Lindsey on new Nine Inch Nails album

[dontlookdown]

Looking forward to this. And it doesn't surprise me at all.


http://m.spin.com/articles/nine-inch-nails-hesitation-marks-track-list-credits-fleetwood-mac-lindsey-buckingham/

[elle]

Looking forward to this. And it doesn't surprise me at all.


http://m.spin.com/articles/nine-inch-nails-hesitation-marks-track-list-credits-fleetwood-mac-lindsey-buckingham/

love it!! seems like a very natural and organic collaboration, considering Reznor's and Lindsey's approaches to music making. and, something interesting LB-related to come out of that Sound City project after all (if that's when they got together for this collaboration)! and also loving reading all the tweets from hipsters - who obviously know nothing about Lindsey but know of FM - all shocked and up in arms. :laugh:

http://pitchfork.com/news/51243-nine-inch-nails-album-hesitation-marks-features-fleetwood-macs-lindsey-buckingham/

Nine Inch Nails' Album Hesitation Marks Features Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham
Tracklist revealed
By
Amy Phillips
on June 21, 2013 at 08:34 a.m.

Nine Inch Nails' Album Hesitation Marks Features Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham

Nine Inch Nails: "Came Back Haunted" (via SoundCloud)

Nine Inch Nails comeback album Hesitation Marks is out September 3 via Columbia. Today, Rolling Stone has revealed the tracklist as well as the list of collaborators on the album. Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham, King Crimson's Adrian Belew (who recently quit the NIN touring band), and bassist Pino Palladino are among those featured.

First single "Came Back Haunted" will feature a forthcoming video directed by David Lynch.

Hesitation Marks:

01 The Eater of Dreams
02 Copy of A
03 Came Back Haunted
04 Find My Way
05 All Time Low
06 Disappointed
07 Everything
08 Satellite
09 Various Methods of Escape
10 Running
11 I Would for You
12 In Two
13 While I'm Still Here
14 Black Noise

Credits:

Produced by: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Alan Moulder
Mixed by: Alan Moulder
Mastered by: Tom Baker
Artwork by: Russell Mills
Art Direction by: Rob Sheridan

Additional Musicians:

Pino Palladino
Lindsey Buckingham
Adrian Belew
Eugene Goreshter
Alessandro Cortini
Ilan Rubin
Joshua Eustis

Nine Inch Nails:

07-26 Niigata, Japan - Fuji Rocks Festival
07-28 Ansan, South Korea - Ansan Valley Festival
08-02-04 Chicago, IL - Lollapalooza
08-09-11 San Francisco, CA - Outside Lands
08-15 Hasselt, Belgium - Pukkelpop
08-16 Biddinghuizen, Holland - Lowlands Festival
08-18 Hockenheim, Germany - Rock 'n' Heim
08-21 Belfast, Northern Ireland - Belsonic Festival
08-23 Leeds, England - Leeds Festival
08-24 Paris, France - Rock en Seine
08-25 Reading, England - Reading Festival
08-28 Milan, Italy - Mediolanum Forum
08-31-09-01 Philadelphia, PA - Made in America Festival
09-28 St. Paul, MN - Xcel Energy Center *
09-30 Kansas City, MO - Sprint Center *
10-01 St. Louis, MO - Chaifetz Arena *
10-03 Montreal, Quebec - Centre Bell *
10-04 Toronto, Ontario - Air Canada Centre *
10-05 Cleveland, OH - Wolstein Center *
10-07 Auburn Hill, MI - The Palace of Auburn Hills *
10-08 Pittsburgh, PA - Petersen Events Center *
10-11 Boston, MA - TD Garden #
10-14 Brooklyn, NY - Barclays Center #
10-15 Newark, NJ - Prudential Center #
10-18 Washington, DC - Verizon Center #
10-19 University Park, PA - Bryce Jordan Center #
10-21 Raleigh, NC - PNC Arena #
10-22 Nashville, TN - Bridgestone Arena #
10-24 Atlanta, GA - Philips Arena #
10-25-27 Asheville, NC - Mountain Oasis Electronic Music Summit
10-30 Sunrise, FL - BB&T Center
10-31 Orlando, FL - Amway Center
11-01-03 New Orleans, LA - Voodoo Music Experience
11-05 San Antonio, TX - AT&T Center *
11-08 Los Angeles, CA - Staples Center *
11-09 Phoenix, AZ - US Airways Center *
11-11 El Paso, TX - Don Haskins Center *
11-13 Broomfield, CO - 1st Bank Center *
11-15 Las Vegas, NV - The Joint *
11-16 Las Vegas, NV - The Joint *
11-18 Portland, OR - Rose Garden Arena *
11-19 Spokane, WA - Spokane Arena *
11-21 Vancouver, British Columbia - Rogers Arena *
11-22 Seattle, WA - KeyArena *
11-24 Edmonton, Alberta - Rexall Place
11-25 Calgary, Alberta - Scotiabank Saddledome

* with Explosions in the Sky
# with Godspeed You! Black Emperor


and


Nine Inch Nails Unveil 'Hesitation Marks' Tracklist and Credits
New album features Lindsey Buckingham and Adrian Belew

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.
Rob Sheridan
By Jon Blistein
June 21, 2013 9:00 AM ET

Nine Inch Nails will release their new album Hesitation Marks on September 3rd on Columbia, and now the band has unveiled the full tracklisting as well as album credits. It is the band's first LP since 2008.

Helmed, of course, by NIN mastermind Trent Reznor, with additional production by Atticus Ross and Alan Moulder, the new LP also features such guest musicians as Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham, King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew – who recently dropped out of the band's touring lineup – and famed bassist Pino Palladino (The Who, D'Angelo).

Nine Inch Nails have already released one track from Hesitation Marks, "Came Back Haunted," and are set to make their live return on June 26th at the Fuji Rock Festival. Appearances at Lollapalooza and Outside Lands will follow, along with a massive North American tour this fall.

Tracklist
1) "The Eater of Dreams"
2) "Copy of A"
3) "Came Back Haunted"
4) "Find My Way"
5) "All Time Low"
6) "Disappointed"
7) "Everything"
8) "Satellite"
9) "Various Methods of Escape"
10) "Running"
11) "I Would for You"
12) "In Two"
13) "While I'm Still Here"
14) "Black Noise"

Credits
Produced by: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Alan Moulder
Mixed by: Alan Moulder
Mastered by: Tom Baker
Artwork by: Russell Mills
Art Direction by: Rob Sheridan

Additional Musicians:
Pino Palladino
Lindsey Buckingham
Adrian Belew
Eugene Goreshter
Alessandro Cortini
Ilan Rubin
Joshua Eustis
Related

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/nine-inch-nails-unveil-hesitation-marks-tracklist-and-credits-20130621#ixzz2WrgiZC9V
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

[WeepingWall]

This is great news. The new NIN single is rather good, and I'm looking forward to hearing what Lindsey has contributed.

[elle]

can't believe this got only a couple responses.

come on people - you like the idea, you don't like it, anything?

[redbird]

Well it'll get me to check out some NIN for once ;) It's nice to see FM members "in demand", and imagining the hipster tears did give my morning a nice boost.

[michelej1]

come on people - you like the idea, you don't like it, anything?

Like! :thumbsup: Until I hear it, then maybe dislike, don't understand and anguish.

Michele

[michelej1]

Looking at all of the clippings on the subject though, I do like the way this is being covered. They act like Lindsey's participation is a big deal and many of the papers even make him the headline and say "Lindsey Buckingham Appearing on the New Nine Inch Nails Album", so that's pretty gratifying.

Michele

[Dex]

I'm not a massive fan of Trent Reznor's work, but he is absolutely an artist's artist. I have no doubt this will be a fantastic experience for Lindsey and I'm really excited for him.

As for the ignorant naysayers, I'm sure the final product will surprise them and hopefully turn more people on to Lindsey's work.

[WildHearted]

I've never been big on NIN, personally, but I'll check this out for Lindsey's contribution regardless. And it's cool, none the less.

[juniper]

Looking forward to this. And it doesn't surprise me at all.


http://m.spin.com/articles/nine-inch-nails-hesitation-marks-track-list-credits-fleetwood-mac-lindsey-buckingham/

Love it :D- the personality mix alone must have been fascinating--
I agree that it's fun to hear people be amazed - fleetwood mac????? - The truth is LB has always struggled to shrug off that prefix 'Fleetwod Mac's' Lindsey Buckingham when he is referred to in a solo context, hasn't he? To me, his solo-ness is a completely different animal, and it's great when a fellow artist is able to see past that prefix and recognize his singular talent--
Can't wait to tell my daughter....(altho if she says 'who's NIN?' I will reallllly feel old:shrug:)

[xhector]

OH MYYY

Didn't read this until now!!

My nr1 favourite musician working with my nr(not very large) favourite musician!

SO EXCITED about this :) want to hear!

[michelej1]

Came Back Haunted. Hey Lindsey, I want that title for one of your songs! Steal it.]

[Excerpt from Pitchfork]

http://pitchfork.com/news/51566-new-nine-inch-nails-album-will-have-four-different-covers-check-them-out-now/

Some surprising details have already surfaced surrounding the upcoming Nine Inch Nails album-- the band recently shared a David Lynch-directed video for "Came Back Haunted" and revealed that Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham contributed.

[HelloMonster]

Not that my opinion matters, but I liked the song! :thumbsup: That video though? Pass me the Advil, please.

Edit: not 2 minutes after posting this, the song came on the radio! So weird. Maybe I'm haunted now? :laugh:

[Macfanforever]

I'm not into their tunes though .I have to say they did a great job covering the Johnny Cash tune "Hurt" .

[bombaysaffires]

so is Lindsey actually on this song?

[shackin'up]

I'm not into their tunes though .I have to say they did a great job covering the Johnny Cash tune "Hurt" .

That's a joke I presume? Johnny covered NIN. But I think I'm thrashing your witty remark now. Sorry. If not: Hurt is a NIN-tune. Cash loved it and covered it.

[shackin'up]

I'm passionately happy with this collaboration. I hope he's shredding the roof of on his Turner. maybe he didn't and added fingerpicked tapestry.

Whatever he did, this is what I've been hoping for. For years. Lindsey hooking up with Indie artists like Reznor, Jack White, Sonic Youth, Corgan, Ryan Adams, Greg Dulli, New Pornographers etcetera.

I love it. Love it. Love it.

[Stormwind]

Wow! Nice to see Lindsey in this musical aspect, If I were a member of NIN I would be trembling...

[michelej1]

[Lindsey on three songs]

Pitchfork By Jenn Pelly on July 25, 2013

http://pitchfork.com/news/51656-trent-reznor-details-nine-inch-nails-elaborate-new-live-show-inspired-by-talking-heads-stop-making-sense/

In just over a month, we'll have a new LP from Nine Inch Nails-- Hesitation Marks, out September 3 through Columbia. In support of the record, they'll embark on a massive arena tour this fall-- their first since 2009-- preceded by several summer festivals. Reznor has now given an interview with The New York Times detailing what those shows will be like.

According to Reznor, the stage set-- with "smoke, strobe lights, video screens on wheels"-- was directly inspired by the 1983 Talking Heads tour documented in the film Stop Making Sense. Adrian Belew, who played in Talking Heads' band on that tour, was briefly a member of the current Nine Inch Nails' touring band, and appears on Hesitation Marks.

The new show begins with Reznor, alone, before his band slowly takes form around him on stage. The lights and visuals, which are choreographed, then begin. Roy Bennett, lighting/production designer for Nine Inch Nails, told The Times, "We've always tried to make people think and keep them on edge and keep them wondering what’s going on."

This elaborate set is being built for this summer's festival shows, and will be drastically changed for the fall arena tour. Reznor told The Times, "The fact that we’re doing all this only for these few shows, and then we have to do it over again, throwing all this out to do a completely new thing, with new things that won’t work, that feels a little insane."

Nine Inch Nails' first comeback appearance will be at Fuji Rock Festival in Japan tomorrow. As the NIN Hotline points out, their set will be streamed live on YouTube. It will start at 9:30 pm Japan time (8:30 a.m. eastern).

According to The Times' Jon Pareles, Hesitation Marks "sounds radically different" from Nine Inch Nails' most recent albums. Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac ended up playing on three songs. Reznor had 1994's The Downward Spiral in mind while writing, and called the album "sparse" and minimal." Reznor continued:


I don’t think it’s a gentle record. I do think it’s more subversive in how it gets you. It’s not about everything being at 11 and the pyrotechnics of sound and scare tactics, which I’ve definitely used in the past. But it doesn’t feel like the middle-aged, I’ve-given-up record either.

Watch the David Lynch-directed video for "Came Back Haunted":

[michelej1]

[Oy, Lindsey don't start with the painting again. Can you compare your music to something else? How about mopping? Lindsey in Hawaii]

New York Times, July 28, 2013 [this is an excerpt] by Jon Pareles

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/arts/music/nine-inch-nails-is-back-onstage-with-a-vengeance.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=arts&

Early in the recording process, Mr. Reznor brought in collaborators from outside the usual sphere. He recorded extensively with the guitarist Adrian Belew, who had worked with David Bowie and King Crimson and was part of Talking Heads’ “Stop Making Sense” band. (Mr. Belew joined, then left, the tour rehearsals. “It didn’t work,” he wrote on Facebook.) Mr. Reznor also did sessions with the bassist Pino Palladino, who had helped construct the slinky grooves on D’Angelo’s album “Voodoo,” and with Lindsey Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac’s guitarist.

Mr. Buckingham and Mr. Reznor spent one day in the studio, with Mr. Buckingham jamming on multiple tracks; his playing ended up in three songs. “There was a bit of a kindred spirit there even though the styles were different,” Mr. Buckingham said by telephone from Hawaii. “His process was something like a painting process like I work, where you’re slopping colors around and looking for clues, and it becomes a subconscious process in which the work reveals itself to you.”

As the album took shape, surprising songs emerged. One, “Find My Way,” is an overt prayer. And the album’s final song with words, “While I’m Still Here,” faces up to mortality yet ends up with thoughts not of apocalypse or alienation, but of quiet connection: “Stay with me, hold me near, while I’m still here,” Mr. Reznor sings

[michelej1]

With the Nine Inch Nails playing the festivals and Lindsey on vacation right now, I wonder if he might make a cameo on stage with them.

Michele

[elle]

With the Nine Inch Nails playing the festivals and Lindsey on vacation right now, I wonder if he might make a cameo on stage with them.

Michele

with him being in HI (per that phone interview above) plus most of their dates being outside the US, the only possible date i could see is SF date, but i'm thinking he'd probably still be in HI at that time...

http://tour.nin.com/

[michelej1]

[From this Spin article excerpt, we know all of Lindsey's 3 songs. but it would have been fun to see you guys figure out where he was like on This is 40, when we didn't already know he was on that Norah Jones song]

http://www.spin.com/#articles/nine-inch-nails-disappointed-hesitation-marks-live-debut-video/

Nine Inch Nails have already shared the synth-scorched single "Came Back Haunted" (and its David Lynch-directed video), and last week they debuted the Lindsey Buckingham-guesting album's fellow songs "Copy of A" and "Find My Way" live in Japan.

[elle]

[From this Spin article excerpt, we know all of Lindsey's 3 songs. but it would have been fun to see you guys figure out where he was like on This is 40, when we didn't already know he was on that Norah Jones song]

http://www.spin.com/#articles/nine-inch-nails-disappointed-hesitation-marks-live-debut-video/

Nine Inch Nails have already shared the synth-scorched single "Came Back Haunted" (and its David Lynch-directed video), and last week they debuted the Lindsey Buckingham-guesting album's fellow songs "Copy of A" and "Find My Way" live in Japan.

i don't read this as revealing 3 exact songs LB is on. also looking at where they linked to, they are talking about LB-guesting-album not LB-guesting-songs, it seems. although it can go either way.

[michelej1]

i don't read this as revealing 3 exact songs LB is on. also looking at where they linked to, they are talking about LB-guesting-album not LB-guesting-songs, it seems. although it can go either way.

I guess. When I saw "fellow songs," I thought it meant they all shared a common attribute, but I suppose the common attribute is that they're all on the same album.

Michele

[michelej1]

So, game still on. We get Hesitation Marks and, without reading the liner notes, we guess where Lindsey is. Although not me, because I never know anything like that. But you guys who can tell.

Michele

[michelej1]

http://www.nme.com/news/nine-inch-nails/72126

Nine Inch Nails have revealed new track 'Everything', the latest song from new album 'Hesitation Marks'. See above to hear the song in full, now.
Read more at http://www.nme.com/news/nine-inch-nails/72126#JfbRSW1QRdhj9X4d.99

[shackin'up]

Last friday I saw Nine Inch Nails live om the Lowlandsfestival. It was so overwhelmingly good that I could not concentrate on what could have been LB in the mix

[HelloMonster]

Last friday I saw Nine Inch Nails live om the Lowlandsfestival. It was so overwhelmingly good that I could not concentrate on what could have been LB in the mix

I'm so envious! I'm still trying for tickets here, for their show in Sept.. Seems like you and I are the only ones excited for this :laugh:

[michelej1]

[Lindsey is quoted below. Yeah, Trent knows what is good for him. No aggressive personae better try to push LB around. Not having it.]

Spin Magazine, September Cover story. Written By David MarcheseAugust 25 2013, 7:44 PM ET

http://www.spin.com/#featured/trent-reznor-upward-spiral-nine-inch-nails-spin-cover-september-2013/

Trent Reznor's Upward Spiral

The Nine Inch Nails leader found love, won an Oscar, and walked away from his band and major labels. But with NIN's new 'Hesitation Marks,' the former dark prince of alt-rock (and current family man) returns to a digital universe he helped create.

This summer — Nine Inch Nails' first as a living, breathing entity in four years — Trent Reznor has been taking the stage alone. Muscular and short-haired, he opens his shows by marching to a synthesizer in full view of tens of thousands of festivalgoers, all of whom had strong reason to believe they might never see this band again. Usually wearing a sleeveless black t-shirt, heavy boots, and cargo shorts, he begins to sing the stealthy "Copy of A," a track from Hesitation Marks, the imminent new NIN album those same festivalgoers had equally strong reason to believe might never exist.

"That moment is our reintroduction," says Reznor, seated on a red leather couch in a conference room at Hollywood's posh Soho House, a cocktail-jazz version of Nirvana's "Lithium" clinking quietly in the background. "It's supposed to challenge the audience. I didn't want to come out and signal that we're just a band playing songs you know we're going to play."

He cocks his head, as if considering a problem he's still in the process of solving. "I haven't had a chance to live with the show yet, so it's hard for me to tell what people think."

Indeed, these things take time, but over nearly a quarter-century of Nine Inch Nails, Reznor has learned that if you tackle the hardest things first, the rest of it has a way of working out.

For roughly 80 percent of the band's existence, a bet on Trent Reznor sitting in a room like this discussing his career in early August 2013 would've drawn long odds. The reasons range from the mundane (his industrial baby-step years spent in Cleveland) to the medical (a personally confused, chemically indulgent '90s) to the plainly literal (a burnt-out Reznor told a 2009 Bonnaroo crowd, "This is our last-ever show in the United States").

Yet here we are, in a brief window between gala appearances at Lollapalooza and San Francisco's fellow multi-day extravaganza Outside Lands, with gigs on the European muddy-field circuit approaching quickly, and solo North American arena dates looming on the horizon.

"I'm at a peak of exhaustion right now," says Reznor, who minus a scowl (and plus some longer pants) largely retains his onstage guise offstage. He's sipping from both a cup of coffee and a can of Diet Coke, and is a polite, even friendly presence, firm with his handshake and quick with a smile. "I was shooting a video till three in the morning. The last few weeks have been terribly intense. The way I work is that up to the last second stuff looks like ****, and at the last minute it comes together. But I feel like I've done good work, and there's still an audience there. I'm not looking out at the crowd and seeing a bunch of orthodontists. It's new faces that look like the old ones, if that makes any sense. It feels valid to be back."

That's because more than at any time since the release of 1994's self-loathing alt-angst classic The Downward Spiral — an album to which Hesitation Marks ruefully nods across the decades — Nine Inch Nails, and their formerly tortured and wraithlike leader, once again have the zeitgeist on a leash. The man who once made it a mission to jolt rock beyond its guitar/bass/drums doldrums has delivered a heavily electronic LP into a world where binary code is now just accepted as what makes music go. The band's ticket sales are stronger than ever, and the David Lynch-directed video for self-reflexive first single "Came Back Haunted" quickly earned more than two million YouTube views. Reznor's sound — confrontational, fiercely technological, pretty damn catchy — now reverberates through the banging aggression of American dubstep and the visceral clang of so much contemporary hip-hop.

For English producer Evian Christ, who contributed to Kanye West's electronically noisy Yeezus, "There's been a resurgence in the influence" of Reznor-indebted music. "I'll always be grateful to Trent for sparking my interest in music that I would otherwise never have been aware of." And in a period when the digital world is throwing off the brightest, sexiest creative sparks, Reznor has diversified, pointing his sharp mind at the puzzle of streaming music, working with Beats by Dre to develop what the company hopes will be the ultimate subscription-based music service, due to launch in a limited fashion this fall.

But Reznor knows better than most that riding these socio-cultural waves is as much a matter of luck as sweat. "There's always been an element of 'right time, right place' to Nine Inch Nails," he says. "When we stepped onstage at Woodstock '94, I could sense it. I get goosebumps thinking about it now. Like, 'I don't know how we did this, but somehow we've touched a nerve.' And then as you move forward, you realize that you can't set yourself up for doing that again. So the fact that our music may or may not be in the air now and people seem eager for it, and that I'm working on something with Beats that's a marriage of humanity and technology, which is sort of what my music has always been about, and I'm doing this after years of working on my own trying to figure out how best to get music to the people who want to hear it — you can't plan for those things. It's just the way the world works."

At some point in the not-too-distant future, Trent Reznor's sons, two-year-old Lazarus and one-year-old Balthazar, are going to hear their father sing "Closer," complete with its chorus of "I wanna **** you like an animal."

He's been airing that song in concert these days, and admits he hasn't quite thought through the long-term implications. "When I was 25, people used to say to me that having kids would change you, and I'd roll my eyes," says Reznor, who married singer Mariqueen Maandig in October 2009. "I don't know what it'll be like when they read old stories about my addiction or listen to the older songs. I do know that I caught myself swearing in front of them during a road-rage moment and was worried they'd parrot it back."

He shakes his head. "It's a humbling thing, having kids. One of my sons came to rehearsals, and now he says Daddy's job is 'go play loud music.'"

That job, and Daddy's relationship to it, is very different now. While Reznor takes pains to point out that he'd only ever said that Nine Inch Nails were taking a break from touring — the band had been on the road almost constantly from 2005 to 2009 — he does admit that his attitude about the project that made him rich and famous had profoundly shifted.

"The main thing was that I didn't want to be on an endless rock-band tour with Nine Inch Nails," he says. "And I said that adamantly enough to force my hand at trying something new. It was like with getting sober: I announced to the world that I was sober so that I'd be held accountable. What I feel bad about is that this is some 'KISS Final Tour of Mid-2013' idea. I get that people might feel that way, but I've given up on trying to manage the spin on things. Nine Inch Nails felt right for me to do, and that's because it felt uncomfortable in a lot of ways. That's usually a sign for me that something might be interesting."

He last felt such seductive discomfort shortly after getting off the road in 2009, when director David Fincher approached him and Reznor collaborator Atticus Ross about scoring 2010's The Social Network. "The process of working on that was surprisingly great," Reznor says. "It was like the first Nine Inch Nails van tour — some of the most rewarding work I've ever done. At the time I'd just gotten married and was feeling like I was getting old to be touring, and I thought film-scoring could be a reinvention."

Reznor, who relocated from New Orleans to Los Angeles in 2005, won an Oscar for that moody, hypnotic Social Network score, and he and Ross worked with Fincher again on 2011's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. But those fulfilling experiences, he explains, were aberrations. "Seeing more about how Hollywood operates, you recognize that making movies is an economic calculation. If, by chance, a high-quality film comes out, that's good, but it's not about executing some great vision. Working with someone as smart as David Fincher isn't normal. I love the idea of making films, and hopefully want to make one of my own someday, but it wasn't a world I wanted to spend more time in."

Wait. So what Trent Reznor really wants to do is direct?

"I'm thinking a super low-brow bro comedy," he says dryly. "I'm into nut humor."

Even while Reznor was scoring the exploits of interpersonally awkward coding moguls and Swedish cyberpunks, he never stopped making music for himself. "Trent is always experimenting in the studio," Ross says. "He doesn't make some big announcement ahead of time and say, 'This fragment will someday be a Nine Inch Nails song,' but I knew that he'd return to Nails eventually."

The more vexing question was what Nine Inch Nails should be in the second decade of the 21st century. Sober, happily married, wildly successful in his other musical pursuits — what reason did Reznor have for bringing the band back to life?

"The unglamorous story is that I owed Interscope a couple of songs for a greatest-hits package," he says bluntly. "I thought that might be a good excuse to try some new things, and 'Satellite' and 'Everything' came out. It was obvious that I would have censored myself from doing things so minimal and pop in the past. That made me think, 'Let's keep chipping away at the crack in the ice. We might fall through, but that prospect is exciting.'"

With the greatest-hits project shelved until 2014, the resulting, all-new Hesitation Marks (those two early tracks included) is both sonically singular and thematically linked to a particular scarred and multi-million-selling predecessor in the Nine Inch Nails catalog. "For some reason, when I started working more on Hesitation Marks, I started thinking back romantically about who I was when I was writing The Downward Spiral," Reznor says. "I was looking back on who I was then and who I am now and how things have turned out, for better or worse. That was the air the new record was born in. I was looking at the other side of how I was not always honest about who I was in the '90s — and I knew I wasn't being honest — and if you sprinkle those negative feelings with some drugs and alcohol, it's usually not a recipe for success."

Except that it was.

"Until the balance got thrown off," corrects Reznor, who successfully completed rehab for drug and alcohol addiction in 2001. "I'm happy with who I am now. I feel fortunate to be where I am. We tried arranging the new songs with loud guitars, and it sounded false. Instead, we approached those old emotions in new ways that are subtler, and I think just as powerful."

Adorned with art by Downward Spiral cover designer Russell Mills and heavily influenced by the spare, rhythmically complex feel of D'Angelo's Voodoo, the result is as sleek an album as Nine Inch Nails have ever made. Lead single "Came Back Haunted" squirms on the strength of a simple drum-machine pattern, scuffed synth wash, and sequenced bass; the laser-like "Everything" could be a lost Joy Division seven-inch, complete with a chorus wherein Reznor sings (not screams), "I have tried everything / I've survived everything." But instead of sounding like a furious regret, the line hits as hard-won wisdom.

"We tried not to do the classic Nine Inch Nail things on the album," says co-producer Alan Moulder, who has worked with Reznor going back to The Downward Spiral. "The old trademark with Trent was that when we got to the chorus, the songs go up a step, he sings in his highest range possible, and a million guitars come in. We tried to do the opposite on this one. The choruses actually go down; the sound is more withheld than explosive, which is a much harder thing to do."

The album is also a more insinuating, collaborative sound, a long way from the hermetic sonic phantasmagorias of 1992's landmark Broken EP or 1999's double-disc behemoth The Fragile. "In the past," says longtime NIN visual collaborator Rob Sheridan, "Trent would bring in a violin player and give him something very specific to do. This time, he'd bring in Lindsey Buckingham and say, 'Let's see what he'll come up with.' That's a radical change in approach."

For his part, Buckingham recalls there being a "great sense of calm in the studio. Trent's got this aggressive persona, but then he turns out to be this laid-back, soft-spoken guy putting things together in a very painterly
way."

Reznor also enlisted former David Bowie and Talking Heads sideman Adrian Belew and D'Angelo studio bassist Pino Palladino, among others, for Hesitation Marks, and though things still aren't perfect — Belew has since bowed out of the NIN touring production, telling reporters, simply, "It didn't work" — the overall change in dynamics is still pronounced. "There's a lot less face-punching in the songs now," Reznor says. "I'm not as afraid of judgments as I used to be. I just want to do the best I can do, and not squander any more time than I already have when I was high. That's my main concern. If you don't like the music or think I should be someone I'm not, fine."

He juts his chin out defiantly. "But I'm still competitive," he says. "If I'm going to do this, I want to win."

In the time between 2007's Year Zero (released on Interscope) and Hesitation Marks (released on Columbia), Trent Reznor hocked a lot of thick loogies in the direction of major labels. Publicly and repeatedly, he chided them for sticking their collective heads in the sand with regards to file-sharing. He thought that the suits were more inclined to sue fans than serve them. So he left.

"At Interscope, it felt like we were one of 50 bands, and we didn't sell as much as Eminem, so no one cared about us," Reznor says, having finished the coffee and moved on to the Diet Coke. "Combine that with unquestionably wrong move after wrong move in terms of the response to new technologies — I just felt like I could figure things out better than they could."

He was correct, up to a point. 2008's raw, jittery The Slip, offered for free on the NIN website, was downloaded 2.4 million times; a lavish, pricey physical package sold in the neighborhood of 250,000 copies. (That same year, he also offered the instrumental ambient collection Ghosts under his own Null Corporation umbrella.)

"Being in control of your own destiny was great," he says of the decision to go indie. "It felt good to have my own neck on the line. But you spend a lot of time figuring out who the influential blogger at some radio station is. Market research is not a sexy thing to think about. More than that, when you're self-releasing, you have this walled garden of people that are interested in what you do, and to everyone else you're invisible."

Meanwhile, as he sought to extend the boundaries of his fan base, he was reconsidering his role as a public figure.

"I was excited about Twitter when we went out on our own because it felt like the most direct way to penetrate people's attention," says Reznor, an early and eager adopter of the platform, who in his mid-aughts guise was quick to volley with fans and fire shots at fellow musicians. "I also got a charge out of people realizing that I wasn't a recluse sleeping in a coffin. But in hindsight, my experimenting with Twitter was a mistake. Oversharing feels vulgar to me now. I know we've been fooled into thinking it's okay to show dick pics and that the Kardashians' behavior is normal, but it's not. I've tuned out in the last couple years. Everybody's got a ****ing opinion. It takes courage to put something out creatively into the world, and then to see it get trampled on by ****s? It's destructive."

There's another factor to Reznor's more cautious approach to social media: "I've had the experience over the last few years of liking bands, and then checking what they're up to on Tumblr or something, and immediately realizing, 'This is you?' ****.' I don't want my personality to get in the way of what I'm trying to do musically."

Oversharing feels vulgar to me now. I know we've been fooled into thinking it's okay to show dick pics and that the Kardashians' behavior is normal, but it's not. ”

In the time between 2007's Year Zero (released on Interscope) and Hesitation Marks (released on Columbia), Trent Reznor hocked a lot of thick loogies in the direction of major labels. Publicly and repeatedly, he chided them for sticking their collective heads in the sand with regards to file-sharing. He thought that the suits were more inclined to sue fans than serve them. So he left.

"At Interscope, it felt like we were one of 50 bands, and we didn't sell as much as Eminem, so no one cared about us," Reznor says, having finished the coffee and moved on to the Diet Coke. "Combine that with unquestionably wrong move after wrong move in terms of the response to new technologies — I just felt like I could figure things out better than they could."

He was correct, up to a point. 2008's raw, jittery The Slip, offered for free on the NIN website, was downloaded 2.4 million times; a lavish, pricey physical package sold in the neighborhood of 250,000 copies. (That same year, he also offered the instrumental ambient collection Ghosts under his own Null Corporation umbrella.)

"Being in control of your own destiny was great," he says of the decision to go indie. "It felt good to have my own neck on the line. But you spend a lot of time figuring out who the influential blogger at some radio station is. Market research is not a sexy thing to think about. More than that, when you're self-releasing, you have this walled garden of people that are interested in what you do, and to everyone else you're invisible."

Meanwhile, as he sought to extend the boundaries of his fan base, he was reconsidering his role as a public figure.

"I was excited about Twitter when we went out on our own because it felt like the most direct way to penetrate people's attention," says Reznor, an early and eager adopter of the platform, who in his mid-aughts guise was quick to volley with fans and fire shots at fellow musicians. "I also got a charge out of people realizing that I wasn't a recluse sleeping in a coffin. But in hindsight, my experimenting with Twitter was a mistake. Oversharing feels vulgar to me now. I know we've been fooled into thinking it's okay to show dick pics and that the Kardashians' behavior is normal, but it's not. I've tuned out in the last couple years. Everybody's got a ****ing opinion. It takes courage to put something out creatively into the world, and then to see it get trampled on by ****s? It's destructive."

There's another factor to Reznor's more cautious approach to social media: "I've had the experience over the last few years of liking bands, and then checking what they're up to on Tumblr or something, and immediately realizing, 'This is you?' ****.' I don't want my personality to get in the way of what I'm trying to do musically."

There's been a lot of change in the life of Nine Inch Nails, but also some constants. Twenty years and hundreds of performances down a crooked road, Trent Reznor still often chooses to say goodbye to his crowds with "Hurt," the last track on The Downward Spiral, and the song that in its lean, confessional intensity is Hesitation Marks' most direct emotional precursor.

"When I was younger, to hear people singing that song, or any song, back to me? Holy ****, what a great feeling," says Reznor, leaning forward. "Over time, that feeling corrupted me. I didn't feel interesting enough to deserve it, and then I reinvented myself as a caricature. Money creeps in, people want to sleep with you, you distort. Add alcohol and drugs, and things go south fast. A song like 'Hurt' is reinterpreted by who I am now — and I like that person a lot more.

"The person you're talking to now is the real me — the smart, together me from high school," Reznor continues. "I feel so much younger than I am. I wish I could change some things about the path it took to get here, but I feel lucky that I'm not as caught up in anger as I was."

Then a sinister glimmer flashes across his hazel eyes, and Trent Reznor does what he's always done. "Believe me," he says, offering that old unsettling reassurance. "There's still no shortage of things that piss me off."

[michelej1]

^Painterly? You will be the death of me, Mr. Buckingham. Damp and delirious, I will pant weakly on my deathbed pillow, muttering about canvases as I expire. They will be my "Rosebud" sled.

Michele

[CADreaming]

^Painterly? You will be the death of me, Mr. Buckingham. Damp and delirious, I will pant weakly on my deathbed pillow, muttering about canvases as I expire. They will be my "Rosebud" sled.

Michele

LOL!

Love it.

Apparently, you can stream this in iTunes. Do we know the names of the tracks Lindsey is on?

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/listen-to-nine-inch-nails-hesitation-marks-now-20130827 (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/listen-to-nine-inch-nails-hesitation-marks-now-20130827)

[elle]

LOL!

Love it.

Apparently, you can stream this in iTunes. Do we know the names of the tracks Lindsey is on?

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/listen-to-nine-inch-nails-hesitation-marks-now-20130827 (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/listen-to-nine-inch-nails-hesitation-marks-now-20130827)

nope.

also here... easier than to navigate itunes and having tons of programs open, unless you have apple device -

http://sonicmoremusic.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/listen-nine-inch-nails-hesitation-marks-full-album-including-the-bonus-disc/

[WeepingWall]

Haven't heard Lindsey yet, but really enjoying the album!

[xhector]

I think there are some guitars from him at the end of "In two". Other than that I won't bet for any other by now... :cool:

after a thousand edits, final bet: and on "All time low" and "Everything" also :D

[elle]

we now have confirmed 2 out of 3 LB tracks from this vinyl jacket:

http://instagram.com/p/dpu6e8E0Ej/

in two - lindsey buckingham: guitar

while i'm still here - lindsey buckingham: guitar

Gerald got both of them right :)
(well, seems that everybody got in two right :D )

[CADreaming]

we now have confirmed 2 out of 3 LB tracks from this vinyl jacket:

http://instagram.com/p/dpu6e8E0Ej/

in two - lindsey buckingham: guitar

while i'm still here - lindsey buckingham: guitar

Gerald got both of them right :)
(well, seems that everybody got in two right :D )

Cool thanks for the info!

