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NINE INCH NAILS – OUR FUTURE IS DAMNED

Published: 2008.06.22

Trent Reznor is known for his wonderful music, but also for his ever-changing personality. A few months ago Reznor ended a long partnership with Universal Music. Soon after he released an instrumental album entitled “Ghosts I-IV” on his own record company. Now the latest effort, “The Slip”, is available as a free download from his website www.nin.com. Imhotep contacted Reznor to talk about music and his career.


How did you end up putting out “Ghosts I-IV” and “The Slip” out like that?
“I always wanted to do several not so typical things, like an instrumental album, and now that I am on my own, nobody could tell me what to do. “The Slip” is a gift from me to my fans, for supporting me all these years.”

Your next release will be the 2nd part of “Year Zero”. How did you get the idea for it?
“That is an easy question… Really, where this came from was that since I don’t have a band or a typical sound I would need to follow, I have to set myself some guidelines to follow to keep me focused on something. That usually happens on a musical level and on a lyrical level. Like when I did “With Teeth”, I wanted it to sound like a real band piece, real drums, real base and I knew kinda what I wanted. Sometimes it gets off track but generally it stays there. This project started during our last one year and half lasting tour, when I started experimenting with music when I was bored sitting and waiting for the concerts to start. I started experimenting on my laptop and kinda stumbled on some new ways of constructing rhythms and colossals of samples. It sounded fresh for me and I started working more and more on it and finally got a large chunk of new stuff, which wasn’t necessary songs but more like bits and pieces of music.
Two summers ago I started thinking about what I would like it to sound lyrically this time, I was a bit afraid to do it but I wanted to do it, was to comment on issues that have been important for me during the last seven years in particular, maybe I’m getting older or more mature, or the world is getting crazier or perhaps both. I wanted to comment about my thoughts as an American, kind of anger, frustration and shame that I feel because of how our government has been feeling lately. Rather than making an album which is just name-calling… I could say George Bush is an asshole, I can believe that George Bush is an asshole, but I am not gonna change anybody’s mind, I don’t know what people feel about this guy. I don’t see any point in there, it is just cowardice stating the obvious.



Then I just figured about where we would be headed if we continued on the track we were heading for. I wrote a story as an experiment about what I think life might turn into and what events might take place. It ended up being very elaborate, I didn’t have any agenda about what was happening, I was just experimenting and seeing what was happening. Then I started matching it up with some music I had written, written from various points of views of humans on this planet, and then all of a sudden the record just kinda happened. That was it. Mainly I wanted to get into issues of tolerance, sense of entitlement, and underline the theme of greed, self-preservation at any cost, carelessness and recklessness, which seem to permeate big business and people running the country, spoiled capitalism and things like that.”

But “Year Zero” isn’t just about the music. You also have a web of discussions going on?
“When I got the album finished, it sounded like a good album, but I think it sounded even better if you knew the story behind it. So I decided to tell the story through the internet through an elaborate web of things that make sense and things that kinda don’t, and why I did it and chose that medium was to encourage people to discuss. Collaborate, and not only on the puzzle-solving aspect of it but kinda encourage the dialog about it and what could this all be about. These bread crumbs are dropped all over real dense, because all the things we talk about in the story are things that are already happening. One of the key elements on reacting on this is paying much more attention on what’s happening right now. And at least in America, you are not encouraged to ask questions, you are much more encouraged to listen to the news, Fox news that is, do your job, kinda shut up and pay taxes, go fight on a war if you are needed, go to church and shut the fuck up, and you see where that is leading us right now.”

How was the writing process like?
“I built up a studio into an isolated place in the forest and spent three months there, and started writing this story and the songs came out. I don’t write well when I’m on tour and being bothered and I can write on music when I’m on tour but when I really have to think things through…, if I know I have to be somewhere else in an hour I can’t get out of myself. So I got out of myself pretty efficiently and got into a place where I wasn’t quite sure if I dreamed last night, or was it a part of the story or did it really happen, like was I going insane? The process was interesting and I cannot describe it that well but it turned out one of the strangest experiences I’ve had.”

