So, what's up with the Ministry tribute albums? What prompted the thought that, "Hey, the world needs a Ministry tribute album!"

Martin: I guess we thought it was interesting. Also, we're in the music business in the year 2000. An awful lot of labels went out of business last year. Re-Constriction. Wax Trax doesn't really exist anymore. It's just a logo that TVT owns. Slipdisc--a kind of, well, sort of, sister Chicago label that had signed a lot of so-called "industrial" acts--also went out of business. There are a lot of retailers and distributors who understand the depth of what is going on at Invisible, the reasons why, the aesthetic, everything. And there are other people with records stores who don't!

I think that releases like the Ministry tribute or the Dread Kennedys album, for instance, I think they're somewhat no-brainers, if you like. Although I loved the idea of Dread Kennedys and I talked with Jello [Biafra] about it and he liked the idea. And we had Winston Smith work on the artwork. Even though I guess you might say that the Ministry release and the Dread Kennedys release are Cleopatra-style tribute albums, they are still very, very much Invisible releases. I think there is a sense of humor to the two Ministry releases and to the Dread Kennedys thing that I'm proud of. But is it the most serious music on the label? No. Do people come up to me on the street and say, "Of all the releases on the label, the Dread Kennedys and the Ministry tributes, you guys are rockin'." No.

But I have to tell you that each of those releases have sold five times more than an awful lot of releases on the label that I've been pushing and pushing for years.

Do you think that it is from name recognition?

Martin: I don't know what it is from. But we were talking about the art of doing business. I know people--in England especially where there is the dole--who would call me all kinds of names for putting out the Dread Kennedys release. "What the hell..? This isn't...! What are you doing?" Then guess what? Two weeks after their tirade I try and e-mail them back and their e-mail account has been cut off and so has their phone. If you want to be an anarchist, you'd better have the phone turned on. It's really simple. I've seen lots of stuff on the Internet with people whining. This last year, I've been locked in the studio eighteen hours a day working on The Damage Manual and working with Meg Lee Chin and working on a lot of things--the Soapbox Beatbox tour and the implementation of it--and to sit here, reading e-mails from people complaining about these releases, when the ease of marketing some of these releases has enabled me to be in the studio working on The Damage Manual.

It's one of the tragic things. You wish that some of the smaller things would get more recognition than Ministry cover songs. [Martin, a little incensed at my lack of knowledge, goes off the record because he "doesn't want this to become a nuts and bolts interview" and educates me about some of the numbers involved in tribute albums.]

Martin: There are ways of keeping our artists involved in music, keeping their home studios functioning, and that [the tribute album] is one of them. I've done remixes for Cleopatra. And Lee Fraser--the programmer from Sheep on Drugs--who has done some work on the Bagman album and is coming out on tour with us, he's done a lot of remixes for them. It's a reality of doing business this year that these tribute albums are all over the place. If I can pick up the phone, talk about an idea with Dave--an idea that I think is a good idea--execute it, and put money in my office pockets, get them [the artists] some exposure...you see, it's about exposure as well. Someone might pick up the Ministry tribute album and say, "Wow, this Subgenius thing is kind of interesting. Hey, this Subgenius guy did a track on Jared's album too. Ha ha!" Who knows what the tiny incremental things are that cause someone to part with fifteen dollars for a CD. But, by keeping the artists exposed in as many ways as we can, we're keeping the hopes we have for many of these releases alive. As well as the facilities these artists have for making music. When they're being paid for doing remixes, they are maintaining their studios, developing their skills, and all the rest of it.

So, the last thing I want to ask you--and we did this with Meg and Jared as well--the concept is this: you're taking so damn many drum kits on the road that you've got little room for much else. In this case, five albums. What would you take to listen to while you were on tour for the next six months?

In that case, what five are on your "gosh, I wish I had time to read these" shelf?

Martin: Well, I'm reading Patricia Highsmith right now. Ripley. It's a selection--a six-in-one--of her Ripley novels. This massive, wrist-breaking book. Sometimes you forget how twisted things were fifty years ago, a hundred years ago, three hundred years ago, but they were, they totally were. I'm reveling in it. I'm also reading about growth and emotional intelligence and stuff like that. I don't know what that book is called. Because I can have a temper, I run a record label, and I haven't had a drink in seven years. I'm seeking to grow. [Chuckles] It's not an easy thing to work with so many artists that we do--so many well-known artists if you like--things get harder as you sell more records. I'm waiting to read American Psycho [by Bret Easton Ellis]. I've seen the movie and I thought that whoever the guy was he just wasn't the right guy. There was no sense of humor to it. His musical tastes were hilarious, but I didn't laugh out loud. I'm kind of bummed. I've got two boys--two and four years old--and so I don't get to the movies that often, so I'm an easy punter to please. And I was not pleased. Toy Story 2 was much more preferable.

I think if they could have fine-tuned that and combined more of the twisted comedy of it with the horror of his situation and all the people he supposedly came in contact with, I think it could have been much more twisted. That's actually what I try to do with music: If you've got a nasty, powerful moment, do you try and make the next moment more and more powerful or do you chop everything away and have it dissolve to nothing?

On the Web:
Invisible Records
The Damage Manual

Inside Earpollution:
Interview with The Damage Manual's Chris Connelly
The Damage Manual - One (June 2000)

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