[shackin'up]

I didn't play it here, But on facebook, as elle already confirmed. I guessed that if he's on three tracks, they must be Satellite, In Two and While I'm still here... At least two correct as the credits point out. It was not an easy, But very fun puzzle, and a pretty Awesome album.

[michelej1]

Ok. Fun to listen now with this information. Thanks.

Michele

[michelej1]

[excerpt from L. A. times review]

"While I'm Still Here" is minimalist click-and-cut jam with Buckingham on guitar, which sneaks in near the end for a well-placed accent. Nine Inch Nails has seldom sounded so sonically nuanced and patient -- and the last few moments of the song are some of the funkiest Reznor's ever made.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-review-nine-inch-nails-hesitation-marks-20130830,0,6030712.story#ixzz2dVE1ePZx

Follow us: @mcall on Twitter | mcall.lv on Facebook

[shackin'up]

I didn't play it here, But on facebook, as elle already confirmed. I guessed that if he's on three tracks, they must be Satellite, In Two and While I'm still here... At least two correct as the credits point out. It was not an easy, But very fun puzzle, and a pretty Awesome album.

OK, listen here, you pompous ass, you were wrong. Reznor is doing satellite all on his own. Maybe he studied buckingham into freakishness, but the third song Lindsey is on is the single Copy of A.

Hardly recognizable, but still..... You Dumbass.

http://www.discogs.com/Nine-Inch-Nails-Hesitation-Marks/release/4864435

[Deeshere]

Here's the new Nine Inch Nails ft. Lindsey Buckingham song - Copy of A

http://<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/qSomIodjPKg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

As I expected the sound is very distorted and disjointed (It is Nine Inch Nails) which is the sound Lindsey seems to love. I can visually see and hear Lindsey playing this long. I like it.

[xhector]

OK, listen here, you pompous ass, you were wrong.

Surely Trent played Lindsey-ish guitars and Lindsey played NIN style, just to fool us...

[michelej1]

[Thought his style would be so "out" of what? Out of fashion??]

Yahoo Music

http://music.yahoo.com/news/fall-music-preview-2013--the-26-albums-you-need-to-hear-231138578.html#/

Around 18 months ago, Trent Reznor started working on new songs for a Nine Inch Nails greatest-hits set. But he discovered he had more than just a few tracks in him. He thought hard about what was exciting him musically: "Is it rock bands and guitars, is it noise, is it dance beats and electronics?" Reznor recalls.

Working mostly on a laptop attached to a "drum-machine type of compositional tool," Reznor crafted foreboding electronic textures reminiscent of his recent soundtrack work, although he says 1994's The Downward Spiral was a deliberate touchstone. One thing nobody could have predicted? A cameo by Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham, who adds guitar to three songs. Says Reznor, "I thought his style might be so out it would be in, compared to the alien landscapes we were dropping him into."

[michelej1]

You know, I don't read a lot of rock press. I am mostly reading about lighter music and maybe I'm noticing something that has been going on for a long time and is not a new phenomenon, but it seems to me that in the NIN write ups, Lindsey is really lauded as an icon more than he is in the mainstream pop press. In so many blurbs before the album came out, they would mention Lindsey's participation as if that was the most noteworthy things about the album. I'm just not used to him being referenced so often with that kind of admiration and distinction. It's a nice feeling. Or maybe they just single him out because NIN is perceived to be such a divergence from his own sound.


http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2013/09/01/back-tracks/

Artist: Nine Inch Nails
Album: Hesitation Marks (Sept. 3)
Years Since Last Album: 5
New Twist: Lindsey Buckingham does guest vocals. Yes, that Lindsey Buckingham. Also: new logo.
Potential Success: Black eyeliner never goes out of style.

[michelej1]

Excerpt from a review:

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/blog/2013/09/03/week-music-september-3-2013-nine-inch-nails-fewer-teeth

Sound and Vision Magazine 9/3/2013:

It doesn’t help to bring in guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and then underuse or undermix him on his three guest spots. Fellow inventive axman Adrian Belew, a past NIN hired hand, is more in tune with Reznor’s sonics and is thus allowed more room. But overall, the machines trump the humans, such that “Came Back Haunted” and “Running” are constantly at war with their percolating tracks.

[michelej1]

AV club

http://www.avclub.com/articles/nine-inch-nails-hesitation-marks,102323/

Lindsey Buckingham appears here and there to add guitar work, although his presence is felt most in the faint sustained strums on “While I’m Still Here,” which also features Reznor playing saxophone.

[michelej1]

Most surprising among the guests is Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham, who lays down several bluesy, clean licks that really elevate the songs on which he appears. - See more at:

http://www.theappalachianonline.com/entertainment/10619-nine-inch-nails-returns-from-brief-hiatus-with-hesitation-marks#sthash.kjgoemrH.dpuf

[Lindsfan]

Excerpt from a review:

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/blog/2013/09/03/week-music-september-3-2013-nine-inch-nails-fewer-teeth

Sound and Vision Magazine 9/3/2013:

It doesn’t help to bring in guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and then underuse or undermix him on his three guest spots.

I love the new album, but while some of Lindsey's stuff is obvious, I'm having trouble picking out other parts, in part due to all the production, I guess, and due to their being multiple guitars overlapping a lot. Mostly though, because I don't have that much musical/imstrumentation knowledge, and because I've been listening too much and I give up :p

Copy of A, is that him at the very beginning, or is that synth? Sometimes it sounds very synthy, other times clearly a guitar. Also a lot after 3:00, maybe? But there's a lot of guitar going on at that point.

I think I hear him all over In Two, especially in the beginning, that thumping riff, and again at about 1:25, same riff, less thumpy, more aggressive. But that could be Trent, I suppose :shrug: Lots of guitar going on in the the middle, and practically an orgie near the end, in the last 10 seconds. Another guitar is credited as playing on the outro (my guess that's the super sonic sounding part?), though, I don't think Lindsey necessarily dropped out at that point (see orgie comment, above). More specifically, is that him briefly at about 5:10ish, and especially around 5:16? The higher, faster parts? I'd love someone with more knowledge to confirm which parts are actually him.

I hear him clearly starting at 2:55 on While I'm Still Here. Subtle, but really pretty.

[Lindsfan]

Okay, I've decide that's definitely him coming in at about 1:52 on Copy of A. I'm sure I'll change my mind upon further listening, though ;)

That's the thing with Lindsey, is he doesn't try to stand out. He contributes. He tries to lift a song, without being obvious. That's one of the reasons his songs, solo, or FM (including Stevie's songs), never grow old for me. There's always so much to hear, and more to discover.

[sodascouts]

I'm no Nine Inch Nails fan but I love Trent Reznor. I bought the songs LB is on and I envy those of you who can easily pick him out. I'm having trouble.

[Lindsfan]

I found it easier when I stopped trying to listen for him :lol: I just put on the music, and went to make lunch or something, and suddenly I'd hear him clear as can be. Like at around 1:52ish on Copy of A.

[erwk05]

I reckon the ghosty layered vox on in two at 1:27 is linds too

[erwk05]

can easily hear his style of string vibrato at 2.01 in copy of a

[WeepingWall]

There is a Trent Reznor interview on NPR. He discusses working with Lindsey in the text, and in the audio version of the interview points out specifically which part Lindsey is playing in Copy of A!

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/04/218961237/trent-reznor-im-not-the-same-person-i-was-20-years-ago?sc=21&f=10001

-And somewhere in here, on guitar, is Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac. How did that happen?

"The idea that [co-producer] Atticus Ross and I had was to bring in some other brains that work in a way that's different than ours. Lindsey Buckingham was kind of the oddball choice: 'Man, it'd be great if we could get him — let's try!' A couple days later, we were sitting in the studio with him."

-Why did you want him?

"I've always greatly admired Fleetwood Mac from as far back as I can remember — and in particular, I've always admired his production skills and his guitar playing, which I think get overlooked because of all the other great aspects of Fleetwood Mac. His picking style, his sound, his aggressiveness and just his mastery of the instrument, I always thought was amazing. I thought it was so different than what I do, it might be interesting to see what happens if we put those things together.

"We did the same thing with [guitarist] Adrian Belew and [bassist] Pino Palladino, which was just to bombard these guys with snippets of music that we assumed would be a bit unfamiliar and kind of a foreign land to drop them into. We would offer guidance, but not strict guidance — basically, 'Do whatever you want, but what if it was something like this? For this track, what if it was just long melodic phrases that were at least four bars long? Or what if your guitar was a percussion instrument [and] we don't hear any sense of melody?' We'd just record everything and sort through it later. I've been doing this with Adrian since The Downward Spiral; what Lindsey brought to the table was, the second he picks up his guitar, it's him. There's all these different sounds coming out and I think, 'What pedals is he using?' And he's not. He just knows how to play his instrument really well."

[elle]

There is a Trent Reznor interview on NPR. He discusses working with Lindsey in the text, and in the audio version of the interview points out specifically which part Lindsey is playing in Copy of A!

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/04/218961237/trent-reznor-im-not-the-same-person-i-was-20-years-ago?sc=21&f=10001

thank you! :xoxo:

[elle]

There is a Trent Reznor interview on NPR. He discusses working with Lindsey in the text, and in the audio version of the interview points out specifically which part Lindsey is playing in Copy of A!

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/04/218961237/trent-reznor-im-not-the-same-person-i-was-20-years-ago?sc=21&f=10001

sounds so obvious when he points it out, but i could not pick it up before.

layering, painting, coloring, family and kids centering him as an artist and being present for his kids growing up... it's like i'm listening to an echo of lindsey's words!

one thing that's different is that he says he has developed as a person and is a very different person now. LB obviously appears to be very different, yet he never seems to acknowldge that.

[elle]

here's the whole written part of the interview:

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/04/218961237/trent-reznor-im-not-the-same-person-i-was-20-years-ago

Trent Reznor: 'I'm Not The Same Person I Was 20 Years Ago'
by NPR STAFF
September 04, 2013 5:20 PM
Listen Now
All Things Considered 8 min 15 sec

Baldur Bragason/Courtesy of the artist

Trent Reznor is known as a detail guy: a meticulous composer and manipulator of sound, layers upon layers of it. From his band's genesis 25 years ago, the leader of Nine Inch Nails has been known for songs of deep, menacing pain, rage and self-destruction. Today, Reznor's dark days of alcohol and drug abuse are behind him — and he finds himself, at 48, with a wife and two young kids.

The new Nine Inch Nails album, Hesitation Marks, ends a hiatus that Reznor announced in 2009 — and, as he tells NPR's Melissa Block, he sees the new record in part as a reaction to his earlier self. He recently spoke with Block about reacting to criticism, working with Lindsey Buckingham and the reasons he thinks opening for Guns N' Roses in Germany was a big mistake. Hear the radio version at the audio link, and read more of their conversation below.

I'm thinking about your new song "Everything," which starts with this really kind of triumphant declaration? What's the first line of that song?

" 'I survived everything.' I think? I haven't listened to it for a few days."

It absolutely is. And in the course of the song you say, "I've become something else."

"Yeah, I meant that song to feel kind of absurd. You know, it's an arrogant, bold statement that might appear defiant but is actually, in my opinion, kind of self-destructive. And by the end of the song, when it doesn't resolve as nice and rosy with me running through a field of dandelions, clouds come over and there's a sense of getting what you asked for.

"My life has been many examples of shortsighted goals that I thought would fix things. If there's something broken inside me, if there's a hole in there, I thought if I could just write a good song someday, then I'd be OK. You know, if I could just get a record deal, or if I could just be onstage in front of people I'd never seen before and be validated by them. I feel very fortunate that I've been able to achieve those things, and there have been moments of feeling good about it, but it didn't fix things, you know? It wasn't the solution to me feeling spiritually complete or whole."

“ When you've been around for a while and you've created, essentially, a brand, that has a certain level of expectation. And it encourages you to not color outside the lines if you pay too much attention to what you expect that fan base wants from you. I think many, many artists have suffered an artistic death by doing just that.
This song does start out in such a sunny way, with all these joyful harmonies. I'm sure you know there was a disgruntled fan who thought this was entirely too poppy — maybe a softer, happier side of Trent Reznor — and put together an animated video of you riding a unicorn under a rainbow with birds flying by. You're saying, though, that's ignoring what's really going on in this song?

"That certainly wasn't anything that crossed my mind when I was working on this. You know, I still think in terms of album formats: collections of songs and how they relate to each other and how they integrate and tell a bigger story than what's contained in each little four-minute parcel. But when you've been around for a while and you've created, essentially, a brand, that has a certain level of expectation. And it encourages you to not color outside the lines if you pay too much attention to what you expect that fan base wants from you. I think many, many artists have suffered an artistic death by doing just that. I think we live in very dangerous times right now with the Internet and the feedback loop you can get from people who somehow feel their fingers are connected to an impulse — first second of hearing something, I need to write some reaction that gets blasted out to the world."

What did you think of the video?

"I saw about the first five seconds of it, and it lessened my faith that I am reaching an audience that is open-minded enough to understand what I'm trying to do. That's what I thought off the bat. And then I thought, 'I really don't care what you think.' We wouldn't be sitting here doing an interview, because my career would have been over 24 years ago, if I'd have listened to what I think people want to hear from me. [But] this is just my off-the-cuff thesis here. I'm sure it's riddled with holes that I'll be reminded of on the Internet any minute now."

If you choose to read it.

"When we started out, you would get feedback from fan mail, if you dared to read it. And I remember early versions of [online] bulletin boards, where it was exciting to see that somewhere, digitally, people were talking about your band in little chat rooms and things like that. When we got up to whenever Twitter came out, I took it upon myself to try to direct market to people. Myself, Rob Sheridan — my art director and collaborator on pretty much everything creative — we spent an enormous amount of time really studying the behavior of people: how people wanted to consume music, how they learned about music, what formats they liked, what felt insincere to them, what they felt the value of music might be. Really just watching. But it tuned us in to that feedback loop of commentary, and you can easily go down rabbit holes with niches of people that are unpleasable, regardless of what you could possibly do as an artist. My brain is wired to follow the negative down there and try to engage people and defend and fight, but that's an utter waste of time. I left that era of my life realizing that just because everybody now has the ability to be a self-publisher and broadcast every whim and thought to the world, it doesn't mean that that opinion is necessarily valid or needs to be consumed or listened to or paid attention to. I think — and I've said this recently in the press — as an artist it's an incredibly dangerous time to pay attention, too much, to what other people think. Because it inevitably leads to either homogenous, crowd-pleasing, meandering work, or it leads to something that's just as insincere — just to go against that."

You're known for really intricately composed, crafted, layered songs. Walk me through what's going on in the new song "Copy of A." It starts out with this repetitive synth pattern, right?

"Yeah, that's five 16th notes with a rest in there, so it's hard to tell where the downbeat is. I like the way it flips around and doesn't always land on the beat in an expected way. This song is really about repetition and starting to layer small elements of rhythm, percussion and treatment of vocal into something that is meant to feel hypnotic but slightly unnerving. Not comfortable, not EDM dance-tent, wave-your-hands-in-the-air, but more something that keeps you on the edge of your seat, that doesn't feel quite right."

So the intent is to be unsettling?


YouTube
"In this particular song, yeah. It's about tension. It's about layers of complexity that don't feel showy, that don't feel like, 'Look at all the things I can put in here.' Things suddenly creep in. If you were to study this track or listen to the multitracks of what made it up, there's a lot more in there than what it sounds like. It's meant to feel understandable and minimal in its surface."

Do you remember how many tracks there are on this song, layered on top of each other?

"No, no idea. I remember when we did The Fragile, however large the mixing console we had, we always had to add more tracks — we were always maxed out. This album in general was very much the opposite of that."

And somewhere in here, on guitar, is Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac. How did that happen?

"The idea that [co-producer] Atticus Ross and I had was to bring in some other brains that work in a way that's different than ours. Lindsey Buckingham was kind of the oddball choice: 'Man, it'd be great if we could get him — let's try!' A couple days later, we were sitting in the studio with him."

Why did you want him?

"I've always greatly admired Fleetwood Mac from as far back as I can remember — and in particular, I've always admired his production skills and his guitar playing, which I think get overlooked because of all the other great aspects of Fleetwood Mac. His picking style, his sound, his aggressiveness and just his mastery of the instrument, I always thought was amazing. I thought it was so different than what I do, it might be interesting to see what happens if we put those things together.

"We did the same thing with [guitarist] Adrian Belew and [bassist] Pino Palladino, which was just to bombard these guys with snippets of music that we assumed would be a bit unfamiliar and kind of a foreign land to drop them into. We would offer guidance, but not strict guidance — basically, 'Do whatever you want, but what if it was something like this? For this track, what if it was just long melodic phrases that were at least four bars long? Or what if your guitar was a percussion instrument [and] we don't hear any sense of melody?' We'd just record everything and sort through it later. I've been doing this with Adrian since The Downward Spiral; what Lindsey brought to the table was, the second he picks up his guitar, it's him. There's all these different sounds coming out and I think, 'What pedals is he using?' And he's not. He just knows how to play his instrument really well."

I'll bet there are lots of tucked-away sounds in these songs that you're really, really pleased by, that are layered so deep in that we may not really hear them — but you know they're there. And I'll bet you love that.

"We all acknowledged — when I say we, I mean Atticus Ross, [mix engineer] Alan Moulder, myself, the core team here — that we thought this was a pretty important collection of songs that would benefit from an extended period of time working on it. It ended up taking almost twice as long as we originally thought. We discovered [that] the sound of the record, the way we built it up and kept it fairly sparse, became very tricky to mix and get the puzzle just right. And what you were mentioning about layers and pieces — we spent a lot of time really weaving a kind of tapestry, a sculpture of things that work in very subtle ways, that lift up choruses or make certain areas feel more intimate or a bit more tense, really taking the time to get the mix and the tiny details right. I think those things come out after repeated listenings. Those are the kind of records that always change my life, that make it feel like my brain got larger or my taste widened a bit, so I try to make those type of records myself."

You mean you're still discovering new things in this record?

"Yeah, I mean, I aspire to make a record that sounds better 10 listens in than it does after two — and still, at 50 listens, you're picking out things that add a depth and a thoughtfulness. There's enough in there that you can still be extracting pieces out of it. I don't know that people listen to records that many times these days, but I do."

There's a sort of a creaky, percussive sound on the song "Find My Way." What is that?

"We put a mic up in a room and had a bunch of just junk around — slats of wood, miscellaneous percussion pieces, a table. We just started banging on things, recording everything and extracting them and treating them. And we stumbled into certain things that work in that context."

I just love that sound so much. What were you trying to get out of it?

"Well, we were trying to make it feel like it wasn't coming from the same place as the loop around it. What's around it is all electronic drums, processed and delayed. They feel very direct; there's a nice, fundamental low end and warmth to it. We wanted something that felt much more live sitting on top — not in a way that fights it, but that makes the track come alive.

"We record a lot of things with a stereo mic in a room so it actually has a sense that it sounds real. If you walk in a room where someone's playing drums, it doesn't sound anything like drums usually sound on records — because drums on records have lots of close mics, and everything's gated and compressed and EQ'ed and polished up. If you walk in a room and Dave Grohl's bashing on a drum kit at full volume, it sounds exciting and live and ringy and chaotic. You're hearing it splash off the walls and the snare's too loud and the cymbals are kinda scary because your eyes vibrate when he hits them that hard."


YouTube
A few years ago, back in 2009, you wrote on your website that it was time to let Nine Inch Nails disappear for a while and you were done touring under that name. You worked on other projects, but now you're back — doing these big arena shows, huge festivals, Lollapalooza. What's it like feeding off of those crowds again after having been away for a stretch of time?

"It's pretty interesting, the transformation from the idea of it to the actual execution of it. A year and a half ago or so, I realized a record was going to be made, and there was the inevitable talk of doing a supporting tour — you know, do I think I have anything left I can pull off in that format? Can I say something new? If it's for nostalgia, no. If it's for me to just get up and relive running the touchdown across the finish line in the homecoming game, then I can't allow myself to do that. But if I think I haven't done everything I can do — if I have something to say and a way to present it that warrants it, and I can physically pull it off, and it's something that I think belongs under the heading of Nine Inch Nails and what that means to people, then yeah. And I'll catch some flak for saying I wasn't going to do that again, but I changed my mind. I feel much more invigorated and inspired than I did when I said I didn't want do it anymore.

"A year and a half ago, that seed gets planted and the decision gets made: 'Let's play some shows, and let's put this record out.' Then it turns into executing it, and in the last month, it's turned into actually being onstage. Festivals can be the greatest and they can be the worst; I think we had a taste of both of that on this little run we just did. You're up there and it's a sea of people, and it's not a given that it's going to be your crowd because people are there for a variety of reasons — but when you see it connect, it feels fantastic. I think the show that we just built to play festivals was very smart, and I had that feeling as we were about to walk onstage that I can't wait to show this to people. You know, at song 22, I'm completely exhausted with a sore throat, saying, 'Did I just sign up for a full year of this?' I'm a hundred years old right now. It feels a little different in that way. But it's felt great."

So when you say it could be the greatest or the worst, what's the worst?

"There were a couple festivals where we were sandwiched in the wrong kind of bill, to be honest with you. Nine Inch Nails is kind of an anomaly because we've never had hits. We had one kind-of hit, 'Closer,' but we're not like a singles band. And to see us sandwiched with the people making Rihanna singles and some of the stuff that's at the top of the charts right now. ... We played a show in Belgium, essentially opening for Eminem. And there was a realization about midway through the first song that, OK, this audience doesn't care about what I'm up to."

So what do you do when that happens? How do you adapt or calibrate what you're doing next?

"I don't know. Twenty years ago, it would have been smash equipment and insult the audience and throw a tantrum. Now, it's smash equipment, throw a tantrum internally, maybe. I'm not sure what you do.

"I'm trying to think if I should say this out loud, but I will say it out loud because it's what I do. In '91, Nine Inch Nails was kind of the new, hot band that was starting to break in the States. We had just played the first Lollapalooza and our song that had been out for a year and a half had just gotten picked up on MTV; you could feel a kind of momentum. Guns N' Roses was the biggest band in the world at that time, and Axl Rose, who was a fan, publicly asked us, 'Come play some shows with us in Germany.' You know, play in front of 65,000 people in Mannheim. [I thought], 'I've never been there; let's do it.' Stepping onstage, I'm sure it didn't take the whole first song for me to realize, OK, this was a huge miscalculation, because the only thing that can be achieved here is confrontation. There's an audience that's here for a certain thing, and what we're doing is not in the wheelhouse of what's acceptable for that thing. And then you question, 'Are these people that even I would want to have as my audience?' And generally, no — I don't like this kind of music; I wouldn't come to this concert myself. And then you think, 'I should have thought this through before I said yes and flew to Germany.' We made a couple of those mistakes on this festival run.

"But you can get comfortable playing to your own audience all the time. We're about to embark on an arena tour in the U.S. here — that will be our audience. And what's good about that is I feel we can get away with more things, we can stretch your attention span further, I can play songs that I feel are more challenging. But you're also walking into a home-court advantage every night. Sometimes it's humbling and can be beneficial in a sense that you still have something that you have to prove."

When you're onstage now and you're doing old Nine Inch Nails songs from the dark days, songs full of hurt and pain and anger, how do you pull that off? Does it feel very different from where you are now, in that it's painful in a visceral way — like peeling off a scab?

"I've kind of watched with amusement as the press has latched on to 'Reznor, now 48, happily married with two kids and an Oscar winner,' as if I can be summed up as that now. 'He made a song with a major chord in it that we don't understand' is something that references Joy Division and New Order. It's pop-punk. That's the tagline for who I am now. I'm not the same person I was 20 years ago, and I'm happy to not be that person. When I'm onstage, the songs that we've chosen to play from the back catalog are things that still resonate with me and matter to me, and when I'm in those songs, I get transported into those songs. It can be draining to go through that."

You mentioned your kids — you have two young sons. Are they on the road with you when you go out on these tours?

"Yep."

What's that like?

"We're just at the beginning of it, but so far, it's been great. I said I wasn't going to tour if it meant missing them grow up, and I mean that. I love playing and I love touring, but I'm not going to miss out on their lives to do that, so I'm attempting — and so far, so good — a balance there."

Are you with them right before you go onstage? I mean, do you have to sort of shed one persona to become the other?

"Generally, they don't come to the venues. But to be able to wake up and hang out with your family, to have that normal aspect of being present for them, that matters. I find that quite centering. You know, instead of sitting on a bus with a bunch of guys — nothing against it, but I've done that for quite some time. And it adds an interesting duality where I can kind of switch that off and kick into show mode. It keeps things, so far, feeling kind of sane. Ask me in a few months and we'll see what the answer is."

You were talking before about the through-line in some of the new media coverage — the happily married guy with the two kids, and how that can be sort of misleading. What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding about you?

"That's a good question. There were times when I kind of believed what I read about myself because I wasn't sure who I was in the first place. In the mid-'90s, I certainly fell prey to that. Nowadays, I don't care as much about what people think, and certainly what the press thinks. And I say that not out of arrogance — just, I've learned to tune out things that I find destructive.

Trent Reznor (left) of the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, which puts its seventh album, Hesitation Marks, out next Tuesday. Rapper Earl Sweatshirt (right) released his major label debut on Tuesday.
The Record
Nine Inch Nails And Earl Sweatshirt Explore Darkness
"I could spend a lot of time being frustrated about one aspect of the press, which is what low qualifications are required to become a quote-unquote journalist these days. I can do an interview with somebody and have a conversation with them. That person can extract their version of what was said, and then I'll get hundreds of Google Alerts extracting that quote out of context as some new slogan that's link bait — so they can sell advertisements. One of the ones — well, I won't even give it credit. Somehow it's being twisted into, I'm anti-'do-it-yourself' and I'm criticizing anybody that's trying to have a Kickstarter or do things on their own. That couldn't be further from the truth. There's been a big thing of, 'My album costs 10 bucks or go screw yourself,' with a different word in there — all taken out of context of what I was actually trying to say. And even trying to explain myself is tedious and kind of pointless, because this explanation will be taken out of context. So the end result of all that, for me, is to kind of just tune it out. Try to do the best work I can, try to do that work with integrity — and then, I can't control how you're gonna feel about it or what you're gonna think about it or how I'm gonna be represented about it."

If you look back farther at how you've been viewed as a musician or as an artist, are there other misperceptions that make you feel like, "They just don't get who I am and what I'm doing here"?

"Well, there's always been a need to put things in boxes — understandable little headings so you know what the thing is. What were we called in the '90s — industrial? What does that mean? Well, we don't know. It's not alternative like grunge, and it has synthesizers — let's call it industrial. That was never me out there, waving that banner around. I think in Europe we got called metal at some point, and so we'd wind up in this kind of metal heading as if we're brethren with whoever's considered a metal band. I don't know. I think if you've been around long enough and you're attempting to continue to expand and reinvent, it becomes more difficult to niche — until they can comfortably place you in a Neil Young slot, as someone that's been around long enough that they've proven themselves to be something else."

You decided to master the new album, Hesitation Marks, two different ways: There's the standard version and the "audiophile" version. How are they different?

