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Ministry's 'Psalm' offers a change

Ministry has wriggled itself into the hearts and minds of a good many people in this nation, not unlike the Kennedys or tapeworms. But the band doesn't know why that's happened, exactly. "I don't know what accumulates a 'fan base,'" explained bassist Paul Barker. "Or what makes people interested in music. Or the music we do, specifically. But it seems that we have a pretty hardcore following, and we're thrilled about that, especially considering this album does not sound like Psalm 69. Yet people are still buying it. We're happy that people want to go where we take them."

The band's new album, "Filth Pig," is a fairly new direction for them. It's both slower and simpler, while it retains the essential elements of Ministry's music. A lot of people are wondering why this is.

"I don't know. Because all of our fast music we wrote over the past few years just was so much more Psalm 69, and we didn't want to do that. We weren't interested in treading over well-trodden ground, so to speak. So we threw those songs out, and we're wholly satisfied with the music we ended up with on this record, and the fact that it's slow is primarily a byproduct of us not wanting to repeat ourselves. I mean, we love fast music, no question about it. It's just that I consider albums to be a snapshot of a band as it is at that time, and not the be all end all," Barker said.

There's even a cover of Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay" on the new album to give you an indication of the direction Ministry has been going in recently. "Al (vocalist Al Jourgensen) really wanted to do the song, so we struggled through it, and I think it's a good arrangement and so forth. But it's not one of my favorites on the record or anything."

Barker has had a good long time to consider what he likes about the album, considering the inordinate amount of time Ministry went without a new record. "Yes it's true, it took a while for us to get the record out. But, we've been busy aside of that, maybe not musically, but we have lives. Yeah, I apologize for that because it's pretty pitiful when a band can't put a record out in three and a half years. That's the way the ball bounces, I guess. I'm not happy about it, but things happen for a reason, and it happened with the record, so ... ."

In addition to lives, band members have had plenty of side projects, from Lard to the Revolting Cocks. "Our side projects are by and large inactive right now. We've been concentrating on Ministry, and that's been a handful. When we were doing all the side projects, it seems like ... I don't know what to say. I guess I want to say we were more capable of being satisfied with what we were doing. Perhaps less critical and therefore willing to let things go."

And after such a long time slogging through the music business, Barker certainly deserves to be able to have some easy work. But the time spent in the trenches has soured him a bit on the work going on in his genre. "It's so narrowly defined. If it's industrial, it's gotta sound like this. To me that just is not interesting. The parameters of what that music is, what will be defined or could be defined as industrial music is just so narrow. You have to have blinders on, and to me it's just not interesting. I love the energy behind it, and the fact that people are doing it, but musically, it's just not challenging me personally. I can only speak for myself, and only want to speak for myself."

Well, it's all probably part of a natural evolution. And finally, it's even bled over into the band's aesthetics. "I'm so thrilled 'cause our crew has long hair and the band doesn't, so we hope everyone gets mistaken." Remember that at the concert.