In the spring and summer of 2000, in support of the previous year's The Fragile record, Nine Inch Nails embarked upon the Fragility v2.0 tour in North America, playing 44 arena shows with A Perfect Circle in support.
On May 22, 2000, Louder's Paul Brannigan was sent to Houston, Texas, on assignment from Kerrang! magazine, to interview Trent Reznor, and found Nine Inch Nails' mastermind in a reflective mood, grateful to have survived the chaos of the '90s, but almost personally offended by what he saw as the stupidity of much of the contemporary rock and metal scene.
At 9 pm, twenty minutes before his band are scheduled to take the stage of Houston's 17,500-capacity Compaq Center arena, Trent Reznor leads Nine Inch Nails out of their dressing room for the briefest of photo sessions. As Charlie Clouser, Danny Lohner, Robin Finck and Jerome Dillon take their positions at his side, and photographer Scarlet Page lifts her camera, Reznor issues one simple, stern directive to his bandmates.
“Don't smile,” he says sharply. “Don't smile.”
Danny Lohner's parents are out front, having travelled up to Houston from their home in Corpus Christi to see their boy perform in his home state. When I mention that he's exhibiting little trace of pre-show nerves, Lohner laughs and says, “If I was Trent I might get nervous, but nobody's looking at me.”
“I prefer it this way,” Lohner adds. “It's difficult for Trent to roll down the street in any town we're playing because he gets recognised. God bless the fans, but I'm sure it gets hard for him.”
It's a pretty safe bet that the band members' parents weren't in the habit of dropping in on NIN's shows when they were touring The Downward Spiral. Joined on the road by Marilyn Manson and the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow, that tour has passed into rock history as one of the most excessive, debauched, out-of-control tours since the 'glory' days of Guns N'Roses and Mötley Crüe. It's unlikely that Mr and Mrs Lohner would have been overly impressed at witnessing musicians spitting on naked girls or hosting backstage enema contests, episodes chronicled in grim detail in Marilyn Manson's autobiography Long Hard Road Out Of Hell.
“We're doing different things now,” Robin Finck says, slowly and deliberately. “Last time out I personally visited a lot of places I don't want to go back to.”
“On a lot of that tour I don't even remember playing the shows,” Trent Reznor admits. “I got off the bus after two years going, Who am I?. That tour was really about excess. I couldn't physically repeat that without an oxygen tent onstage. We were all drug addicts and full-on party machines and that was one of the factors that led me to being in a very depressed state at the end of that tour.”
Casually dressed in a black army surplus shirt and blue jeans, Reznor is sitting with his beautiful dog Daisy May by his side. He appears relaxed and happy, and in a much, much better place now.
“This tour might read as 'tame' or 'old guys',” he shrugs, “but I'm not bothered. We've only had one day off in the past month, and where before that might spell chaos, this time we went to an amusement park. And you know what, I was like, This is the best day of my life!”
“I see (ex-Eagles frontman) Don Henley was playing here last night,” Reznor continues. “The first concert I ever saw was The Eagles in 1976. The excitement of the night struck a chord with me and I remember thinking, Some day I'd love to be up on that stage.”
You can be forgiven if you've ever envisaged Nine Inch Nails' mastermind as a brooding, somewhat sullen and reluctant interviewee. In truth, today at least, he's an engaging conversationalist, prone to the occasional charming off-piste ramble. A simple question about his memories of that first concert sees him reminiscing about the night serving up another rites-of-passage experience, for during the show he took his very first drag of a joint, passed along to him by his father Michael.
“Not to promote my dad as someone who was forcing drugs down my throat,” he clarifies.
I went through a phase where I was an asshole, believing that my shit didn't stink
Trent Reznor
The young Trent Reznor found his own band when he discovered Kiss. His inner child obviously still has some time for the face-painted New Yorkers, as there's a Kiss lava lamp in his flight case in the dressing room, and earlier today his bandmates were groaning recalling that Reznor has recently taken to making them listen to Paul Stanley's 1978 solo album, an album Charlie Clouser describes as “wretched”.
“I always liked larger than life, superhuman rock stars, but I never thought I was that," Reznor admits. "When Nine Inch Nails came out it was very anti-image, I just wanted to be part of a rock band that was very violent and passionate. I've never thought I'm David Bowie and can command an audience, and that's still what I'm least confident about today. But I don't feel inadequate onstage.”
“When somebody first called me a rock star it was like a dream come true. And my ego reflected that. I went through a phase where I was an asshole, and I treated some people shitty.”
In what way?
“By believing that my shit didn't stink and that that gave me the right to be mean to people. I'd be throwing tantrums like, 'I said 10 black towels, not eight!'. It was pure Spinal Tap stuff.”
“As we got bigger I started getting real uncomfortable with that 'rock star' tag," he continues. “When The Downward Spiral came out I tried to kill myself on the road and basically self-destructed, because I couldn't deal with being so big.”
“And now?” he says, stroking Daisy May's sleek coat. “Well, now I feel, not comfortable with it exactly, but a lot more at ease. I've realised that there's a me and a public me, where before there was no distinction.”
I basically have everything I want, but I'd neglected everything about being a person in the process
Trent Reznor
So right here, right now, you could describe yourself as happy?
“Compared to where I had been, yeah, definitely," he says slowly, “but there's still a big hole in my fulfilment level. After The Downward Spiral I realised that I basically have everything I want, but I'd neglected everything about being a person in the process.”
“People would ask, 'What do you do for hobbies?' and I'd be like, 'Er (long pause)… go and sit in the studio?' I realised I didn't have a life - it stopped right before I got signed. I'm in a better head space now, but I wouldn't say I'm overly happy. There's always another good label to fight to keep me miserable.”
“We've really been abandoned by our record company in the US. It's full of accountants that don't know music from their asses. And apparently I'm not moving enough units to MTV 'Total Request Live' demographic, those 12-14-year-old kids. I mean, who the fuck are they?”
“I'm trying to make music that challenges, and I'm finding fewer and fewer bands with any depth. Music is reaching a level of stupidity that's stunning to me. There's always a need for dumb music, but we don't need any more Kid Rocks. Enough. And I believe in The Fragile and I want to try to get the word out. This band might just make you realise that Limp Bizkit sucks.”
You're not a Fred Durst fan?
“It's one thing if you know your place, like, 'Hey, I'm an idiot who plays shitty music, but people buy it, fuck it, I'm having fun'. But it's another thing when you think you're David Bowie after you've stayed up all night to write a song called Break Stuff," Reznor laughs, injecting contempt into every word. “Fred Durst might be a cool guy, I don't know him. But his 'art' - in the word's loosest sense - sucks.”
Alongside Courtney Love, Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan and REM's Micheal Stipe. Fred Durst is one of the celebrities lampooned in Nine Inch Nails' latest video Starsuckers, Inc. A cleaned-up version of the vicious Starfuckers, Inc. from The Fragile, the video was conceived and directed by Marilyn Manson, who also appears in drag in the clip. It's a remarkable video, all the more so because lyrically Starfuckers, Inc. was reputed to be Reznor's acerbic dig at Manson .
“Oh, when I wrote the song he was definitely one of the people I had in mind,” Reznor says trying, and failing, to suppress a smirk. “So he called me and said, 'You know what, I'm fucking sick of people asking if this song is about me, so I've got a really cool idea for a video that'll just fuck with everybody'.”
It's a remarkably nasty video.
“You mean, it's weird to see someone with the balls to say that some people are shit?” he laughs.
Tonight's show is spectacular, arguably the best arena rock show this writer has ever seen, by turns blisteringly intense and genuinely beautiful.
With a stunning light show created by Pink Floyd's lighting designer and gorgeous slo-mo elemental visuals, the music to which Trent Reznor dedicated the past five years of his life is immaculately framed, and dressed in their battle fatigues, Reznor and his bandmates are unrecognisable from the calm characters we saw backstage, throwing themselves into their performances with a passion bordering on the psychotic.
“Without trying to pat myself on the back too much, I think the show we're doing now is pretty bold for an arena show,” Reznor says. “With The Fragile I was trying to get out of the corner I was boxing myself into in that the music had to be harder and faster and more desperate. With the show now it's…”
Reznor pauses and smiles.
“Well, you'll see,” he says.
An alternate version of this feature appeared in Kerrang! magazine in July 2000.
