Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
(Every Day is) Halloween (1985)
One interesting thing about artists is that they can evolve. What they sound like as young musicians can change over the years. There are exceptions, of course, like AC/DC (although they had two different singers over their career), but most artists sound markedly different as they move through their careers.
Ministry provides a good example of a band changing its sound. If you only listened to them over the last 35 years, you'd think they were always a deafeningly loud industrial metal band. But they weren't always like that.
Formed in Chicago in 1981 by singer/multi-instrumentalist Al Jourgensen, the early incarnation of Ministry was very much a synth-pop band, touring with the likes of A Flock of Seagulls, Culture Club and Depeche Mode. The band's first lineup featured Jourgensen, keyboardists Robert Roberts and John Davis, bassist Marty Sorenson and drummer Stephen George. The group released the single "I'm Falling" in late '81 on Wax Trax! Records and played their first show on New Year's Day 1982. The song hit #45 on the Billboard Hot Dance/Disco chart and Arista Records founder Clive Davis subsequently signed Ministry to a six-figure, two-album deal.
Jourgensen and George became the official band members who went into Syncro Sound studio in Boston to make their first album, with Roberts and Davis along as session musicians. Ministry's debut album, With Sympathy, came out in May 1983 and went to #94 on the Billboard 200, with "Work for Love," "Revenge" and "I Wanted to Tell Her" released as singles. The band supported the Police on a leg of the Synchronicity tour.
However, Jourgensen had a falling out with Arista and eventually sued the label for violating the contract. In later interviews, Jourgensen has said he no longer wanted to make synth pop but the label insisted; he had discovered hardcore punk and wanted to move in that direction. Eventually, he signed with Sire Records on the condition they would support Wax Trax! and released several singles in the summer of 1985, including "(Every Day is) Halloween." With its pounding industrial beat, the song has since become a goth anthem.
"Well, I live with snakes and lizards/And other things that go bump in the night/'Cause to me every day is Halloween/I have given up hiding and started to fight/I have started to fight/Well anything, any place, anywhere that I go/All the people seem to stop and stare/They say, 'Why are you dressed like it's Halloween?/You look so absurd, you look so obscene!'"
Initially the B-side to the "All Day" single, the song became embraced by goth fans much like Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead."
"Oh, why can't I live a life for me?/Why should I take the abuse that's served?/Why can't they see they're just like me?/It's the same, it's the same in the whole wide world/Well, I let their teeny minds think/That they're dealing with someone who's over the brink/And I dress this way just to keep them at bay/'Cause Halloween is every day, hey."
It became popular at alternative dance clubs and was included on the 1987 compilation Twelve Inch Singles (1981-1984). The following year, the song was used in a commercial for Old Style Beer.
Meanwhile, Ministry released its first album for Sire, Twitch, in 1986. It was still very electronic-based, but more aggressive than the band's previous releases. Joined by bassist Paul Barker and drummer Bill Rieflin, Jourgensen started playing guitar again and the next album, 1988's The Land of Rape and Honey, incorporated the heavier guitar riffage that would become a large part of the band's sound, combined with the industrial elements introduced on Twitch. Subsequent albums would be heavier and faster and the band became part of the alternative rock wave of the early '90s; 1992's Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs, got as high as #27 on the Billboard 200 chart and the band headlined the second Lollapalooza tour along with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and over the likes of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. I saw that tour stop in Mansfield, Mass., and Ministry was pretty mind-blowing, just pummeling the audience with volume and power while a bunch of fans ripped up the fence at the back of the lawn area, set it on fire and danced around it. Lollapalooza was not invited back to the venue for several years after that.
Through the rest of the '90s, Ministry's sound became more of a doom metal vibe. Jourgensen was struggling with a serious heroin problem (as well as other substances) and nearly lost his arm in 2001 when he was bitten by a venomous spider. Ministry played a farewell tour in 2008 but reunited in 2011. They've continued to tour and record albums, although they announced a few weeks ago that they're planning to release a final studio album in 2025.
As for "(Every Day is) Halloween," Ministry didn't play the song live for more than 30 years, partly because Jourgensen had sworn off the early synth-pop days. But they played an acoustic version in 2018 with Dave Navarro in Los Angeles and have since reintroduced the song into their live repertoire.
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