Trent Reznor was recently a guest on the Tetragrammaton Podcast by Rick Rubin. Mastermind during the two-hour conversation nine Inch Nails He spoke at length about his musical education, songwriting process and his interest in film scores.
The hardest thing for me is to write songs. To say something, to say something true-to-be, that has a reason to exist rather than a mere object.
He also found this truth in his newfound appreciation for pop music, which he credits to his children:
I kept him away from pop music for a while. Because I think it sucks in general – I thought so. And the other day I heard my six year old daughter singing dua lipa, She is very passionate and it is very beautiful. It’s her music, it’s her thing… It reminded me of the art of writing a good song – I cried listening to a piece dua lipa, Because it was really well done music, you know? He was clever. was beautiful”.
It is a difficult task. I do not know how to do. When I try to think of what to say, I say it to my bare self. And it requires me to think about who I am and where I stand now, and all of that together becomes something that’s at stake.
that’s why reznor He found solace in film soundtracks.
Sitting there sorting things out, I know what’s right… I don’t need my thoughts to evaluate how I feel about something. The result is that I really love doing weird things in service of something. It’s like cracking a code. Cracking the code is a good feeling, whatever it is.
About this Nine Inch Nails, Reznor He said that he is not currently interested in it “go on an endless tour,
I don’t want to be away from my kids, not even that much. I don’t want to go and ruin their lives for something that I can do and I’m grateful that you’re here to see it, but I’ve done it too often, you know? I think that for me, personally, the current state of nine Inch NailsIn terms of audience and culture and the importance of music or the lack of importance of music in today’s world is, from my point of view, a little disappointing. I didn’t put it in the background while I did five other things, and I didn’t treat it like a disposable item. I miss the attention that the music got, I miss the critical attention that the music got. Not that I care about critics’ opinions, but sending something around the world and hearing that it struck a chord, maybe with negative or positive reviews, but whoever heard it, it’s culturally It was valid in its own way. From a cultural point of view, this seems strange to me. Today I can’t think of any reviews that I care about and trust. I can write it before it comes out because it is already written. Actually, ChatGPT might do a better job, you know? Or is currently doing so. It makes me think that – in the world of Nine Inch Nails – a less fertile environment to release music.
I believe this is why the excitement of filmmaking has led me to go places I couldn’t with my band. It made me learn and feel in awe of what music is and how powerful it is, how much there is to know about it and how much I don’t know about it. And I mean it was in awe to see the different ways and techniques and sounds and sounds and things that affect you emotionally that I don’t think I would encounter in my typical trajectory of being in a band.