You used to loath touring, but apparently that has changed.
I still don’t like it, but I’ve grown to learn to be more tolerant and have fun with what’s a necessary evil.
At fifty-seven years old, you now draw the line at beer, wine and marijuana.
I don’t even bother with wine any more. I’m just your stereotypical, old, wise Californian hippie guy, philosophical and stoned on pot. I treat the earth with respect and expect the same back.
There’s been talk of you calling time on Ministry for good.
I said that when Mike Scaccia [guitarist] died [in 2012]. He was my best friend. But life goes on. In October we’re going back into the studio, which is where I love to be. There will be a new Ministry record, another RevCo album and, time allowing, a second Surgical Meth Machine record.
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During the 1990s you famously FeEx-ed a diaper full of shit to Ministry’s record company, Warner Brothers.
Actually it wasn’t shit [laughs], it was my semen. I thought excrement would have been boring. By the time it arrived there they didn’t know what it was because it had congealed. I’m sure they thought they’d been the victims of biological terrorism.
You’ve been clinically dead on three occasions. Do you sometimes wonder why you were spared?
I do ask myself that question, and I don’t have an answer. I’m probably still here because I’m trying to find out why [I was allowed to live].
What’s the best rumour you’ve heard about yourself?
It went around for a while that I was the child actor who played the lead character in [1960s children’s programme] HR Pufnstuf. That was actually Jack Wild. It would’ve been fairly easy to have checked that, don’t you think?
For someone who’s considering buying a ticket, can you describe Ministry’s show?
There’s a lot of visual simulation with films that we update throughout the year. We’re a Wallmart version of Pink Floyd. I got tired of being a jukebox, so this time we’re going to be doing a lot of songs that we’ve haven’t played in maybe fifteen years.
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