trent reznor and the meaning of "nine inch nails"
"i don't know if you've ever tried to think of band names, but usually you think you have a great one and you look at it the next day and it's stupid. i had about 200 of those. nine inch nails lasted the two-week test, looked great in print, and could be abbreviated easily. it really doesn't have any literal meaning. it seemed kind of frightening. (in his best he-man voice) tough and manly! it's a curse trying to come up with band names."
trent reznor's opinions on religion
"i believe in god," he says. "i was brought up going to sunday school and church, but it didn't really mean anything. things upset me a lot. it was just a theme i kept coming back to-religion, guilt and doubting. i believe there's a god but i'm not too sure of his relevance."
what's is nin music composed of?
"i think keyboards have been given a bad rap in rock music", he says with disgust. "the pearl jams and whoever, that's not what i'm about. i like keyboards. i like technology. this is who i am."
what was the initial theme of the downward spiral?
the big overview was of somebody who systematically throws away every aspect of his life and what's around him-- from personal relationships to religion. this person is giving up to a certain degree, but also finding some peace by getting rid of things that were bogging him down. the record also looks at certain vices as being ways of trying to dull the pain of what this person is hiding. of course i'm talking about myself. so that was the general theme. not that that's any great leap for me, thematically. the reason why i hope people like nine inch nails is the lyrics. i think that's the element i care about most on this record, in terms of honesty and nakedness of emotion.
why was broken recorded in secret?
"with broken", he explains, "i wanted to do something a lot harder than i did on pretty hate machine. i wanted it to be a blast of destruction." broken was made in secret because, according to reznor, "we were in the midst of a legal tangle with tvt, our old record label."
why is nine inch nails music so dark and depressing?
how can such an apparently nice, regular guy be the source of such angst? "it's all basically me," trent assures me, speaking in that quiet, controlled voice that always surprises people who only know his music. "it's all my personality, but it's amplified in a certain direction. i get a lot of people saying, 'wow, you must be the most depressed person in the world!' well, I don't think i am. i'm not the happiest guy in the world either. but when i'm writing songs, i deliberately try to explore incredibly black emotions--combining personal experience with imaginative projection--to see how far i can get. i often end up bumming myself out pretty good."
why did trent reznor move into the house where the manson murders took place?
actually, it's a really beautiful place. that's what people don't know from reading the manson books and seeing the t.v. specials and all. the view from the front door is the best view of l.a. i've ever seen. it's amazing how beautiful looking down into a smog pit can be. when i rented the place i didn't even realize it was that house. when i found out i thought it was kind of interesting. i didn't think, "oh, it'll be spooky to tell people that..." i don't idolize charles manson, and i don't condone murdering people because you're a f**ked-up hippie trying to make a statement. but it's an interesting little chapter in american history that it was cool to be a part of.
how did trent reznor get to be the producer for the soundtrack: natural born killers?
"oliver approached me about doing the soundtrack. i got a call from his people to say he had used some nine inch nails music in the film and would i like to see a screening of it to approve its use? i thought it was used tastefully for a change, which is unusual in hollywood movie-making. i went to another screening the following week and oliver asked if i wanted to put out a soundtrack on my label in the states. i agreed without realizing what the soundtrack was going to be. i thought about it and had another meeting with him and agreed that it would be cool to make a record that followed the flow of the movie, to layer the music just like the movie did and use a lot of dialogue. i wanted to try to make something that's listenable to as a piece of music but also to call to mind the feel of the movie. he told me to go ahead and do it. so from that point on i had pretty much free rein to use whatever i wanted."
what is the song "heresy" about?
"i was trying to explore some of the paranoia i have as a sexually active person in the age of aids," he says of "heresy."
what was the falling out with tvt records all about?
"it came down to a simple thing," reznor says of the struggle that almost ended his career. "what i'm most concerned about is that the record you get in the store and the way you perceive nin is the way i want it to be perceived. i don't want it to be diluted by some marketing plan that's completely inappropriate and would make the music impure."
what possessed nine inch nails to get into the mud at woodstock?
we were right out by the big mud pit and watchin' everybody, i thought, well, this looks like a lot of fun. at that time there wasn't that many people that were muddy, but the people that were in the mud looked like they were having a great time and we thought 'f**k, y'know we kinda can't actually do that.' but we didn't have showers backstage at the time either, sowe went back and hung out backstage, and it was just a real nervous day. then on the way to stage i pushed danny, our guitar played, and he just fell face-first into the mud. then he tackled me and it turned into a kind of all-male mud wrestling thing. it was actually really funny. after we did that, all nervousness kind of subsided.
what's the connection between trent reznor and tori amos?
we met on a friendship level. it was not like some mutual a** kissing thing. i really liked her first album, which is not the kind of thing i'd normally listen to. someone had given it to me and said that it sounded like sinead o'connor. i f**king can't stand sinead o'connor, so I ignored it. then i saw the video for silent all these years and it struck me in a way where i wasn't sure if i liked it or not. but it was interesting. i was pleasantly surprised to find someone who i thought was taking chances. not playing it safe, and also writing good songs, melodies and really good lyrics. i thought that i should try and get in touch with her, just to try and say, not that i normally do this either, i think your record's really good. i relate to her work a lot, on some level, in an opposite of a nine inch nails arrangement kind of way. i really think that it works. she approaches things with a totally different aesthetic than i do, but it's good.
what is the song "big man with a gun" about?
the record was nearing completion. i had written those lyrics pretty quickly and I didn't know if I was going to use them or not. to me, downward spiral builds to a certain degree of madness, then it changes. that would be the last stage of delirium. so the original point of "big man with a gun" was madness. but it was also making fun of the whole misogynistic gangsta-rap bulls**t.
what was the first real rock band trent reznor ever played in?
option thirty. that was actually about one-third originals, two-thirds covers, from elvis costello to wang chung. for what it's worth, wang chung put a record out before the "dance hall days" record, when they spelled their name differently, h-u-a-n-g chung. all guitar-base-drums. still a real good record.
when did trent start playing synthesizers?
when i was in high school, i begged my parents to get a cheap moog. now i could play "just what i need." whoo-oo-whoo-oo. [whistles synth line from the cars song.] when that kind of explosion of synth music came around in the early 80's, it really was exciting; sequencers were just coming out. i was going to college for computer engineering and i thought, i love music, i love keyboard instruments-maybe i can get into synthesizer design. the excitement of hearing a human league track and thinking, that's all machines, there's no drummer. that was my calling. it wasn't the sex pistols.
what was the deal with richard patrick leaving the band for filter?
rich was this friend, and he played in the band for awhile. a pretty good guy. we were going to work on downward spiral together. but he wanted to be the guy that got recognized for writing the songs and singing. i didn't realize his real agenda was to have a way out to l.a. to get a record deal for himself.
who are some of the musicians who trent reznor has come to think of as friends?
an odd bunch of people. i think the guys from pantera are cool. everyone from tommy lee of mötley crüe to adrian belew. i met the guys in the band live because we were playing at festivals in australia. all of them are people i wouldn't hesitate to say, let's work on something.
what was the hardest song to write?
there's always one song per record - maybe two if you're real lucky - where you work and work and work, and it just takes a hell of a long time for the song to come together. on pretty hate machine it was "kinda i want to," which I still think sucks, and "that's what i get." those songs took an unbelievable amount of work. then you get into the trap of saying, "well, i spent so much time on this, it's gotta be good. i've gotta make it work." it's usually one part that's f**king the whole thing up. and that's usually the part that you think is really great. you'll hear a million playbacks of the song and say, "man, that part is so f**king cool. why is the song not happening?" then finally someone hits the mute button for that part and the song's good. and you realize, "oh f**k, it's that part i love so much."
is their any particular reason for the pigs theme on the downward spiral album?
chance more than anything, i mean people say that it was because i was in the tate house, but you know, it was a reference to that, which it wasn't consciously a reference to the murders that took place there. that wasn't the reason i was in that house, but again, it's hard for me to try to say that and people believe that it wasn't a publicity stunt of some sort.
does the song 'piggy' or 'march of the pigs' have anything to do with the tate home?
(reznor rented the tate house to setup a home studio to record "the downward spiral". he named the facility "le pig".)
i had the song 'piggy' written long before it was ever knows that i would be in that house. 'march of the pigs' has nothing to do with the tate murders or anything like that, i'm not going to say what it is about, but it's not about that. ya, the name of the studio being "pig", that was a definite bad taste kind of joke about being there. you know, it was written on the front door at one time, you know, i'll admit to that.
how did the lost highway project come about?
i had tried to track david lynch down years ago, just to see if he was a fan and if he'd ever be into doing a video or anything like that. and then one day i got a call through interscope saying that he was doing a new movie and, much like the oliver stone natural born killers thing, "would you be interested in doing a soundtrack on [reznor's label] nothing?" i said "well what is it?" and "i'm a big fan so, yeah, i'm interested." so i talked to david on the phone and he said, "would you be into me coming to new orleans and maybe we could sit down and try to score some bits of the movie?" so i said, "sure." i didn't expect that. and he ended up coming to new orleans and i had one of the most nerve racking situations i've ever been in. he comes in the studio and it's david lynch, right, my hero. and he's bigger than i thought, he's exactly that character on twin peaks, the hard-of-hearing fbi agent. (booming voice) "trent! well, whaddaya say we get started?!" and i'm sitting there nervous out of my mind. i'd gotten the script and i'd read it. and he goes, "okay! here's the scene. the guy's being pursued in a car by the police and i want this sound of chaos." and he's talking real loud, he's real animated. i say, "did you bring any footage?" (loudly) "nah! i didn't bring any footage. okay! see what you can come up with!" and he just sits back on the couch. and i thought, "oh my god."
how does tapeworm differ from nine inch nails
i want those guys to contribute things and once in a while i'll come up with something that i think is cool, but it's not the giant leap.... like, if i think the nine inch nails record has to be all dobro and jew's harp, then it has to be that. but maybe i'll write a cool f**kin' riff that isn't right for whatever new artistic plateau i'm hoping for nine inch nails, and if i establish this other ground as a place to relax and have fun and maybe make even better music, that's what tapeworm initially was.
is tapeworm reznor's first real collaborative "band" thing?
on this level, absolutely. my first true collaboration musically was the manson record, where i helped write some of the songs. twiggy and manson would come in with a song that wasn't fully a song yet and i'd say, "okay how can we get a bridge?' or "how can we make the chorus kick a**?" the band kind of became us. it was a cool open thing and a cool vibe. i told those guys at the time. "i envy you guys, you've got a band." but with tapeworm, i see that side of it.
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