And when the day arrives I'll become the sky and I'll become the sea and the sea will come to kiss me for I am going home. Nothing can stop me now.
Trent Reznor
I think there's something strangely musical about noise.
I really try to put myself in uncomfortable situations. Complacency is my enemy.
I wanted to escape Small Town U.S.A. To dismiss the boundaries, to explore. My life experience came from watching movies, TV, and reading books and magazines. When your culture comes from watching TV everyday, you're bombarded with images of things that seem cool, places that seem interesting, people who have jobs and careers and opportunities.
Nine Inch Nails was born out of Cleveland, Ohio, with me and a friend in a studio working on demos at night. Got a record deal with a small, little label, went on tour in a van, and a couple years later found that somehow we touched a nerve, and that first record resonated with a bunch of people.
In my nothing, you were everything, to me.
This isn't meant to last. This is for right now.
My advice today, to established acts and new-coming acts, is the same advice I'd give to myself: pause for a minute, and really think about 'What is your goal? Where do you see yourself?'
I like the idea of subversively communicating with people... so that you make people see things in different ways.
Bow down before the one you serve, you're going to get what you deserve.
In my life, I was always floating around the edge of the dark side and saying what if take it a little bit too far, and who says you have to stop there, and what's behind the next door. Maybe you gain a wisdom from examining those things. But after a while, you get too far down in the quicksand.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think music should be free.
I believe sometimes you have a choice in what inspiration you choose to follow and other times you really don't.
I feel uncomfortable because I'm insecure about who I am.
To me, rock music was never meant to be safe. I think there needs to be an element of intrigue, mystery, subversiveness. Your parents should hate it.
Why don't the Grammys matter? Because it feels rigged and cheap - like a popularity contest that the insiders club has decided.
I used to buy vinyl. Today, if you do put out a record on a label, traditionally, most people are going to hear it via a leak that happens two weeks - if not two months - before it comes out. There's no real way around that.
I think the whole aspect of social networking is vulgar and repulsive in a lot of ways. But I also see why it's appealing - I've had that little high you get from posting stuff online. But then you think, 'Did I need to say that?' I've explored that enough to know to stay kind of quiet these days.
I'm a lot less precious than I used to be about putting things out, for better or for worse. The result of a public that has a very high consumption rate and turnover rate is people listen to more music but spend less time with individual bits of music.
I lived a fairly average, anonymous small-town life till I got the idea to do Nine Inch Nails. Then I locked myself in a studio for a year, and then got off the tour bus two years after that, and I didn't know who I'd turned into.
MTV can't do less for me, let's put it that way. I'm fine without them.
I'm very much aware of the dangers of becoming a cliche. Mr. Anger, someone who gets meaner, angrier on record.
I was up above it. Now, I'm down in it.
When I was growing up, the people who liked the Beatles, I didn't like, so I didn't pay attention to them.
I need boundaries. In the modern studio there are a bunch of instruments around me, and I can simulate anything I can't play, so sometimes the palette feels too big.
When your culture comes from watching TV every day, you're bombarded with images of things that seem cool, places that seem interesting, people who have jobs and careers and opportunities. None of that happened where I was. You're almost taught to realize it's not for you.
Being in a band with my wife, I'm very aware of the multitude of ways that can go wrong. We're best friends and are interested in the same things, so it's natural to make music together.
Sometimes we pee on each other before we go on stage.
When fame presented itself to me, I was not at a point in my life where I was equipped to deal with it.
A lot of what I've done as Nine Inch Nails has been governed by fear. I was trying to keep the songs in a framework that was tough, and I learnt a lot from Jesus and Mary Chain about how to bury nice pop songs in unlistenable noise - the idea being if you can get behind that wall, you find there's a pearl inside.
Live interaction with a crowd is a cathartic, spiritual kind of exchange, and it's intensified at a festival.
The first set of lyrics for the first songs I ever wrote, which are the ones on 'Pretty Hate Machine,' came from private journal entries that I realized I was writing in lyric form.
The dynamic of a relationship changes when one person gets sober.
When I'm writing music, I'm not playing a character. I'm not Alice Cooper or Gene Simmons or someone like that, who has acknowledged that they are writing music for a character.
It's easy to get lost in the shuffle, and just enticing people to hear the music for free doesn't mean that much when everyone else is essentially doing the same thing on MySpace, or wherever.
You can punch a wall or write a song. Just as painful either way, but you have something to show for it at the end of the day with a song.
I'd much rather be worrying about playing that note in tune, and picking out the best way to arrange the song, rather than thinking about pricing for the download. It's not art.
Books are better than movies because you design the set the way you want it to look.
I thought I'd reached the bottom a few times, but then I'd realise there was another 30 floors of despair below that.
I had to come to terms about becoming an addict, which, for a long time, I lied to myself about the status of until I couldn't lie any more, 'cause I was either going to die or get better.
My life has two modes. One is sitting around writing and contemplating or building things. The other is execution mode. It takes a while to switch from one to the other.
I doubt I'll ever pay someone to do a remix again, because there's some amazing stuff just coming out of bedrooms.
The band Grizzly Bear, I think they're excellent. There's a beauty and a musicality there that I wish would have been in vogue in the late '80s, when I was forming bands.
I write most of my songs when I'm in a bad mood.
When I first played 'Wolfenstein 3D,' it blew my mind. It had a big impact on me.
I don't even know why I'm saying this in an interview situation, but I always feel like I'm not good enough for some reason. I wish that wasn't the case, but left to my own devices, that voice starts speaking up.
I miss how a record label can help spread the word that you have something out.
With a Nine Inch Nails show, I'm building on a legacy that comes with a certain set of expectations. I have to push that forward, I have to reinvent myself, I have to feel current and valid.
Fear has governed my life, if I think about it.
Though I still have no semblance of a life outside of Nine Inch Nails at the moment, I realize my goals have gone from getting a record deal or selling another record to being a better person, more well-rounded, having friends, having a relationship with somebody.
