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I know you weren't on Dark Side Of the Spoon, but what is your take on Warner's decision on dropping the band?
Labels don't give a hoot about good music, they care about sales stats and making money. I think prior to A.I. that Ministry had just gone way over-budget. Their sales didn't match up with how much money was being spent, and they just got dropped. I'm probably not the one that should be voicing that, I don't really know for sure. That's the way I see it, though.
I talked to Tycoon actually, and she told me that you actually met your now-wife on the set of A.I.
Yeah, yeah I did actually. [laughs] She was an extra, we've looked, I didn't see her in it. It started off as just meeting one another and we just kept on communicating, talking to each other, then it was long-distance for quite some time... and then, you know, she moved in with me. I haven't really been without her since then. She's great.
That's awesome. What happened after A.I.?
I remember some OzzFest bullshit happening... well, actually I think that happened before the A.I. stuff. We got booted off due to some red tape, business bullshit.
Management woes.
Yeah, something like that. I've always tried to not get too involved the business side of things, at least until more recently; I just want to make music! You know, I actually am glad that the OzzFest thing didn't happen, because if we had done OzzFest we wouldn't have had the time to do A.I. And if it wasn't for A.I., I wouldn't be married and have a daughter. [laughs] Oh my god, good thing we didn't do OzzFest!
See, there you go! Can't look at the negative. You guys recorded Animositisomina in Tornillo, TX at Sonic Ranch. I saw some behind-the-scenes video, some footage of you was in it. Some sort of drum tracking, playbacks, that sort of thing. Do you have any memories, anything in particular, of the recording sessions for Animositisomina?
Uhh, hmm... boy, I sure do remember doing a lot of sitting around hitting drums one at a time, trying to get the mic placement and whatever just right. It would be like forever just hitting one drum, over and over again, trying to get things right. I also remember one time Al and Paul left for a week, they both went out of town and I had the whole studio to myself! [laughs] Boy, I made real good use of that time. I just went in there and was like, "Get me an engineer!" You know? I threw down all kinds of crap, I'm still sorting through some of that using it here and there. Good stuff, got some really cool guitars, set up a few amps and did some feedback for a while. I used all the keyboards and synthesizers I could get my hands on, played a bunch of drumsets... whatever I could think of. There is a lot of great gear to mess around with there. And of course I remember Tony's (the owner's) hospitality. That place rules. I learned a lot there.
In "Leper", you were taking a razorblade and tapping a mirror during the song. It also appeared you were playing some sort of... Fisher-Price toy keyboard or something. It's one of the longest Ministry songs, if not the longest, and it ends the album much like a lot of soundscapes or noise collages that end past Ministry records. Can you tell me more about it?
That was a keyboard we got at a dollar store on the border! [laughs] "Leper" was one of the songs I was most responsible for on that record, actually. That, and "Shove"... and "Broken". Oh, and "Stolen", the one Barker sings on. Al thought a razor on a mirror would add something just right so he had me do that, and the keyboard stuff is Al's playing. The initial session for that song was something that I started at my house, though. A lot of my songs start out by just, like, a whole lot of messing around with samples. And I made and cataloged a whole lot of samples while in Ministry. That became a big part of my job, in fact. To this day, having learned what I learned from Ministry, I am still making sample-driven music.
There were supposedly lyrics to "Leper", am I right?
No. As far as I know, Al agonized over trying to get lyrics together for that, but he just never could get it to his liking. That's my understanding. I mean he just kinda gave up or gave in... It was the end of the session, and we kind of ran out of time. I imagine that if he had enough time, he would've come up with some good lyrics. He just decided it would be good as an instrumental.
On "Impossible", there's an individual named K. Kinslow. I used to know this information, but who is this person?
It's a girl from Austin, keyboard player I think. Her name's like Kat or Katherine, I believe. I don't really know how she knows Al, they were friends at one point. I don't know if they are anymore.