When you observe the liner photo of Al “Alien” Jourgenson on Cocked and Loaded (the new CD from Revolting Cocks) the first word that comes to your mind is not “workaholic.” Rather, you are inclined to think of such terms as “serial murderer” or perhaps “alley-skulking-biker-rapist” what with his wiry thick black hair, double-wide snout, oversized bug-eye sunglasses, thinly carved moustache, and three tightly wound spines of black hair pointing downward from his chin like the goat of Lucifer.
But in the last 4 years since he stopped shooting heroin, Jourgenson has founded and operated his own record company and cut 5 albums from that label (13th Planet Records), including two new releases from his own bands, Ministry and Revolting Cocks.
The Ministry album, called Rio Grand Blood, is out-fucking-rageous. I’ve always been a moderate fan of Ministry but this record is a beautiful abomination. It’s as deconstructionist as ever, as relevant as ever, has a higher sense of contempt for the state of the world as ever and just plain rocks. As for the accompanying Revolting Cocks’ disc, Cocked and Loaded, all I have to say is, “Where you been all my life bitches?” I played this disc for 3 days straight. I’m listening to it now. My brain is swimming in its hardcore disease.
But its how these two albums work together that puts them on the next level. They are both fun, hard, filthy, childish and nauseating. Both are not for mainstream consumption. Both make you want to snort amphetamines and bang your head against a brick amplifier. Both have Jello Biafra splattered all over them. And both were written, produced and conceived by a raging industrial punk and sex-core fucker known as Alien Jourgenson.
“I’m pretty stoked about these albums,” said Jourgensen on the phone from “Hell Paso,” Texas (his words) where they were rehearsing for the tour. “The Cocks record was a lot of fun to make. But the Ministry was spot on. As I like to say, ‘Ministry is my rifle and Cocks are for fun.’
“The entire ministry album was written in 3 and a half weeks, which, for me, is a land based speed record. It was just me, Paul Raven [Prongs] and Tommy Victor [Killing Joke]. We turned our amps up to 11 in the garage and let it fly. The Rev/Co record took longer but we had a lot of interesting new Cocks thrown into the mix.”
The new Cocks Jourgensen speaks of are interesting at the least. Along with Biafra is Gibby Haynes from Butthole Surfers, and longtime Ministry associate Mark Baker. But there are also some kooky cats you wouldn’t expect on the punk-techno-brainblast that is the Revolting Cocks -- like Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and Robin Zander and Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick. Also on the record is the silhouette of Iggy Pop as it contains a song [“Fire Engine”] that Jourgensen wrote with the most infamous Stooge.
“We offered him to come down and sing it for us but his best friend and long time manager died that week and we had to keep on schedule to get both these releases out so we had to go for it ourselves. Iggy and I actually wrote that song 20 years ago. . . I came across it as I was perusing through my tape library trying to get organized and thought, ‘Wow, this is good stuff, why didn’t we ever release this?’”
Jello Biafra, incidentally, is not only an accredited Revolting Cocks member on the Cocked and Loaded disc, he also appears as a guest vocalist on the Ministry album.
“Jello’s the Alpha dog in the larger sense, but whenever we work on Revolting Cocks or Ministry, he acquiesces and let’s me run the show. It’s a great working relationship . . . We spend our Christmases together. We always stay in touch.”
“How do you decide who you want to be on a Rev/Co record?” I asked.
“It’s really just friends that have crossed paths over the years,” he answered. “And, you know, everyone wants to be a Cock some day [laughs]. Billy Gibbons and I have known each other for fifteen years. We’ve been talking about doing this forever and it finally, actually worked out. With Rick [Nielsen] he just came up on stage with us to do a song during our last Ministry tour. [Afterward] we started talking about working together. The planets just seemed to line up this year. All the people I’ve wanted to work with for a long time all of sudden had actual schedule breaks.”
As of this writing, Jourgenson has taken both bands on the road together. Writing, producing, recording, mixing and touring two albums nearly simultaneously is a Herculean task that takes a guy with Satan’s bleater on his chin to pull off.
“There’s just no way you can prepare for something like that,” Jourgenson said. “There’s only a certain amount of hours in the day. But so far, we seem to be right on schedule with everything as far as rehearsals, and sounding good, and getting schedules together – but yeah, it’s a lot of work, and it’s a lot of fun. There will be guest appearances regionally by all the people that have played on the album.”
“Who might you expect to join you on stage for the San Diego show?”
“Probably Jello Biafra. Actually, I think Jello is doing the entire west coast with us and Gibby is doing the entire east coast. It’s like a Biggie/Tupac feud.”
EJD
11/03/06