Trent Reznor
Trent Reznor
Michael Trent Reznor, known professionally as Trent Reznor, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and film score composer. As a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, he is best known as the founder and principal songwriter of industrial rock project Nine Inch Nails. His first release under this pseudonym, the 1989 album Pretty Hate Machine, was a commercial and critical success. He has since released eight studio albums. He left Interscope Records in 2007 and was an independent recording artist until signing with...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth17 May 1965
CityMercer, PA
CountryUnited States of America
When I'm writing music, I'm not playing a character. I'm not Alice Cooper or Gene Simmons or someone like that, who has acknowledged that they are writing music for a character.
People want to listen to a lot of music and do whatever they want with it. They don't want DRM, they don't want subscriptions. They don't want a player that only can do this but can't do that and you only have one copy. They don't want that. You know? I don't want that.
Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is, 'Oh, I'm on stage playing a song,' because you're daydreaming about something else, you're on autopilot. You have to fight that.
I'd much rather be worrying about playing that note in tune, and picking out the best way to arrange the song, rather than thinking about pricing for the download. It's not art.
It probably wasn't until Nine Inch Nails played the first Lollapalooza that I actually went to a festival.
I think early on in my career, I was heavily inspired by bands like Throbbing Gristle and Test Dept, and films of David Lynch, for example, where the soundscape plays a very important role in the listening experience.
Just spent the day discussing touring up through next summer, then played our asses off to the least responsive audience I can ever remember playing to. As I'm walking to the bus to leave Sacramento as soon as I can, I learn Jerome is back in the hospital. I have no idea what this means.
It's kind of a miracle to think that a device in your pocket can play pretty much any song that the world has ever created.
Nine Inch Nails was an experiment with me in discipline. I realized when I was 23 that I had never really tried anything. Schoolwork came easy to me. I learned to play piano effortlessly. I was coasting. I realized that I was afraid to really, really try something, 100 percent, because I had never reached true failure.
I'll be there for you, as long as it works for me. I play a game, its called insincerity.
I spent a long time experimenting, saying, 'Here's a record that's free, or $5 if you want a nice version or $250 if you'd like a really nice coffee-table thing.' Everything felt like the right thing to do at the time and then six months later would feel tired. And I would feel tired. So that's one reason for returning to a major label.
I sit down to write a song and it's just me just trying to be as honest as I can for myself and to see that something you connect with, someone in the outside world, is a really cool feeling.
Being a rock & roll star has become as legitimate a career option as being an astronaut or a policeman or a fireman.
I wanted to escape Small Town U.S.A. To dismiss the boundaries, to explore. My life experience came from watching movies, TV, and reading books and magazines. When your culture comes from watching TV everyday, you're bombarded with images of things that seem cool, places that seem interesting, people who have jobs and careers and opportunities.