Al Jourgensen

“Ministry is just ZZ Top with technology.”

“If I did all the stuff I've been accused of - or credited with - there's no way I could make all this music. I'd be drinking myself into the grave.”

“It's typical of record companies. They sign you because you're unique, and then they want to put you in a mold so they can sell records.”

“If you had a Ministry box set under your Christmas tree, wrapped in paper, 'From Beer to Eternity' is the bow that goes around the present, you know what I mean?”

“In Ministry, we've only had one message: Think for yourself.”

“I'm not working at the Chevron, although I'd probably be the best person to work the night shift. Look at me. Nobody would try to steal a Snickers on my watch.”

“Obama might as well be president of Turkey or Brazil; it does not matter. It's the system that is absolutely flawed, where 25 or 35 or 50 people make multi, multi-billions on building Olympic structures while people live in Barbados and have no roads or clean drinking water. There's something pretty inequitable there.”

“I'd still prefer to do five nights at a club than one night at Allstate Arena.”

“I'm a very reluctant frontman. I've seen reviews where they talk about my strong presence on stage, but it's nothing I do. It's like the person in a long grocery line who stands out because he's so agitated. He'll have presence, too.”

“I got my influences from '70s bands - Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, blah blah blah. When I was growing up, we had all these crazy bands on the Top 40. Today, if Pink Floyd released 'Money,' it wouldn't even get played.”

“I hate bands that hang around, like, 10 years too long - they're like the drunk at a party you can't get rid of.”

“This administration affects the everyday life of the common person.”

“There's a famous artist, Ron English, in New York, that just, or Andy Warhol for that matter, that did pop art that terrorized society. And that's, for the last like 10, 15 years, that's all I wanted to do, is terrorize society and make them look into a mirror and see what the hell we have wrought.”

“I was stupid when I started: the epitome of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. It was like, 'I get to live in L.A. and drive around in limos? Really?' I didn't realize I was owned. The more money gets pumped into you, the more you become a marionette. It made me a true redneck in attitude: I never wanted to wake up ever again feeling owned.”

“I've seen 48 Stanley Cups in my life. I was about six or seven when I started going to games with my dad.”

“You tell me one other person that graduated from Yale that is as inarticulate as Bush. Yale's a great school, and here's this idiot.”

“You're never quite prepared for the inundation of stardom, or whatever you want to call it.”

“I'm still a recluse. I still hate everyone. I'm still a misanthrope.”

“Being on stage is not creating, it's re-creating.”

“The main thing in measuring integrity is someone's motive and intent, not how many records they sell. Our intent in Ministry was never to be big. We just wanted to make enough money to live and to buy a studio, which we have done in Austin.”