Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor spoke with Interview Magazine in a new chat to share what he believes is important in music.
At first, the singer talked about overcoming addiction and how it made him who he is now. He realized that he could be creative without the drugs, too. Then, he said:
“I’ve started to think more about how things are finite. What matters? My kids matter, my wife matters. But in terms of my work, really just thinking about that. What’s the hill that I want to climb, and what am I getting from it? The answer that I’ve come to is the feeling of finishing a song in the studio and feeling like this is the best work I can do. You might like it, you might not. It might be successful, or no one will pay any attention to it. But I know I tapped into something.”
He Embraces His Inner Voice In Music Making
He went on to detail his approach to making music:
“That’s the payoff. It’s not the chart position or, the snarky comments or, the praise, or the feedback. I’m not saying those things don’t play roles, but it’s not the point. For me, if I tap into that thing, and the creation process, I have a value that I didn’t. It might be the broken voice in me that still speaks up, but I feel validated.”
David Bowie’s Support Of Reznor
In 2001, Reznor went to rehab, finished the program, and has been sober ever since. He previously shared with Consequence how David Bowie helped him during this process. The rocker explained:
“But then to get to be around him for the extent of that tour and actually see him in person and be terrified and intimidated. And then find an actual human being behind it that did impossibly live up to whatever you projected on him. What really left the biggest impression on me was there I was in a bad state of addiction and kind of going down the toilet.”
He shared Bowie’s advice to him:
“And he was on the other end to have come out of it. And there were the few kind of big brother / fatherly times where he’d call me aside and kind of get on my sh*t: ‘You need to get your sh*t together. It doesn’t have to end up down there.’ He didn’t say this, but look at where he was. He was happy. He was still taking chances.”
Reznor also previously said that the time isn’t suitable for releasing new Nine Inch Nails music. He wants to create more film scores because they give new sides of music to him.