Ministry with special guests The Hunger Ministry Bio No one wrestles victory out of the clenched jaws of defeat quite like Ministry leader Al Jourgensen. Heading into the studio to produce Ministry's 13th official studio album, From Beer to Eternity, he and all the members of his team were beside themselves grieving the sudden and unexpected death of their longtime guitarist Mike Scaccia on December 22nd, 2013. Last December, Scaccia worked with Jourgensen, guitarist Sin Quirin, drummer Aaron Rossi and bassist Tony Campos on a full batch of new Ministry songs. They finished the rough tracks on December 19th, 2012. Three days later Scaccia died from a heart attack he suffered onstage while playing a live show in Dallas, TX with his other band Rigor Mortis to celebrate their vocalist Bruce Corbitt's 50th birthday. Scaccia was 47. Scaccia's death put a tragic end to all planned future projects: a second Buck Satan & The 666 Shooters album, a Chicago blues record and more thrash-based music. But the tracks Scaccia recorded before leaving Jourgensen's 13th Planet Studio in El Paso, Texas were so good, so musically multifaceted and incisive, that From Beer to Eternity is destined to be the culminating audio release in the band's 30-plus year archive of industrial metal output. "There was no choice," Jourgensen says of the bittersweet production process. "During the sessions Mikey was smiling and going, 'You know what, Al. This is by far and away the best Ministry album we've ever done together! This is awesome.'" From the schizophrenic opening cut, the sarcasm-dripping, sound effect-laden "Hail to his Majesty" to the thrash-punk riffs and booming bass reverberations of "Punch in the Face," From Beer to Eternity pulls no punches, sounding at once familiar, yet completely fresh and inspired. "When Mikey, Sin and I sat down and went, 'Well, what are we gonna do?' we decided, 'Let's do what we're good at doing instead of trying to blaze new trails or play weirdo, psychedelic vacuum cleaner noises,'" Jourgensen says. " This album is not like a greatest hits album. It's a greatest bits album. We took the best bits in Ministry's career and distilled them into one release. It's like a filet mignon with all the fat trimmed away. There are even influences in there from Revolting Cocks and Lard. It pretty much wraps up my career with a bow and ties up all the loose ends and it's rock solid – the definitive guide to the Ministry cosmos." As much as Scaccia's death was a major blow to Jourgensen on many levels, it was also an incentive. Knowing that From Beer to Eternity would be the last Ministry album to feature Scaccia's eclectic guitar playing, which ranges from Middle-Eastern sounding and psychedelic on "Change of Luck" to unhinged hillbilly thrash on "Fairly Unbalanced," Jourgensen was determined to record an album as diverse and breathtaking as the riffs Scaccia brought to the table, as difficult as that was both musically and emotionally. "Stopping any album in the middle of recording to go to a funeral can't possibly be a good sign," Jourgensen admits . "For the next three months I had to go back and mix it and listen to his riffs every day, and think about him every day. It was pretty tough to do -- a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be. I thought I could put him out of my mind and just mix. But of course, when something as awful as that happens, it gets to you. I just had to power through it knowing I was doing Mikey proud and it was for the best."