In Conversation: Trent Reznor - Vulture
The Nine Inch Nails’ icon on his new music, the future of streaming, and his tortured past.
By David Marchese
Excerpt:
For a long time, you were one of the real avatars of white male angst and anger. Have you noticed a change in how those feelings get expressed culturally? There’s a toxicity and meanness in the air now that I don’t think was there when you one were, for lack of a better term, a poster boy for alienation.
I never thought about Nine Inch Nails in that context. From my perspective, I was doing what Morrissey and Robert Smith (Steven Patrick Morrissey of the Smiths and Robert Smith of the Cure. Icons of 1980s English-rock melancholia.) had done, which was expressing a sense of “I don’t f***ing fit in anywhere.” It was never about any larger cultural sense of oppression or disenfranchisement. I was thinking if we can take music that embraces and toughens up the sound of electronics, brings the aggression of Throbbing Gristle (The confrontational English group widely credited with creating industrial music, originally active from 1976 to 1981.) and hard rock, and also instills an honest lyric — we might have something. I don’t think what we were tapping into was at all similar to the absurdity of whatever Gamergate represents, if that’s what you’re suggesting.
The Nine Inch Nails’ icon on his new music, the future of streaming, and his tortured past.
By David Marchese
Excerpt:
For a long time, you were one of the real avatars of white male angst and anger. Have you noticed a change in how those feelings get expressed culturally? There’s a toxicity and meanness in the air now that I don’t think was there when you one were, for lack of a better term, a poster boy for alienation.
I never thought about Nine Inch Nails in that context. From my perspective, I was doing what Morrissey and Robert Smith (Steven Patrick Morrissey of the Smiths and Robert Smith of the Cure. Icons of 1980s English-rock melancholia.) had done, which was expressing a sense of “I don’t f***ing fit in anywhere.” It was never about any larger cultural sense of oppression or disenfranchisement. I was thinking if we can take music that embraces and toughens up the sound of electronics, brings the aggression of Throbbing Gristle (The confrontational English group widely credited with creating industrial music, originally active from 1976 to 1981.) and hard rock, and also instills an honest lyric — we might have something. I don’t think what we were tapping into was at all similar to the absurdity of whatever Gamergate represents, if that’s what you’re suggesting.
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Was listening to NIN's new Ep today actually. This bit just proves that Trent is as cool and insightful as his music is by not playing the 'tough' like Rollins once did in trying to knock other artists down.
