doings things at our leisure. And it’s fun.
That’s the big thing I discovered. Making music and being creative with people you like can be a blast. As soon as all the guys in the band who I didn’t get along with were gone, the air suddenly felt cleaner and the sun shone brighter. Even when it rained—which doesn’t happen a lot in El Paso—the showers seemed refreshing. I wasn’t fighting all the time. I was working with friends like Mikey; guitarist Tommy Victor from Prong; bassist Casey Orr, who used to be in GWAR; and bassist Tony Campos, who was in Static-X; and guitarist Sin Quirin. And I started just calling up friends on a whim to pitch in, people like guitarist Rick Nielsen or vocalist Robin Zander from Cheap Trick or ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons. I’m still, like, a grumpy kid, but at least I have my candy store and the hours are flexible. If we want to drink, we drink. If we want to do a Ministry record or a Revolting Cocks record we’ll do that.
As much of an idealist as I can be, I’m also a realist. I understand that Ministry bankrolls this machine, and that makes Ministry records more like work and less like fun. Yeah, alright. Usually they’re sheer, soul-sucking drudgery. Every song’s like a little demon that swoops down and takes a chunk out of my flesh with razor-sharp teeth. But I usually kinda like them when they’re done—at least for a little while. Then it’s on to the next project. I’m like a shark. I have to be moving, attacking schools of fish, looking for bigger prey. If I stop swimming, I drown.
After we got done touring for Houses of the Molé it was time to start working on the follow-up, Rio Grande Blood. Mikey bowed out of that one, which he used to do every couple albums or so. I called up Tommy Victor, the guitarist for Prong, whose next album, Power of the Damager, I released in October 2007 on 13th Planet.
My history with Tommy goes way back. I met him in Detroit in 1988. Prong brought this chick on our bus with, and then he sat there and insulted my music and me for the next hour. But he did it in such an endearing way that I stopped short of clocking him. He’s an asshole, but he’s a funny asshole, so I laugh. When the bus was leaving Detroit Tommy left this chick on the bus with us. Prong left. Turns out this chick was psycho. We had a party in my hotel room, and I was lying on the bed shooting up when this chick, who I hardly said two words to, started saying shit like, “Honey, you have to put the needles away so we can kick everyone out because we have to take the kids to school tomorrow.” I was like, “Fuck, what kids? Who are you? And are you going to try to bury an ice pick in my chest in the middle of the night?”
I asked Curly, the huge Scottish tour manager, to delicately get this girl away from me. He said, “Excuse me, you have to come with me, Lassie.” He took her out into the hallway, and then I heard all this screaming. I looked through the peephole, and this chick is kicking Curly’s ass. She was a total psycho. Prong dumped her on me on purpose. That scene was pretty much a microcosm of my relationship with Tommy. I love the guy, but whenever he enters the picture there’s turmoil. It’s like he’s a borderline personality or something. I mean, I’ve got personality issues—God knows that. I can be bipolar and grumpy or manic as fuck. But Tommy has a gift for getting everyone around him agitated. I love the guy, but he complains about everything and always says the wrong thing at the wrong time. Maybe it’s the New Yorker in him.
The two of us have gotten into scuffles loads of times. Once, he was complaining about the bus, and I got fed up and kicked him in the balls with a sturdy boot. He crumbled into a ball, moaning. I was like, “Dude, shut up! You just got off a van tour with Prong. You’re in a bus now that’s far more comfortable. Why are you still complaining?” But I’m serious when I say I love the guy. We’re like brothers.
Just as we were debating who would play bass on the Rio Grande Blood, Raven from Killing Joke contacted Angie and asked if she knew of anyone who needed a bassist. It was almost too good to be true. I was a big Killing Joke fan for a long time, and Raven just happens to be e-mailing Angie right when I was thinking of doing a record. Perfect timing. Raven stayed with us in our house in El Paso, and we immediately hit it off. The guy was a character and a pirate. I have an oil painting of him in my kitchen, and even though he’s dead now, he’s still looking down at me. I can feel it. Rio Grande Blood came together well. Once again, the title was a classic rock spoof, this time of ZZ Top’s Rio Grande Mud. Tommy and I played all the guitars, and Raven played bass with a preternatural ability. It was like he was in the band the whole time and Barker had never existed. Mark Baker played most of the drums, and our engineer, Justin Leeah, did some drum programming as well.
