Ministry

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.