Founding Tool bassist Paul D’Amour has become the latest addition to the lineup of industrial music icons Ministry.
Back in 1995, Tool revealed that they would be undergoing a little bit of a lineup change, with founding member Paul D’Amour leaving the group following his desire to focus more on guitar instead of bass.
Having recruited Justin Chancellor into the mix, Tool released their mainstream breakthrough – Ænima – the following year, while D’Amour went on to play with bands such as The Replicants, Feersum Ennjin, and Lesser Key, teaming up with his old bandmates along the way.
Now, Paul D’Amour is set to return with his highest-profile gig in years, being announced as the newest member of industrial icons Ministry.
Check out Paul D’Amour on Tool’s ‘Sober’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hglVqACd1C8
As Revolver notes, Paul D’Amour has teamed up with the veteran group for their upcoming tour, replacing Tony Campos, who will be heading out on tour with his other band, Static-X.
In an interview with Revolver, Ministry’s sole mainstay Al Jourgensen revealed that not only had D’Amour been in the studio with the band, but that the pair had met almost 30 years ago during a memorable drug trip at Lollapalooza.
“I used to live with Timothy Leary, and he had given me these bottles of liquid LSD to bring on tour,” Jourgensen explained. “I’d put two drops in my bottle of whiskey that I’d bring onstage. I’d drink about half the bottle during a show.”
“So we were on Lollapalooza in ’92, I think it was San Francisco, and when we came offstage there were these two guys who were like, ‘Great show, dude!’ So I gave them my bottle of Bushmills, but I forgot that I had put LSD in it.”
“So they drank it and they were tripping balls for, like, two or three days,” he continued. “They didn’t know what was going on and they were freaking out.”
“They were ready to call suicidal hotlines. It turned out to be Paul and Maynard from Tool! … But he actually thanked me for that moment because he said it really got Tool going into being a psychedelic band. Pretty cosmic, right?”
Paul D’Amour is set to kick off his stint as the bassist for Ministry next month when the group kick off their European tour in Austria.
While Ministry were last in the country for Soundwave in 2015, it remains to be seen when they will return. First visiting the country for the 1995 Big Day Out, a 2006 tour was cancelled before they returned in 2015.
Their first-ever headlining tour of Australia was announced and subsequently cancelled in 2017, with no word yet as to when they might again visit our shores.
Check out ‘Just One Fix’ by Ministry:
