Nine Inch Nails – The Rezurrection

It’s 2022 and a new dawn is approaching. It’s a daybreak filled with the benefit of hindsight but riddled with the naïve trepidation of a freshly hatched new born. Sound Crazy? Well yes, but this is the concept of a world according to Nine Inch Nails, a band, or more specifically a person – Trent Reznor – who has always had an eye for all things crazy. “There are no concepts in the story that aren’t routed in things that already are happening,” explains Reznor softly as he talks from the back of his tour bus, which, on the day of our conversation is docked in Amsterdam amidst a comprehensive European tour promoting the bands fifth studio album, ‘Year Zero.’

Although we’re here to talk mostly about the theory behind the impending long player, which it turns out is somewhat of a belated epiphany for Reznor, we’re also taking the chance to get into the brain of one of rocks most impenetrable characters – a man who was once voted by TIME Magazine as one of the twenty-five most influential people in America and an individual who over the last twenty years has experienced, both musically and personally, the glory of the highs and the heartbreak of the lows.

Initially, like so many naive newcomers, when Reznor established NIN as ‘officially’ a one man band (as it still is) in 1988, although he had the ambition, he admits in hindsight that he didn’t necessarily have the vision for what his ambition could become. “I think it started as ‘I just have to do this.’ My mind was dedicated to seeing if I could do it and hopefully there would be some other people who understood and got into it and could relate to it,” he continues. “Coming from a little shitty small town in the middle of nowhere it seemed like something impossible to do, so I just focused in on seeing if I could do it. Then, by I hope talent and certainly good fortune in being in the right place at the right time, I had the opportunity and took advantage of it.”

Few could argue that he didn’t take advantage either. After signing to TVT records and releasing the acclaimed 1989 NIN debut, ‘Pretty Hate Machine,’ Reznor suddenly found himself in possession of the one thing he had hoped music would bring him: escapism. No longer, therefore, was he confined to the “shitty” Pennsylvanian town of Mercer. In fact, as NIN exploded globally, no longer was his profile confined to his American homeland.

This global recognition, as he now admits candidly, came at a cost. Both personal relationships and addiction problems meant NIN only released two studio albums in the nineties (The Downward Spiral, 1994, The Fragile, 1999) of which the album titles alone convey a lot. “I got very disillusioned by a number of different things through the nineties realising that fame has its own catches involved,” Reznor adds. “Simply getting a record contract and putting a record out didn’t make me feel better about everything in my life. It wasn’t the answer to every problem I had. Then going through the experience of addiction and recovery and really reaching a bottom where it seemed that everything potentially in your life is being lost.”

The 41-year old's experiences would certainly be a valuable lesson to a number of artists who think narcotics instantly provide a source of unembellished inspiration. The fact that Reznor is now on the verge of releasing his second NIN album in two years – the band's fastest between albums turn around yet – simply reaffirms that sometimes the creativity comes from within. Isn’t it ironic though that his successful battle with drugs has also been the instigator for this sudden creative burst? “Yeah I think the biggest catalyst is the whole latter part of the nineties. I was caught up in the world of addiction and it took me a while to acknowledge that and accept that and then it took me a while to deal with it. I can see now with pretty much crystal clear clarity that that aspect and fear had governed my life.” It’s widely acknowledged that Reznor has always written from a tortured soul, or as he puts it to me with a wry laugh, been a bit of a “misfit.”

He continues: “I had made writing out to be a terrifying prospect filled with pain and failure and some things that I dreaded doing because I’ve always lacked self-confidence and every other thing. By the end of my run with drugs I’d also realised that my brain wasn’t functioning right and I’d lost the power to really concentrate – it really made my art suffer, which made me feel worse, which made me want to get high and you know, that cycle starts up.”