How do you view “With Teeth” now? It was a huge success worldwide.
“ “With Teeth” isn’t a special album in that sense, but for some reason I had some thoughts in my head about the album and that its songs should have strong melodies and kinda this formula which The Beatles came up about what a good song is, and I would be able to play it on guitar and strike it down, a lot of the songs I wrote on piano and arranged afterwards. I am not saying that is right or wrong, but on the “Year Zero”-duo I said fuck all that. Who cares if it has any melody, or if it has three verses or bridges and fuck it. I don’t care; I would kinda hope that Paul McCartney would hear those since he would think that is not a song, even if I don’t have anything against Paul McCartney. But it is more like you don’t need to have these things to make it a good song, fuck it, I just like it how it sounds. That seemed just the right thing to do and this whole album sounded like the right thing to do. There aren’t so many deep, harmonic changes going on, but it was more from the gut and what like felt right. Maybe some of the ends of the songs go on longer than needed but it sounded cool to me and I didn’t think about what was right or wrong. I wasn’t confident enough to do that on “With Teeth”, but on these albums, for better or worse, let’s do it.”


But now you worked differently.
“I didn’t do it differently on purpose, it kinda just happened… Sometimes I can get all sorts of crazy ideas like breaking a glass on a box and sampling it and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but if it does I get goosebumps and I can follow the inspiration. I decided to follow this inspiration because if felt right, right from the start.”

How did music find you?
“When I started out, I was thrilled and motivated to express myself and I felt like that was my reason on earth, and god it would feel great to get a record deal some day and make a living out of this, and that I could write a piece of music that someone else likes and it becomes a part of them, because that was the case with the music I grew up listening to, and it would be the greatest thing in the world if I would get a chance to do that. By hard work, luck and being in the right place at the right time and I got to do that. Then your goals kinda shift like into how can I do it better and now that I’ve made a little money on this, another voice comes in and says what could you do to make even more money on this, how can you get bigger? It is kinda asking yourself the question about what you wanted to do with yourself? I used to play the tennis racket in front of the TV when I was fifteen and imagine myself to be a rock star and wish I was on TV. I know now what I want from this, and it is not fame and money – of course those are good qualities, since I’d rather do this than clean toilets, which I’ve done, because this is better. But I do this because I love music. Getting sober and getting my life in order a few years ago, and putting all kinds of shit behind me, has made me appreciate the things I have and made me see how lucky I am. I love doing this, this album was so fun to do and I can’t wait to do the next one. I lost that for a while when the other bullshit came in.”

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You started out as a keyboardist.
“Well I was primarily a piano player, and I got into electronics when I was in high school, and computers were kinda emerging and the first pieces of sequencing was going on, and those days sythetisizers were worth much more money than you could afford. When I started getting into bands I was always the keyboard player. In the early eighties I heard artists like Human League and bands that have drum machines, the future had arrived. What I loved about this music was that because of the technology involved it, there were sounds you had never heard before. But for me it sounded a bit too light, it didn’t have the toughness of metal, it didn’t have the aggression I wanted. By the end of the eighties, artists like Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Front 242 and others and I was like wov! Now I am hearing the sounds of the end of the world and now it’s electronic and this is what I wanted to do. That was really the root of where I found the sounds I wanted to use. Adrian Sherwood and things like that. When I started writing music, I realized that the choruses that came out and stuff like that didn’t sound like the music I was listening to. The combination of my influences and the fact that I started writing pop songs opened a bigger audience than the bands I originally liked. That freaked me out, because too many people liked my music and I was like “you aren’t suppose to like this”. I just always tried to be true to what felt right for me and at the end of the day, I am proud of the music I’ve put out and I am what I am.”

