In Conversation: Trent Reznor

>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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

>>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.

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.

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