Super excited to announce that I am officially back with my friends in Ministry And can’t wait to hit the road with them... Posted by Roy Mayorga on Sunday, May 9, 2021
Roy Mayorga has announced that he will rejoin MINISTRY on the band's fall 2021 tour.
Earlier today, the STONE SOUR and HELLYEAH drummer took to his social media to write: "Super excited to announce that I am officially back with my friends in MINISTRY. And can't wait to hit the road with them coming up this October! See you all soon!"
Mayorga previously played with MINISTRY from 2016 to 2017 and appeared on the "AmericaKKKant" album, which came out in March 2018.
Regarding how Roy ended up playing drums on "AmericaKKKant", MINISTRY mainman Al Jourgensen told SoCalMusicToday.com, "['AmericaKKKant' is] the first organic album I've recorded since, like, 1994. The last time I was in the studio with a full band was on the album 'Filth Pig'. It's been a long time — usually it's just me and an engineer in a windowless room with a computer. So how it worked out, this is kind of a long story but bear with me... So during the SURGICAL METH MACHINE project, I didn't want to do a MINISTRY record as my guitarist [Mike Scaccia] just passed away and he was my best friend for 25 years, so MINISTRY wasn't in the forefront of my mind. I was informed by my new manager that MINISTRY was contractually obligated to play some shows in Europe. I really didn't want to do that, but if I didn't, I would get sued. So I did the MINISTRY thing and I was able to get Roy and some others to play on this tour of Europe and we fulfilled our obligation. About half way through to fulfill this, we realized we were sounding pretty damn good, so when we got back, I booked a week's worth of studio time, and myself, Roy and others just jammed to see what we could come up with. Like I said, it's been a long time since I jammed with a band in the studio, and within about a week, we had about 75-80 percent of this album knocked out. We knocked out all the templates or skeletons for the songs in a week, then I spent about six months layering textures on top of that. But this sounds much more organic than other recent MINISTRY because we did it as a band."
Two months ago, MINISTRY's previously announced spring dates were moved to October and November 2021 to allow additional time for COVID-19 restrictions to be lifted as the country nears towards more normalcy this fall. The new dates will kick off October 3 in Albuquerque and run through November 3 in Seattle, hitting all the previously announced markets except Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Missoula, Montana, which, unfortunately, have been canceled, and Baltimore, Maryland, which will be postponed for a later date. The Buffalo, New York show has moved to a new venue and previous ticket purchases will be honored. And an additional show date has been added for Charlotte, North Carolina. The tour’s special guests FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY remain on the lineup for this one-of-a-kind celebration alongside newly announced support act HELMET.
This special tour honors not only the 40th anniversary of MINISTRY in 2021 but also the 30th anniversary of revolutionary album "The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste", and will also include brand-new material from MINISTRY's upcoming 15th studio album.
Due to the uncertainty of COVID-19 protocols for visas, travel and vaccine distribution in Germany as well as immigration uncertainty, KMFDM will not be taking part in this tour.
When the rescheduled tour dates were announced in March, Jourgensen said: "With current COVID-19 restrictions, we are forced to again move our scheduled March/April 2021 U.S. tour to October/November 2021 and hoping normalcy returns by then. With vaccinations and better care happening, we all feel the fall is realistic. We can't wait to get out there and play not only 'The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste' material for you all but some stuff off our new album as well. Stay safe and see you in the fall!"
