Fireball Ministry

Fireball Ministry is an American stoner metal band from Los Angeles, formed in 1999. History Formed in Cincinnati in the late 1990s by James A. Rota II and Emily Burton, Fireball Ministry moved to New York City before settling in Los Angeles. In 2000, they performed at the two-day "November Dismember" metal-music festival in San Bernardino, California, playing on the second day. The festival was situated at the National Orange Show fairgrounds in two hangars. After several years appearing with various big name bands in the genre such as Danzig, Anthrax, Motörhead, and Slayer, but without a breakthrough in album sales, they polished their own sound to continue gaining a wider following. The tracks "King" and "Flatline" appeared in the big wave surfing documentary Billabong Odyssey (2003). The track "King" was also selected by Bam Margera and appeared on his Viva La Bands compilation. The band teamed up with Margera's brother, Jess, when they toured Europe with CKY in 2004. The track "The Broken" was included in the wrestling video game WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2006 for the PlayStation 2. The band went through four different bass players, starting with Helen Storer, who played on Où est la Rock? (1999) and was replaced by Fu Manchu bassist Brad Davis on FMEP (2001), who was himself replaced by former L7 bass player Janis Tanaka on The Second Great Awakening (2003). Former Systematic bassist Johny Chow then took the place of Tanaka for the Their Rock Is Not Our Rock album (2005), which was recorded at Dave Grohl's 606 West studio and, like the band's previous works, was produced by Nick Raskulinecz. In another connection helped by Margera, they supported CKY on their 2005 Adio Footwear-sponsored tour, having already opened for them on their UK tour in 2004. Original drummer John Oreshnick took a leave of absence due to family issues in the fall of 2006, to be replaced by Yael during their subsequent tour. Yael and Johny Chow were former bandmates in My Ruin. Yael subsequently left the band in winter 2006, and Oreshnick rejoined.