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So you played on Houses Of the Molé.
I played on almost all of the tracks.
Were there any outtakes from Molé that never got released?
No, some of that stuff is what Pink Anvil stuff is.
Really?
Well, I mean outtakes from the Animositisomina time frame. You know, songs that Paul and I would write but Al wouldn't want to work with them. They might become Pink Anvil songs. Outtakes by me and Mike Scaccia from the Houses Of the Molé time frame have been getting referred to as "Goobersmoochers", and there is quite a bit of that stuff, too. I'm not sure what's going to happen with it, but it would be great if it could be finished and released... there's some really great material there.
I had no idea!
Yeah, there's always a lot of ideas thrown around in making a record, a lot of extra ideas and half baked ideas and ones that just were cool, but... eh. Pink Anvil was partially a way to use something that wasn't gonna get used otherwise, like a whole pile of samples that wouldn't... end up anywhere. I would say on that first record [ Halloween Party], the songs... Barker and I were definitely both on the same page in that we both like noisy shit. And Pink Anvil was also a way to have fun in the studio again, too, as opposed to being in the studio and flogging a dead horse... There was a lot of times that were... with high tensions in the studio, not so happy-go-lucky. [laughs]
Tell me about Halloween Party, after what you just told me now.
After A.I. and before we started doing tracking for Animositisomina, Al was still out like partying and Paul was kind of just bumming. The whole band had quit after '99. I still wanted Ministry to be an active band and I was real excited to not let it stop. So, I was over at Barker's house almost every day, saying "hey, let's work on stuff" over and over. There is this guy, Dave Palmer, he was a drummer for a group called the Earl Harvin Jazz Trio, and he is a friend of Barker's. He said to him that there was this Halloween party that was going on, a sort of rave that he was booking, and everybody would be wearing costumes, you know... and asked if Paul would play at it. Do anything. Be spooky, whatever. Doesn't matter. I think normally Paul would've been like 'nah', but he was kind of intrigued by the idea that he could do whatever he wanted. You know what I mean? Like he could play farts into a microphone if he wanted. And so, he was like "I'll think about it". Later on when we were talking, and I said to him\u2014well, we didn't call it Pink Anvil back then, we called it Flowering which is named after his studio\u2014I said "Paul, what's wrong with just writing music for no reason? Does everything always have to be about Ministry or 'serious' or something? Let's just write stuff and see what comes out of it, and if it's not for Ministry we'll just put it out as something else." You know? And I think it just kinda started going off from that idea. He asked me if maybe I'd like to play this party thing with him. So suddenly this party kind of made us have something to focus on. So over a period of... I think it was like a month, we got all that shit\u2014unused song ideas and unused samples\u2014together and played that show. I mean, suddenly we had a time limit and we got moving. We ended up coming up with more songs for Animositisomina that way, too, it was a real good thing. And then, it kind of was over. I think we both thought that was just the end of it. But then, it got put out on Ipecac. And then they asked us to play their New Year's event... which was like, what, three years later? And so we were like, "Hell yeah, we'll do it again!" By then we had some more song ideas and samples that were laying around, and it's easy and fun to just make those interludes. It's totally fun.
What did everybody think of that, when they heard that live?
Nobody knew what to make of it at all. It certainly set a mood, whereas the other groups had a bunch of folks crowding around or dancing, with us they were kind of stepping back and looking. [laughs] "What the hell is that?" You know? At the New Year's show, everybody was kind of... expecting it. Prepared. It was a whole different feeling, people were into it. People were clapping and yelling at us, it was really kind of bizarre.
The main thing I hear from it is that it seems like something I've seen some DJ's do live, Meat Beat Manifesto, things of that sort... changing styles up but it's straight live improv. I am sure DAT is used in a fair amount of it? What instrumentation was used in recording this set? The listings on the CD say that there was footswitch and a patchbay...
Oh, that was just a joke. We just wanted to leave it a mystery. Doesn't it make you want to slap us? Heh, heh! You know, I don't know exactly what we used, but the show itself was partially CDs and partially live instruments. No DATs, though. I had my horn, a drum, a cymbal, a bunch of delay units and effects, some CD players, a sampler of course... and I think I had an FM radio or some crap. Paul had something like that too, but instead of sax or drum, he had a bass guitar and his Nord synthesizer. So it was sort of like a live DJ set, augmented with a few instruments.
Can you detail more about the recording process of the album?
Well, we recorded all of the rehearsals at Paul's house and then we recorded the show. I think there are like one or two songs out of the rehearsals on the album instead of the show version. [laughs] But they were better! After we played the show and taped the live version, we chose the final versions we wanted to use and we sweetened it up a little back at his house. But y'know, it's the show...! Mostly...
But with some post-production passes on it.
A little bit, I'll confess. Now, the New Year's show... that recording is very close to the actual show. I really hope it comes out sometime. Barker keeps talking about it. And he keeps talking about a Pink Anvil website. But I know he's really busy. Hell, I'm really busy too...
There's definitely a lot of interested parties that would like to hear it!
We have that New Year's one done. Right now. And it's in the can, y'know, just sitting there. Maybe you can round up some fans to go bug Paul about it, maybe it'll motivate him or something! [laughs] I know he's busy working on some movie soundtrack, and I know he made a demo... he's trying to get producer work, and I know he's been swapping Pro-Tool sessions with Duane Denison [Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk], who's in Tennessee or whatever. They're swapping ideas or working on something. And I know he's been playing a little bit with Earl Harvin, that drummer. Who knows who he's been playin with down in L.A.