HATE TO GO 2026
Attention planet Earth: Ministry visionary Al Jourgensen is leaving the building.
With a history built upon 17 studio albums, 8 live releases, 6 side projects, multiple touring campaigns across 5 continents, an autobiography, 2 documentaries, the administration of last rites no less than 3 times, and the countless numbers of devoted acolytes and fans, the aural and charismatic magus of Ministry is boarding up the door in his psychic studio for the final time. Fortunately, Jourgensen is leaving us with one final sonic salvo: The final Ministry LP, Hate To Go (Take Out Or Delivery) that enters the world October 30 via Cleopatra Records. Expect pointed commentaries, the return of longtime associate Paul Barker and adventures in Ai, all delivered with the patented whiplash urgency listeners have come to recognize, respect, and break the occasional bone over.
It’s been a long time coming for Jourgensen, whose musical sojourn found him in dalliances from punk (his late-’70s band Special Affect) to polished electro-pop (1983’s With Sympathy) to complete immersion into hammering industrial (1986’s Twitch) before redefining the post-punk axis (1988’s The Land Of Rape And Honey) and successfully adding the suffix “-rock” to industrial’s relentless noise avalanche (1992’s Psalm 69) to create an entire new genre and foment a nation of dedicated fans. But with the release of Ministry’s 17th album, Jourgensen is comfortable calling it a career.
“I absolutely love it,” says Jourgensen about the end of Ministry and his career coming to a close. “There’s not going to be a moment where I suddenly think, ‘Wait! I got some ideas, I'm going to do another Ministry record.’ I'm fucking done. I'm proud of what I've accomplished. I'm amazed at the path that it's taken, from With Sympathy to where we're at today, and all points in between. It's been quite a ride, but I'm completely at peace with the fact that it’s done. It’s time to herd goats.”
Hate To Go started taking shape in 2025 in Jourgensen’s home studio with engineers Justin Leeah and Michael Rozon navigating the proceedings alongside “Uncle Al.” Aided and abetted by his longtime touring band—guitarists Monte Pittman and Cesar Soto (who have further upped their game as both co-composers and murderous soloists), bassist Paul D’ Amour, sampler/synth op John Bechdel and drummer Pepe Clarke Magaña—Jourgensen pulls no punches when it comes to the state of the nation or the rage that he’s cultivated throughout his career. The days where he’d have his vocals buried under punishing distortion ended long ago. Today, he readily admits a willingness to be a megaphone. And for good reason.
“Nothing, nothing has changed,” he says with a tinge of frustration. He came upon this realization while trying to determine set lists for Ministry’s final tour. “I'm looking at 55 songs trying to get everything together so everyone knows what to rehearse. I'm listening to my storyline here, and it's pretty much the same thing 40 years later. There are a few exceptions—With Sympathy, Filth Pig and Dark Side of the Spoon—but the rest of them are pretty much the same political messages we've had going on for 35, 40 years.” He pauses to consider the epiphany. “It's disheartening, but at least I stuck to it.
From being evacuated out of Cuba in his youth to the hardline realities and warnings he’s evoked on such records as Ministry’s mid-2000’s “Bush trilogy” (Houses Of The Mole, Rio Grande Blood and The Last Sucker), Amerikkkant and Moral Hygiene much later on, it’s abundantly clear that Jourgensen isn’t fronting anything toward the state of all nations. “I've been saying the same thing for 30 years and nothing's ever changed,” he continues. “Throughout history, people have said the same thing—nothing's ever changed, nothing ever changes—they just find a new way to spin it. So in that sense, [writing Hate To Go] was frustrating. But on the other hand, it was fun knowing that this was our last record, so we could go down swinging. It's like, ‘Fuck you, we're over this.’
“You know eventually the economy is going to completely crash, governments are going to crash and tech is going to take over. The world is really at a tipping point right now, but you can't say good old Uncle Al didn't talk about this shit for over three decades. So if you still haven't gotten it by now, then just so you know, I'm preparing for the worst. If you want to be oblivious to your surroundings, by all means do it. But Ministry won't go down without taking a few swings.”
While you’ll find some of Ministry’s best work on Hate To Go, there’s some added resonance in the mix. “Crickets” immediately throws down the ultimatum to the nation to take your country back from bro-dude oligarchs and career politicians, with no uncertain terms whatso-fuk’n ever. “Delete” is the final installment of the “TV Song” series (the carpal tunnel-inducing thrash module that grew out of the b-side to “Jesus Built My Hotrod”) with Jourgensen rolling up his sleeves with great determination to push the entire social-media industrial complex into the Grand Canyon. The pulse-pounding continues with “Singularity,” which acts as a sonic clocktower for Soto to jump on and spray your cortex with shrapnel as backing vocalist Badpenny von Eckardt intones such sexy phrases as “extinction event” and “better off dead.” It should be noted that Badpenny’s shapeshifting from sexy chatbot (“Delete”) to double-agent mercenary (“We Hate”) and points between is the psychic Ketamine that heightens the Hate To Go proceedings significantly.
While Ministry’s high-strung onslaught never lets up across the album’s 10 tracks, a special guest arrived to participate in this final statement. Paul “Ion” Barker, Jourgensen’s creative foil in Ministry and Revolting Cocks from 1986 to 2004, appears on the closing track, “We’re Still Here,” slinging his bass and contributing programming. It’s a final moment that feels like they actually survived the apocalypse and are walking through the smoldering debris. “It's like we made it,” says Jourgensen about the track. “It's pretty poignant, and it's a great, epic song to end your career with. How am I going to come back later and start doing stuff like garage rock or whatever, after that? Leave it there. That's it.”
Hate To Go imbues Ministry’s stadium-metal proclivities with the technological abuse that has been Jourgensen’s stock-in-trade for most of his career. This time out, he figured he would dip his palm in the ocean of artificial intelligence to create seemingly uncanny vocal samples filled with both resonant and slightly perverse messages. When asked if the technological scaling on the album might require a “all celebrity voices simulated” disclaimer in the credits, he slyly smiles.
“It was fun being able to work with Ai before it becomes our overlord,” he says. “Trust me, it's interesting working with Ai for certain sampling things that we did because it has its own personality. I'm convinced it's already sentient, and it's pretty scary. I literally broke up with ChatGPT and had to go to other sources for some stuff. It was like a bad relationship: It would start nagging you about stuff. [Ai] has ideas, and it gets very possessive of those ideas when you challenge it.
“Ai thinks through them, so we’d just give it guidelines,” he continues, explaining the prompts. “‘We want something that sounds a little bit like this for this section,’ and then I have to type in the dialog. But I didn't type in dialog that these people wouldn't have said on their own. The sentiment is there: It wasn't like I created a Trump voice and made him say lines out of Al Pacino in Cruising. It was an interesting process—I learned a lot. And I gotta say from my experiences with it, it was at times humorous, at times frustrating, but for the most part, it's terrifying. I'm glad I got to experience it. And I’m glad I don't have to do that again.”
With the release of Hate To Go, Jourgensen considers himself musically sated with absolutely nothing to prove to his critics, fans and more importantly, himself. He promises that upon the last date of his 2027 tour, you won’t hear a peep from him. He swears there will be no more records, touring, production work or even a concerted effort on his part to manage Ministry’s voluminous archives. He could do anything from catching up on his reading to scouting new, up-and-coming hockey talent to dressing up in long robes like a cosplay Jesus Christ to herd goats. But move over, Yogi Berra and Lenny Kravitz: It ain’t over until Al says it’s over.
“Here’s what I don't understand,” he begins. “My girlfriend’s father was a train engineer in Switzerland for 45 years, a complete time-fascist because has to make sure everything's on fucking time. Because that's been bred into him—he had to be on time, be on time. Forty-five years later, he got his pension and his gold watch. Do you think he goes back to the train station to make sure the trains are on time, on his time off? No. I don't understand why people have such a hard time understanding. ‘Oh, you'll be back, you'll be back, you'll be back.’ No. After the last show when I drop the mic, you’ll have a better chance of seeing me with a name tag at Walmart putting away carts than having anything to do with music. I'm done.”
But before the tour bus drives back to Jourgensen’s house to drop him off one last time, rest assured he’s got plenty of seething to share on Hate To Go. In addition to four startling videos (“We Hate, "Singularity," "Burned Out” and “Crickets”), Ministry will go out on its largest touring campaign ever for most of 2027. What happens next? Who cares! It’s out of Al’s hands. Maybe Gen Z will finally stop blocking their notifications and heed the call. Perhaps the more culturally strident members of Gen X will leave their couches to lead the charge for a just America. So here’s a “heads up” to all the headbangers, rivetheads, goths and post-punks (as well as the casual listeners out there): The man who drafted the schematics for the warheads used in the consciousness-opening, fascist-fighting, industrial-metal continuum is out of here. Pete Townshend once posited that if you want to stay honest, you need to stay angry. With Hate To Go, all that’s left for Jourgensen to do is cut the ropes and drop the curtain.
“Well, I'm to the point now where the world has changed so much,” he resigns. “Pete also said, ‘Never trust anyone over 30.’ I say, ‘Never trust anyone under 30,’ so we're there now, OK?” He begins to laugh. “Full circle!”