"When we were working on the album, we realized the songs had a lot of dynamics: They went from very quiet to fairly loud. There was also a lot of low-end frequency: We made this record kind of inspired by a lot of what's happened in hip-hop and club stuff, where there's a lot of information happening down in the low end that you won't hear out of your computer speakers. In the last several years, the 'loudness wars' you hear about [have] been everybody trying to make their record louder than everybody else's — the idea being when you put your song on, it blasts out of the speakers and it sounds more exciting than one that's not as loud. The compromise that happens when you make things louder and louder is, you lose the dynamic range. The fidelity suffers, but the hype goes up.


YouTube
"We were faced with a dilemma at the very end of mastering, which was, do we compete with everyone else? Do we want to be as loud as other acts when you're shuffling through on iTunes? Or do we a make it just a purist thing where it's exactly how we want it to sound? So we decided to master it two different ways. And this wasn't meant to be any kind of tricky marketing way to fool you into buying the record twice — it was just for the small percentage of people that would appreciate the difference. If you have a high-end system, you'll need to turn it up a little bit louder, but you'll hear it closer to what we actually were listening to in the studio. Don't get it expecting [that] you're going to radically notice the difference, particularly if you're listening to it on your computer. It's a subtle thing that was meant for the people that care about that sort of detail."

That's got to make you happy, to know that some people will hear the album as you heard it.

"Well, it's just like a number of other things. In the olden days, being on a major label, we'd get into fights about the cost of the package. I would be arguing, 'It needs four-color ink and it needs this kind of paper.' And the argument would be, 'Nobody cares about that stuff.' I don't know if the guy that bought the Eminem record cares about that — and that's nothing against Eminem. I don't know that my biggest fan cares about that. But I care about it. I care about the way that paper feels, and if it leaves fingerprints, and I would prefer that it's not the jewel box that explodes when you try to take the plastic off the outside. And with vinyl, I care about what's written on the inside with the engineer's handwriting. I think about those things. So if I'm able to offer something that actually makes it sound a little closer to how we wanted it to sound, I don't expect everyone to care about that. But if you do, then here it is."

[elle]

oh and this part singled out as quote in NPR text:

"When you've been around for a while and you've created, essentially, a brand, that has a certain level of expectation. And it encourages you to not color outside the lines if you pay too much attention to what you expect that fan base wants from you. I think many, many artists have suffered an artistic death by doing just that."

either TR and LB have very similar thoughts about all this (parallel lines :D), or TR listened to too many of LB interviews and stage talks and picked up most of the way of expressing this, or LB kept feeding him his usual lines while playing guitar that whole day. ;)

or probably none of the above and many artists agree with these exact thoughts, but i'm just so used to hearing LB expressing them.

[michelej1]

one thing that's different is that he says he has developed as a person and is a very different person now. LB obviously appears to be very different, yet he never seems to acknowldge that.

Lindsey concedes that he was much more feisty in the past than he is now. As when he laughingly says he wouldn't run over and confront a DJ now, based on what he said on the radio.

I for one don't think he is all that much different, though. The only difference is the aspects of his personality that get the most discussion. I think all the same aspects are still there, however, just perhaps in different percentages. The mellow qualities he has now were there then though.

Michele

[elle]

Lindsey concedes that he was much more feisty in the past than he is now. As when he laughingly says he wouldn't run over and confront a DJ now, based on what he said on the radio.

I for one don't think he is all that much different, though. The only difference is the aspects of his personality that get the most discussion. I think all the same aspects are still there, however, just perhaps in different percentages. The mellow qualities he has now were there then though.

Michele

well, i can't say about his personality then since i didn't meet him at that time... his personality in fan encounters these days, as everybody keeps describing, is mellow and friendly, and just... normal.

if we are judging by songs - which should be less subjective - there were many angry, bitchy, and spiteful songs he wrote in late 70s and 80s. a good number of his more recent songs seem to be more contemplative, understanding, or accepting. but that can also be because as you said some of the different qualities that were always present became more dominant now, while they were mostly hidden behind the other traits that were more prominent before.

but then again, i used to have a neighbor who's a well-respected and successful painter. her paintings were really dark and twisted, many probably exorcising leftover demons from traumas she suffered as a small child. but in person she was the nicest, sweetest, most kind and normal woman. i always thought she used her art to get rid of all the nasty things that were plaguing her, so she can live a normal life. so i guess the way person expresses themselves in their art does not normally have to reflect how they behave in everyday encounters.

[WeepingWall]

sounds so obvious when he points it out, but i could not pick it up before.

Hilarious. I had the same response!

[michelej1]

Here's a chat with Trent Reznor that can be streamed.

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/thedoctor/blog/s3844723.htm

They caption a photo of Trent making an illicit hand gesture by saying:

Here's Trent when someone suggested members of Fleetwood Mac have no place on an industrial rock record.

[elle]

Here's a chat with Trent Reznor that can be streamed.

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/thedoctor/blog/s3844723.htm

They caption a photo of Trent making an illicit hand gesture by saying:

Here's Trent when someone suggested members of Fleetwood Mac have no place on an industrial rock record.

good for Trent! love his doing all this LB advertising these days! :nod:

but show producers... Rhiannon as an example of LB's Mac work? could have been worse, but really?!? guess that fits well with perpetuating the whole thing how no FM members fit on NIN record. :shrug:

[elle]

oh and this part singled out as quote in NPR text:

"When you've been around for a while and you've created, essentially, a brand, that has a certain level of expectation. And it encourages you to not color outside the lines if you pay too much attention to what you expect that fan base wants from you. I think many, many artists have suffered an artistic death by doing just that."

either TR and LB have very similar thoughts about all this (parallel lines :D), or TR listened to too many of LB interviews and stage talks and picked up most of the way of expressing this, or LB kept feeding him his usual lines while playing guitar that whole day. ;)

or probably none of the above and many artists agree with these exact thoughts, but i'm just so used to hearing LB expressing them.

Here's a chat with Trent Reznor that can be streamed.

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/thedoctor/blog/s3844723.htm

after listening to this interview, and Trent describing how they spent a good day of storytelling in Village Recorder studio where FM did Tusk, and reading all his statements about challenging the brand etc, i'm now very convinced a good portion of those expressions is echoing Lindsey's storytelling about Tusk that day he spent with Trent at Village Recorder.

[Cammie]

Very interesting !!! Thanks so much !!!

[michelej1]

Fader, STORY BY: COMPILED BY MICHAEL ZELENKO AND NAOMI ZEICHNER

Read more: http://www.thefader.com/2013/09/23/nine-inch-nails-oral-history-interview/#ixzz2jKOSWdgY

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM
Guitarist and collaborator on Hesitation Marks

When Trent sought me out to play guitar [for Hesitation Marks], I was quite pleased. Even though our styles differ, it seemed to me that our methods were very much the same—approaching the writing process through color, working the textural and tonal relationships of the track, much in the way an abstract painter works. There was really no verbalizing in terms of what to play, no preconceptions of any kind from Trent. There were no melodies yet, and I felt that he was really just looking for his next set of clues to advance the material to the next step, hopefully infusing the stuff with a bit of my style along the way. Trent wasn’t interested in the idea of my trying to adapt my style to what he does; he was attracted to the idea of my organic guitars coexisting with his electronic keyboards. And that’s where the potential for something new existed: in the hybrid between the two.


Read more: http://www.thefader.com/2013/09/23/nine-inch-nails-oral-history-interview/#ixzz2jKO92iMl

[Macfanforever]

The collaboration with Johnny Cash was great.Lindsey will do great with the Nails.

[Nickingham]

Fader, STORY BY: COMPILED BY MICHAEL ZELENKO AND NAOMI ZEICHNER

Read more: http://www.thefader.com/2013/09/23/nine-inch-nails-oral-history-interview/#ixzz2jKOSWdgY

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM
Guitarist and collaborator on Hesitation Marks

"Trent wasn’t interested in the idea of my trying to adapt my style to what he does; he was attracted to the idea of my organic guitars coexisting with his electronic keyboards. And that’s where the potential for something new existed: in the hybrid between the two."

I love that idea. Thank you for posting the article!


I like both Lindsey and NIN. So for them to work together is just awesome!
And I hope Lindsey continues to experiment and collaborate with other artists! :D

[elle]

nineinchnails
1 day ago
#TBT Trent and Atticus recording Lindsey Buckingham on guitar for #HesitationMarks. Los Angeles, October 2012.
http://instagram.com/p/nd4r3CjqgV/

[HelloMonster]

nineinchnails
1 day ago
#TBT Trent and Atticus recording Lindsey Buckingham on guitar for #HesitationMarks. Los Angeles, October 2012.
http://instagram.com/p/nd4r3CjqgV/

Love it!

http://i.imgur.com/SGlgBi4.jpg

[shackin'up]

Cool!......

[sodascouts]

Wish we could see him a bit better, but I love any behind-the-scenes peeks we get.

[elle]

did we know before that those 2 days or so Lindsey was recording with Trent and Atticus happened in October 2012? i guess it makes all the sense since i think Lindsey had about half of October off during OMS tour.... but i don't think that i even knew before that it was in 2012.

and i just love that whoever is posting on NIN instagram felt the need to throw in and remember LB recording of their album as a tbt. :cool: