Quotes from Al Jourgensen

I'm not a real Halloween kind of guy, because Halloween is every day.

I think we were colonized by aliens 250,000 years ago, and they genetically altered our DNA to be primates into homo erectus and humans. I'm very interested in how we evolved so suddenly, which obviously ties in with the alien thing.

Everyone reaches their point in time where either they die or they get sick of doing drugs. It started getting debilitating. I enjoy my music a lot better than my drugs.

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

I'm envious of people that can handle the press. No matter what I say or how articulately I say it, it always comes back to the same issues. And it's getting kind of old.

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.

I'm an all-or-nothing guy. When I'm working, I work, work, work, work, work, and when I'm not, I'm the laziest sloth this planet has ever provided us.

Listen, man: I am not the industrial godfather, king, whatever. I don't relish that title. I don't like it. I think it's limiting. I do country, I do blues. I don't just go straight.

Everything shapes you to be the person you are today. Sometimes hard lessons pay off dividends.

Basically, an artist should be a mirror, or a reflection of society or his or her environment. What you see is what you can articulate.

If you remember the '90s, you weren't there.

Rock n' roll is for the young idiots, not an old fart like me.

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?

The very first pharmaceutical commercial I ever heard was 15 seconds of the product and 45 seconds of side effects, so I know that this cannot be good for you.

It's such a stupid thing to sign a band and then demand a hit right away to instantly recoup the money. The point is, you have to do it by building your own following, and that is not necessarily done by writing instant hits.

I get along great with all of my exes. That's really cool. That's a good sign.

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.

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.

Ah, man, if I could ever hook up with Tom Waits, I'd be the happiest camper in Yellowstone, alright? That's the one guy.

I love doing film soundtracks and working with directors on how they want the scene to be portrayed on audio as opposed to visual. I like the collaborative effort of working with people.

Let's get with it, guys: You don't need to hear a Ministry song to get political. You should be political on your own. We're just a side project to society. So do I care what people think about me personally? No. I just do what I do.

Punk rock really influenced me, the basic metal bands, Zeppelin, Stones and Floyd, and Southern rock bands. I think I was pretty well-rounded.

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 scare the neighbors, the kids... They don't come to my house for trick-or-treating, trust me. I had to buy exactly zero amount of dollars worth of candy for the past couple of years.