Trent Reznor Quotes

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.

- Trent Reznor

I think my music's more disturbing than Tupac's - or at least I thought some of the themes of 'The Downward Spiral' were more disturbing on a deeper level - you know, issues about suicide and hating yourself and God and people and everything else.

- Trent Reznor

One of the biggest wake-up calls of my career was when I saw a record contract. I said, 'Wait - you sell it for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it and then you own it?'

- Trent Reznor

What is exciting is taking back the excitement of being able to debut something to an audience in exactly the way you want to.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

I've always been into computers. When I was getting out of high school and forming my identity musically, all of it was really coming into the fold, computers and drum machines. It felt like, you know, I'm in the right place at the right time. I liked the collision.

- Trent Reznor

The 'Downward Spiral' album was a record all about beating everybody up - and then 'Hurt' was like a coda saying maybe I shouldn't have done that. But to make the song sound impenetrable because I thought it was a little too vulnerable, I tried to layer it in noise.

- Trent Reznor

Wal-Mart went on a rampage years ago insisting all music they carry be censored of all profanity and 'clean' versions be made for them to carry.

- Trent Reznor

I'd rather not get into what I'm talking about lyrically. I think it's impossible not to demystify a song when saying what it's about. Music and art can be damaged severely by too much information; I say that as somebody that has participated in that.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

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 to it; there's enough in there that you can still be extracting pieces out of it.

- Trent Reznor

Why don't the Grammys matter? Because it feels rigged and cheap - like a popularity contest that the insiders club has decided.

- Trent Reznor

I foolishly thought that if I just 'made it' then everything would be okay. And everything wasn't okay.

- Trent Reznor

I'm not Prince or Rivers Cuomo, who brags about having hundreds of great songs.

- Trent Reznor

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.'

- Trent Reznor

'Downward Spiral' felt like I had an unending bottomless pit of rage and self-loathing inside me and I had to somehow challenge something or I'd explode. I thought I could get through by putting everything into my music, standing in front of an audience and screaming emotions at them from my guts.

- Trent Reznor

I have been wildly enthused about gaming since I was younger, and a career path I chose not to go down but did really consider was getting into programming and game design.

- Trent Reznor

I did not grow up in a cosmopolitan environment. I grew up in a little town in the middle of nowhere, pre-Internet, pre-college radio.

- Trent Reznor

I've watched with a kind of wary eye how gaming has progressed. I was there at the beginning with Pong in the arcade, and a lot of my great childhood memories were around a 'Tempest' machine.

- Trent Reznor

I write most of my songs when I'm in a bad mood.

- Trent Reznor

Live interaction with a crowd is a cathartic, spiritual kind of exchange, and it's intensified at a festival.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

I would love to be looked at some day - and I'm not ever saying I'm at this level - but I'd love to be mentioned in the same breath as a Bowie or an Eno. Those are the people that I admire artistically, their career trajectory, the integrity throughout their career, the bravery of their career.

- Trent Reznor

The idea of politics is just so uninteresting to me - I've never paid much attention to it. I don't believe things can really change. It doesn't matter who's president. Nothing really gets resolved. I don't know. I guess that's not the right attitude to take.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

When I first played 'Wolfenstein 3D,' it blew my mind. It had a big impact on me.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

Jumping through any hoop or taking advantage of any desperate situation that comes up just to sell a product is harmful. It is.

- Trent Reznor

When I return to the writing process after being away from it for a while, the first part of it always is being honest with myself: What am I into right now? Is it rock bands and guitars, is it noise, is it dance beats and electronics? Is it space, is it clutter?

- Trent Reznor

When David Fincher called me up a few years ago and said, 'Hey, I'd like you to score this film 'The Social Network,' I said, 'I'm flattered, but I really don't have any real experience scoring films, and I'd rather not screw it up on a high-profile project. And I like you and I don't want to compromise our friendship.'

