Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen has explained why he chose to end the band after the touring cycle supporting their final album, ‘Hate To Go (Take Out Or Delivery)’, due October 30 via Cleopatra Records, in an interview with HitParader.
Jourgensen was asked directly about the timing of his decision to step away from the band. The frontman said he felt Ministry had reached the limit of what it could achieve as a creative force.
Question: “Why now to hang it up?”
“I figure it’s time,” Jourgensen said. “We’ve taken our genre and this band as far as we can go. I’m really happy with this album and I think it’s a culmination of 40 years of the same elements. Like I said, it’s a good one to go out on.”
He explained that the new material had given him satisfaction, but that continuing would not serve the band’s legacy. “I’m really happy with the way this came out. But I’m not enthused about continuing to keep doing this kind of music or music in general. I just think that Ministry has run its course. And I’m glad it was here when it was here.”
Jourgensen added that extending the band’s career further would risk damaging what he has built. “But I have no regrets looking back on it and everything. It would get boring, and it would get really repetitive. And I don’t think the product would be as good if I tried to do another one. So, I think it’s the proper time. Plus, I’m 68 years old. It’s like, God bless the Rolling Stones. They’re in their 80s. They do a new record and this and that. But I just have other interests.”
Jourgensen also revealed that his path in music was never his original plan. “Basically, I never wanted to do this anyways. It’s pretty well documented that I just wanted to be a history professor for high school and college. And then I had these demo tapes that started selling and all of a sudden, I’m in a band and I’m trying to put together the band. I auditioned like 10 or 12 singers. I did not want to be singer. If anything, I always wanted to be Jimmy Page, not Robert Plant. And here I was, it just kept dragging me in. I kind of felt like Michael Corleone in Godfather 3. Every time I try and get out, they pull me back in.”
He continued, “So, it just kept getting to be more and more of this behemoth. I didn’t really set out to do this path to start with, but I guess I was able to do it well enough to sustain a 45-year career but there comes a time.”
Jourgensen made these comments while discussing the band’s final chapter with the release of their last album and the farewell tour that will follow.
The farewell will take Ministry across Europe and North America. The “Goodbye Europe” tour is set to begin on April 2, 2027, in Utrecht, Netherlands, with support from Die Krupps, and will run through May 1, 2027, in Helsinki, Finland. A full US tour will follow the European dates, though specifics have not yet been announced.
The final album was produced by Jourgensen himself and marks the first and only studio record to feature drummer Pepe Clarke. The record also brings back multi-instrumentalist Paul Barker, who reunites with Jourgensen on a Ministry album for the first time in 23 years. Barker, a key collaborator during the band’s prolific 1980s and 1990s period, had left in 2003 but rejoined in 2024. The album’s closing track, “We’re Still Here,” features Barker’s contributions.
This announcement adds another chapter to Ministry’s long history with finality. Jourgensen first declared the band’s end with 2007’s The Last Sucker and again with 2013’s From Beer to Eternity, yet Ministry would return each time. The band effectively ended in 2008, reformed in 2011, and released albums including AmeriKKKant in 2018 and Moral Hygiene in 2021 before this farewell cycle began.
