Permawar

Album: From Beer To Eternity (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • This was released as one of the intro tracks to Ministry's From Beer To Eternity album. The record was recorded at frontman Al Jourgensen's 13th Planet compound in El Paso, Texas with guitarists Mike Scaccia and Sin Quirin, drummer Aaron Rossi and bassist Tony Campos. Three days after rough tracks for the songs were completed, Scaccia died from a heart attack he suffered onstage while playing a live show with his band Rigor Mattis.

    The remaining Ministry members were absolutely devastated and Jourgensen announced in March 2013 that From Beer To Eternity would be the band's last ever album, as he didn't want to carry on without Scaccia. "Mikey was my best friend in the world and there's no Ministry without him", he told Noisey. "But I know the music we recorded together during the last weeks of his life had to be released to honor him. So after his funeral, I locked myself in my studio and turned the songs we had recorded into the best and last Ministry record anyone will ever hear. I can't do it without Mikey and I don't want to. So yes, this will be Ministry's last album."
  • Jourgensen recalled the recording of the album to Loudwire: "Me and Mikey, we would just jam around between country songs and we kept coming up with these riffs and Mikey kept going, 'Man we've got to put this out,'" remembered the frontman. "I kept telling him Ministry is done, but he's like, 'No, seriously dude. These riffs are cool; we have to put this out.' I kind of went into it begrudgingly and now I'm really quite happy with the result. I think this album came out like a great middle finger from me and Mikey as the final blow. So, I'm pretty happy with it."
  • The song's music video was shot in July 2013 at Jourgensen's Texan compound and directed by filmmaker/animator Zach Passero whose credits include Ministry's "Lieslieslies," "GhoulDiggers" and "99 Percenters," as well as the feature film Wicked Lake. The clip combines provocative news images taken from World War Two, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, with a bad acid trip. Jourgensen portrays three different personalities, representing three different points of view on America's persistence of war: the corrupt political leader, the predatory business man, and the passive observer.

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