The songs maintained that fast, heavy vibe of Houses of the Molé, and thematically it was an even more venomous attack against George Bush. I used snippets from his speeches and twisted them around in the name of art. He twists his own words; I just figured I’d give him a little extra help. The lyrics address all the lies and hypocrisies of the Bush presidency: the unconscionable greed behind the war in the Middle East—spilling blood for oil and the evils of corporations like Halliburton. “Lieslieslies” was about the attack on the World Trade Center and the possibility that it was a government conspiracy, something I don’t really believe anymore, if I ever did—that administration wasn’t smart enough to pull that off. In the song we used samples from the movie Loose Change, and somehow got nominated for a Grammy for Best Metal Performance in 2006. Ministry had also been nominated in 2005 for “The Great Satan” and then again in 2008 for our cover of “Under My Thumb.” But we’ve never won.
Since we did the record at my studio and all these musicians were there anyway, we decided to record a Revolting Cocks album at the same time, the first one in twelve years. Cocked and Loaded actually came out before Rio Grande Blood was released. But we put together the songs mainly to let off steam between Ministry sessions. We drank too much (surprise, surprise), waved our dicks around, and told stupid jokes. We brought back Phildo Owen, Gibby Haynes, and Jello Biafra, and Rick Nielsen, Billy Gibbons, and Robin Zander helped create the musical backdrop for this big, stupid party. We put it out ourselves and it is what it is—a bunch of drunk musicians letting their hair down, dropping their pants, farting in unison, and pissing in the corners. It’s fun and foolish; it’s not cerebral at all, and that’s always been the point of RevCo. Ministry is music for the brain; Revco is all about the groin.
When Rio Grande Blood came out, the makers of the 2009 movie The Hurt Locker heard it and asked if they could use three of the songs—“Fear (Is Big Business),” “Palestina,” and “Khyber Pass” on the soundtrack. The movie won an academy award that year. It felt like Ministry were back in business. For all the Ministry fans who had never seen RevCo, I thought it would be cool for them to be able to see both groups on one bill. By this point Ministry had three generations of fans: the ones who grew up with the electronic-metal stuff, the ones who discovered us with Psalm 69, and the youngsters who found out about us with the anti-Bush stuff. But only the first and maybe the second knew RevCo. It was time to make the introduction to the rest.
Like most snafus I’ve entangled myself in, it seemed like a good idea—the MasturBaTour—more bang for your buck! More rock for your cock! Wrong! Any musician who wants to pull double-duty for an extended period of time is either a total egomaniac or a complete masochist. The tour started in Houston on May 5, 2005, and by the time we got to Vancouver, twenty shows later, I was a compete wreck. Outside of touring for seventee
n years with Paul Barker, it was the worst career mistake I’ve ever made.
I would get through the first set with the Cocks, and then I would stumble backstage, and the strain of those twenty shows finally caught up with me—I broke down. It was comparable to soldiers who experience horrific situations in combat and then come home. They seem fine for a while, but soon they exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Angie found me in a corner in a pool of urine and vomit, in a fetal position, sucking my thumb. I had a nervous breakdown, and she had to cradle my head and stroke it like I was a baby and whisper soothing sounds into my ear. Then I snapped out of it and said in a very calm, detached voice, “I’m done. No more.” There was no drama, no emotion. In my head at that moment I was determined to cancel Ministry and go home. It was that simplistic and scientific. And I don’t know how she did it, but through a combination of soothing, nurturing acceptance and this inflexible assertion that we were committed to finish this, she somehow got me out of my apocalyptic zone and back on the stage for the Ministry set.
I came to the realization that what I was doing wasn’t a miracle or a mystery; it was a herculean task that sucked. But the shows were booked, and it was clearly evident that I had a contract. I had created a war within myself by booking this tour, and I had to see it out, as unpleasant as it was. That being the case, the Ministry lineup for those shows was devastating, and the personalities involved were as volatile as they were talented. We had Raven, who was much more geared to play in Ministry than in Killing Joke. As much as I love Killing Joke, they get too revved up and intellectual sometimes. Ministry was the perfect vehicle for Raven’s inner pirate. Raven didn’t believe in condoms, but he sure loved to fuck. And his sperm was potent. Fertility clinics should have stored up his sperm and used it to impregnate women in their fifties who want to have babies and are undergoing all this painful in-vitro shit. Raven had fifty or sixty kids from all these different women he spent a night—or an hour—with. We’d play, like, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and when the bus would get to the venue he’d have me get off the bus and look around to see if it looked like anyone was waiting there for him. So I’d get off and look to the left, look the right. “Nope, Raven. All clear.” Then sure enough, as soon as Raven got off the bus, some middle-aged woman would come up to him, dragging a kid behind her, and would start yelling at him. He’d shrug, reach into his pocket, and start counting off twenty-dollar bills, hand her a stack, and then she’d go away. This happened again and again.
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