Al Jourgensen
From ArticleWorld
Al Jourgensen is a Cuban born American musician that has been best known as a chain smoking, heavy drinking, and harsh spoken frontman for the industrial band Ministry.
Contents |
Man with many names
Jourgensen has been credited on a variety of projects using a who list of names and has been involved with almost as many bands as he has names to his credit. He typically writes music, sings, plays guitar, or does keyboards under these names that has used in the past. In some respects it makes it a challenge to create a proper discography of all of his work.
Ministry
In 1981 Jourgensen formed Ministry which would have some of the synth pop initially that he carried over from his Special Affect days. Eventually Ministry would become a powerhouse in the industrial genre, defining much of what was and is in this genre, Jorgensen went one step further with side projects all over. The most notable are Revolting Cocks, 1000 Homo DJs, and PTP.
Performances and addictions
Jourgensen was commonly remembered for his interviews and onstage performances with a cigarette in hand and guzzling alcohol on stage. His addictions to these cocaine and heroin were the stepping stones to the eventual breaking of Ministry in the end of the 1990’s. Jourgensen would still do work under the name of Ministry, but this work was more limited than in past years.
Recent events
As of last year, Ministry has been reformed and Jourgensen has not only quite cocaine and heroin, but he also claims to have quit drinking. He also announced at the same time a bunch of releases of music by him for Ministry, Revolting Cocks, PTP, and 1000 Homo DJs. These are to be a bunch of B sides releases that he has been wanting to release and he has it slated for the end of 2005 thru 2006.
He may still be the outspoken and unique minded person he has always been that has stirred masses with his lyrics and interviews, but now he seems to be doing this with a cleared head.