But at some point you included metal in your music as well.
“I remember when I listened to a Skinny Puppy or Ministry or lets say, Rage Against The Machine or Tool, it sounded like they have their sound. Let’s use RATM as and example; I know those guys and I like what they do and it is a great song, but what they’ve done is just one song, and they’ve made three albums out of that one song. I’ve envied that because you instantly know that is them, but at the same time I think that that’s all they are. AC/DC was always about one or maybe two different songs, and even Tool, is much about that’s what they always do. I wouldn’t wanna hear Tool branch off to something else, but like Radiohead, they’ve done like five different things, yet it always sounds like them. Queen used to be my favourite band and I still love it, and they sound like 50 different bands. With cool drum sounds, great guitars and vocals. I could be accused of the same things, but I’d like to think that I have a wider range of songs. I’ve tried to make things differently.”




You’ve always kept your private life as a secret.
“I don’t really want my fans to see me. What I’ve tried to do in the media is not to let my personality get in the way of the music. In a way, that creates its own aura. Today with the Internet and MTV it is easy to reach out and overexpose yourself to people, and I don’t mean like I was embarrassed about myself, but when you listen to a Nine Inch Nails record, I don’t want you to know what I look like, I want you to create your own version about the record. It is like reading a book, when you read it you’d like to know more about it and you do the casting yourself. Like now I wouldn’t wanna see Madonna naked – maybe it would be a different thing in my room right now, but I don’t need to see her. I don’t want you to know where I live or what I do, I kinda want you to want to know more. Like reading a book, you create the set and do the casting, and when you see the movie you think that I didn’t imagine it anyway similar, like in my head that spaceship looked a lot cooler. Like Tool, you don’t know anything about these guys, and it creates mystique that makes them cool.”


www.nin.com
www.myspace.com/nin


Composed by Sauli Vuoti

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Nice attempt at a recovery, but no straight man would admit to wanting to see Madonna naked, regardless of the room.

I think the reason his lyrics always seem like something a 14 year old would write, is because his refusal to accept his homosexuality has stunted his emotional growth.
I remember one of his tales of big rock star excess included making forts with the guys from Manson and watching all the Alien movies. There were possibly narcotics involved, but it's still adorable.

Gay angst makes songs like "Sin" all the more potent. I can see an 18 year old Trent falling in love with some older guy despite the horror & shame his faggy feelings cause him, offering up his virgin farm boy ass for the first time and afterwards being dumped before the cum has even had a chance to dribble back out. That's what "Sin" means to me, although I was 14 not 18.

In this gay context the mysterious relationships with Tori Amos and Courtney Love and how it's questionable whether any sex took place suddenly make sense. It could have been good hag vs. bad hag.
Trent was lonely and desperate for a friend. Both women were drawn to his vulnerability and ended up falling in love with him. But poor Trent wasn't interested in a physical relationship; he just liked spending time with gay icons. Tori was understanding so they became friends.
Courtney likely went into predator mode, continued to come on way too strong (like she did with Roz, Kurt & Edward) and refused to accept that he had no interest in fucking her, dating her, probably even knowing her at this point. And eventually she turned on him because of that.

I hope he comes out, fucks around for a brief and carefree period, but then falls in love with some awesome 22 year old who appreciates him for the lovely fucking geek his is, and they live happily ever after. And being in love for the first time inspires songwriting maturity and he starts releasing cool fucked-up Bacharacheseque albums.

Hahahaa. I love this post. Makes a lot of sense.

thank you for the post bryan.

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"I'm getting fucking tired of you fucks" - Trent Reznor - toronto 1994

I am the hate you try to hide and I control you - Mr Self-Destruct.

its cute how naive he is about politricks!

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Thanks for the post.

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I like that he keeps his homosexual tendencies repressed and only expresses them through music. It adds to his mystique.

I'm trying to fit it all inside
I'm trying to open my mouth wide
I'm trying not to choke and
Swallow it all, swallow it all, swallow it all, swallow it all

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just coz.