Due to circumstances beyond our control Ministry with Special Guests Filter – Live in Singapore on October 4th is canceled. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to bring these great bands to Singapore at some point in the future.
Ministry’s official statement regarding the cancellation of tour:
“Due to unforeseen circumstances and issues surrounding our business, we are forced to cancel our planned tour of New Zealand, Australia & Singapore. Our hope is to come visit you all next year when we release our newest Ministry record.”
Ministry is an American industrial metal band founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1981 by producer, singer and instrumentalist Al Jourgensen. Originally a synth-pop outfit, Ministry evolved into one of the pioneers of industrial metal in the late 1980s.
The band has been nominated for six Grammy Awards and has performed at several music festivals, including the second annual Lollapalooza tour in 1992, co-headlining Big Day Out in 1995 and performing at Wacken Open Air thrice (in 2006, 2012 and 2016).
In January 2020, Ministry announced the “Industrial Strength Tour” would start in 2020, with drummer London May of Samhain, which would feature both KMFDM and Front Line Assembly as guests. The tour was to begin on 1 July and extend until August. In May 2020, the band announced that they postponed all dates on the Industrial Strength Tour until 2021. The 25–date tour, with KMFDM and Front Line Assembly, will take place in March and April 2021.
On January 17, 2020, Billboard released an exposé on guitar player, Sin Quirin detailing accounts of Quirin’s alleged behavior including sexual relationships with underage females while touring in San Antonio, TX, Portland, OR, and Tacoma, WA in the early 2000s. As of March 2020, Quirin is still in the band, with no statement from Jourgensen or Ministry. The band briefly made all of their social media accounts private but have since returned to posting publicly. Sin is not credited on “Alert Level”.
On March 24, 2020, longtime drummer Bill Rieflin died of cancer, which had been kept private. His death was announced the next day by Robert Fripp of King Crimson via Facebook.
On April 24, 2020, one month after Rieflin’s passing, Ministry released their first song in two-and-a-half years, “Alert Level”, which is expected to appear on the band’s upcoming fifteenth studio album.