Greg Prato of RollingStone.com recently interviewed Al Jourgensen of MINISTRY about his authorized biography, Ministry: The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen, penned by Jourgensen with Jon Wiederhorn, due July 9th via DaCapo Books. An excerpt follows:

The end result is a roller-coaster read. In addition to going behind the scenes for the creation of such industrial-metal classics as The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste, and Psalm 69, Jourgensen dishes dirt on many renowned names whom he's crossed paths with throughout his career, including MADONNA, COURTNEY LOVE and ROBERT PLANT. But perhaps the most colorful tale of all involves LIMP BIZKIT frontman FRED DURST.

"The Limp-dickster motherfucker, whatever his name is. I got him naked and in a cowboy hat [in a recording studio]! I'm showing him, 'Look, you want my sound? This is my sound. This is what I use.' And he wouldn't believe it because just by hitting the magic button on the harmonizer that it wouldn't make him sound exactly like me. He was that naïve. I'm like, 'Well, try the cowboy hat.' So I gave him my cowboy hat... and it still sounded like shit. So I go, 'Why don't you try and get naked? That's how I sing.' I was just bullshitting him. So he goes out and does that, and is thoroughly embarrassed, again. And then he just left. I got paid to just humiliate him for three songs. It was awesome."

Further details can be found at this location.

In other news, Ministry will release their 13th studio album, From Beer To Eternity, on September 6th via 13th Planet Records; an Amazon pre-order is available below.

As fans of the band know, after last year there wasn't going to be another Ministry album, but as Jourgensen put it recently, "I had no choice."

Sessions for what would become From Beer To Eternity began last December at Jourgensen's 13th Planet compound in El Paso, TX with Jourgensen (who produced the album, composed the music and wrote the lyrics for all 11 songs), guitarists Mike Scaccia and Sin Quirin, drummer Aaron Rossi and bassist Tony Campos. Rough tracks for 18 songs were finished on December 19th, and three days later, the 47-year old Scaccia died from a heart attack he suffered onstage while playing a live show with his band Rigor Mortis in Dallas, TX. Jourgensen, Quirin, Rossi and Campos were absolutely devastated.

"We have never, in the history of Ministry, ever had a tracking session like that before," states Jourgensen, "everything went so smoothly, it was surreal. And Mikey was so on fire and inspired, and really a driving force for this record."

After returning from Scaccia's funeral in Dallas, and shouldering the weight of grief as well as the desire to honor his fallen comrade, Jourgensen locked himself in his studio with his engineer and co-producer Sammy D'Ambruoso for three excruciating months.

"There was no choice," Jourgensen says of the bittersweet production process. "During the tracking 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.' I'm super proud of From Beer To Eternity because it's my tribute to Mikey's incredible talent, and I feel it honors him and all of the years we spent together making music."

From the schizophrenic opening cut, the sarcasm-dripping, sound effect-laden 'Hail To His Majesty (Peasants)' to the thrash-punk riffs andbooming bass reverberations of 'Punch In The Face', to 'Change Of Luck', a song that Jourgensen wrote directly about Scaccia's death, From Beer To Eternity pulls no punches, sounding at once familiar, yet completely fresh and inspired. The release also includes 'Side F/X Include Mikey's Middle Finger / TV4,' which old school Ministry fans will recognize as a continuum in a series of TV songs that began in the mid-1990s, and underscores Scaccia's birthright as one of the greatest metal guitarists in the world.

'PermaWar', the first single from From Beer To Eternity, will drop digitally via iTunes in late July as a three-track maxi single. Additionally, 13th Planet Records will be releasing special products for From Beer To Eternity, including a Special Limited Edition Digipak with 13 tracks, a special FanBox edition, as well as vinyl and limited edition 12" inch picture discs.