Trent Reznor has given a new interview in which he tries to explain just why he has chosen to take industrial giants Nine Inch Nails off the road.
Nine Inch Nails began over twenty years ago. Despite their frequently harsh, abrasive music the band have gone on to become one of the biggest and most respected groups in the United States.
However all good things must come to an end, with lead singer Trent Reznor announcing earlier this year that he intended to place the band on hiatus. At a recent festival show in Bonnaroo the singer reflected on the group’s final American appearance, but then later announced a series of intimate dates.
Confused, fans asked for clarification. Are they splitting or not? Well, it looks as if they’ve got what they wanted – in a new interview Trent Reznor attempts to explain the thinking behind his decision to place the group on hiatus.
“What I specifically said or meant to convey is that NIN as a touring live band or live band that’s on the road all the time is stopping,” Reznor told the Philipine Daily Inquirer.
“I’ve just reached the point … where it has invaded every other aspect of my life. Also I think creatively, my time would be better spent on other stuff that could be NIN or outside NIN. Some of it may be collaborative things. I have a number of projects that are not music-related which I have put on the back burner for a long time…”
“I’d never want to be Gene Simmons, an old man who puts on makeup to entertain kids, like a clown going to work,” he said.
“In my paranoia, I fear that if I don’t stop this, it could become that. Because it’s nice to get a paycheck, and now the only way to get a paycheck is to play live, so it’s all those things swirling around in my head.”
Later in the interview Trent Reznor describes the music industry as “a kind of Mafia-type run business”.
Continuing he claims that “the traditional way of going to a record store and having to pay for it, those days are over. In the States, there aren’t any record stores left. The only place … is like a Best Buy where you go to buy a washing machine and there’s a tiny rack of DVDs and CDs. I think we’re in between business models right now…”
“I’m trying everything I can to contribute to when that next model does come up, whatever it might be, whether it’s subscriptions or whatever, where the artist is more fairly represented and has a say and is compensated, and you’re not paying for jets for record label CEOs … They’re in their last moments of death and I’m happy to see them go ’cause they’re all thieves and liars.”
