
In Conversation: Trent Reznor - 6stringmerc
http://www.vulture.com/2017/07/trent-reznor-nine-inch-nails.html
======
donatj
>Wouldn’t a music obsessive like yourself have loved having the same choices
that listeners have now? Again, I’m not saying mine was a better era, but a
lot of the music I ended up really loving was because I spent nine bucks on an
album and that meant I had to listen to it and figure it out.

This is one of the biggest changes for me. As a kid when I was a kid getting
an album was RARE. I inherited a ton of cassettes and 8-tracks from my dad.
And I listened and listened and listened until I'd heard and knew every minute
detail of every track.

These days it's rare for me to give an album more than a couple listens unless
it's something that REALLY stands out.

~~~
failrate
I find a lot of new bands and albums through Spotify and YouTube (and last.fm
before that), and I listen to them repeatedly just like the old mix tapes from
friends that I started out with back in the day. I think this kind of deep
inspection of an artist or album is something that certain people do
regardless of the availability of music.

~~~
icanhackit
I think the deep inspection of an artist or album still happens as you
suggest, it's just over a more condensed time frame.

I'd have a single CD sit in my stereo for months when I was a teen and I'd
listen to it over and over, but only when I was home. Now that I take my whole
music collection and an internet connection with me wherever I go, I find I'll
rinse out a new interesting artist while at work/home/commuting for a few days
or weeks, depending on the amount of music they've published, buy a few of
their best tracks, and then they graduate to my collection to be revisited
occasionally.

In effect they get as much airtime as when I played a CD repeatedly, just over
a shorter span of days thanks to how portable and accessible music has become.
Music is so accessible I can even explore a sizeable chunk of an interesting
sub-genre on Soundcloud over a period of days. I'm truly spoiled.

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le-mark
This really stood out to me:

> When we first started off, our interaction with our audience would be
> someone recognizing you at a record store and saying, “I’m not a fan, but my
> so-and-so is.” Okay, fuck you. Or people would find out where you live and
> send you a letter and you’d read something that clearly came from an insane
> person. Then the internet connected everybody. I remember the Prodigy
> bulletin board and being fascinated to see there was a Nine Inch Nails room.
> The promise of that kind of interaction with fans was exciting. The
> consequences of how that interaction has evolved have not been.

He's a bit more introspective later on about his role in that, how if you're
in the public eye, you have to manage your image. It's so weird to think,
we're all adults now. Like he says, he never considered having to represent
those lyrics twenty years later.

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robertelder
Fun fact: "Reznor graduated in 1983 and enrolled at Allegheny College, where
he studied computer engineering."

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Reznor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Reznor)

~~~
cschmidt
Another fun fact: Trent was in the jazz band in high school, where he played
keyboards. (Source: a college classmate of mine went to high school with him.
I always found that a weird thing to picture.)

~~~
gt2
Although there's obviously plenty of keyboards in NIN, here's him playing
keyboards back in the day..

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLPcE-5YWKI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLPcE-5YWKI)

Fun video.

------
ryandrake
Nice quote about how the profit motive and being in bed with the corporate
world affects your work:

> "I remember having a conversation with a well-known EDM artist. Half of the
> brief conversation was him humblebragging about how many corporate sponsors
> he’s got: I can’t do this thing because I don’t want to piss that sponsor
> off and I can’t do that thing because I need to make sure this other
> sponsorship deal stays in place. That’s not what the spirit of being a
> musician or a rock star is. Why are these people even making music? I’m
> doing it because I have to get something out and I feel vital when it
> resonates with someone else. When I can get paid, too, that’s a nice
> consequence."

Parallels with the creative process of software development. I've always
thought the best software I've ever written is at home on unreleased hobby
projects. Only in that context can one truly say to hell with all the needs of
these outsiders (what investors want, what customers want, what the boss
wants, and the all-important deadlines) and focus on writing great software
for its own sake.

~~~
dpark
You seem to be skipping over the part where he says "I feel vital when it
resonates with someone else". Even with art, the end result is valuable
because of its impact. Unreleased music has little value. Unreleased software
has even less.

~~~
vacri
Creativity and art don't have to be for other people to be of value.

------
lz400
That's a cool interview. Reznor has always been ahead of the pack in trying to
understand the changing of the music business and trying out stuff. He has a
lot of insight on that as well as the creative process. Not to mention he's
still a fantastic musician and songwriter and NIN a fantastic band.

~~~
k__
Was he?

The only things I read from him in the last 2000s were how he hates social
media and its users.

~~~
lz400
He was one of the first big acts, along with Radiohead, experimenting with
free downloads (Ghosts I-IV), streaming live performances and rethinking the
whole label/album format. He's definitely put a lot of thought (and money)
into all of this.

~~~
k__
Yes he was.

But sadly he was also a hater.

I saw a few such characters online over the years. Brilliant people doing good
stuff, but somehow they overreact to criticism and idiots in general. Somehow
they can't just "let people" talk, they have to counter, they have to tell the
world "how it is" etc.

~~~
lz400
I don't think he's a "hater" but he's not a reporter his style is opinionated
and he tends to swear if that's what you're talking about. You might have read
some opinion he had you disagreed with and are letting that color your opinion
over all his other work?

~~~
k__
No, I think most of his work is good.

I just hadn't the feeling he's a pleasant person to be around when I read his
rants about Twitter and co.

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sushisource
Reznor is clearly a smart guy. I always love reading interviews with him. I
don't agree with all his positions but it's refreshing to read about a
thoughtful musician.

~~~
patrickk
There's a really interesting, recently released HBO documentary called "The
Defiant Ones"[1] which is about the story of Interscope Records, Jimmy Iovine
and Dr. Dre. Trent Reznor is interviewed in it, because he has worked with
Jimmy Iovine for quite some time. Iovine, Dre and Reznor all come across as
very smart, humble and incredibly hard working individuals.

Here's a clip regarding Nine Inch Nails and Iovine:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPJZdtyXAVo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPJZdtyXAVo)

The whole four episodes are well worth watching.

[1]
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6958022/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6958022/)

~~~
darylfritz
This explains Dr Dre's involvement in the production (assistant mixer) on
'Even Deeper' from Nine Inch Nail's The Fragile album.

Picture of Dr Dre in the studio with Trent, Charlie Clouser, and Danny Lohner:
[http://www.nin.wiki/File:Drenin.jpg](http://www.nin.wiki/File:Drenin.jpg)

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crsv
The commentary around not just how the experience of listening to music has
changed with the advent of the internet, but actually the context around how
different that experience is, was really novel thing to think about. The
transactional commitment to just consuming what an artist or band put out
before the internet was by comparison so intense -- it's a change that's
fascinating to consider.

------
patorjk
His comment on being surprised to discover he had a large following in Mexico
was kind of interesting. I actually met someone who told me they learned to
speak English by studying NIN and Tool lyrics. I'd be curious how many other
people there are out there like that. That's probably something he never
considered when he first got into music.

~~~
rhcom2
I know an Uzbek who learned English exclusively for the first couple years
through Seinfeld reruns. I always thought that was neat.

------
th0ma5
I'm so glad he's sober, and it is great hearing his influence in so much
music.

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johnnydoe9
That In Rainbows style release via the email would've worked better if it was
a NIN record instead of a collaboration with another artist.

Really nice to read his opinions though, I wish they asked some questions
about working with Fincher and other movie soundtrack work they seem to be
doing.

------
TaylorGood
His music arrangement for the Social Network is an absolute favorite body of
work.

------
fsociety
>>What makes you hopeful about music’s future?

>I still feel like a student who has more musical places to go. I’m in awe of
the compositional possibilities still out there. When I work on new music,
nine times out of ten, I feel like I’m tuned into something I haven’t explored
before. And working on films with Atticus [Ross] is teaching me so much. I’m
interested in learning more about traditional orchestration; there’s harmonic
exploration I want to do. There are a million rhythmic things I want to
explore. My optimism comes from the possibility of expanding my musical brain.

It's pretty amazing how Trent turned his entire life around into something
like this. It's my belief that one of the most important things you can do in
life is to find good people to be inspired by in totally different worlds than
your own. As a software engineer it's pretty easy to have Trent be one of
those (many) people.