- Trent Reznor

iTunes kind of feels like Sam Goody to me. I don't feel cool when I go there. I'm tired of seeing John Mayer's face pop up.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

It's one thing to sit back and say, 'Hey let's play a club, that will be great,' but then you get there and say, 'Hey wait, this is the dressing room? Where's my dressing room?'

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

My life has been many examples of shortsighted goals that I thought would fix things. You know, 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 be on stage in front of people I'd never seen before and be validated by them.

- Trent Reznor

I've attended many concerts where I felt let down and I was wishing it would be something else. Not that it's their duty to please me, but at the same time, I think a lot about what it's like through the eyes of the consumer, the fan. I want not to pander to the audience, but to be aware of them.

- Trent Reznor

I doubt I'll ever pay someone to do a remix again, because there's some amazing stuff just coming out of bedrooms.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

The dynamic of a relationship changes when one person gets sober.

- Trent Reznor

There's always been an element of 'right time, right place' to Nine Inch Nails. 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.'

- Trent Reznor

I'll be honest, watching the music industry collapse has been demoralizing and disheartening at times.

- Trent Reznor

I was never a Lime Wire guy because it's too much hassle to find the song.

- Trent Reznor

I do remember my first purchase: the Partridge Family's 'Greatest Hits.' I got it for $3.99 at a failed chain of pre-Wal-Mart-type stores called Jamesway. God, I'm old.

- Trent Reznor

When I sit down to make a set list I usually think, 'We'll build it up here, take it down here, go into a quiet section here, explode here,' in a way that there's a flow and it doesn't feel like shuffle on an iPod.

- Trent Reznor

Schoolwork came easy to me. I learned to play piano effortlessly. I was coasting.

- Trent Reznor

I do actually believe in love. I can't say that I'm 100 percent successful in that department, but I think it's one of the few worthwhile human experiences. It's cooler than anything I can think of right now.

- Trent Reznor

Anyone who's an executive at a record label does not understand what the Internet is, how it works, how people use it, how fans and consumers interact - no idea. I'm surprised they know how to use e-mail.

- Trent Reznor

Nine Inch Nails is like building an army to go conquer. We build it, then we play, and we have to play so much to validate building it, financially. It leads to getting burn-out because a tour that would be fun if it lasted three weeks has to last 15 weeks.

- Trent Reznor

What I have appreciated about the 'Call of Duty' games is the scale of production. It's not an indie game. It's not trying to be an indie game. But I've genuinely been pretty consistently blown away by, wow, what an effort has gone into this.

- Trent Reznor

The music I always liked as a kid was stuff I could bum out to and realize, 'Hey, someone else feels that way, too.' So if someone can do that with my music, it's mission accomplished.

- Trent Reznor

You're standing onstage in a sold-out arena with people singing your music, and you feel like the loneliest person in the world. Because here's a party that, essentially, it's for you. And you still somehow feel like you don't belong there. Those people all have their lives and go back home.

- Trent Reznor

In 2010, aside from that niche of music that I have no interest in - Black Eyed Peas territory, disposable pop stuff - there's almost an incentive to go back to making music as adventurous and groundbreaking as you can, because nobody gets a big hit anymore.

- Trent Reznor

Spotify - I met those guys before they launched in America and was wildly excited about the idea. 'Wow, this is all the music in the world, for a flat fee.'

- Trent Reznor

I was excited by the process of Pandora, which I still think is a decent product. Not as great in actuality as it sounds. After the first hour, its weaknesses start to show up.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

What I was concerned about when I wrote the 'Downward Spiral' record was being a self-centred destructive force. The point was tearing down everything in a search for something else.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

I'm sure there is a group of people that assume Nine Inch Nails is just noise and chaos - or whatever it might be dismissed as, and sometimes is.

- Trent Reznor

I thought I'd reached the bottom a few times, but then I'd realise there was another 30 floors of despair below that.

- Trent Reznor

It's not like I ride a broom into interviews. I don't hang upside down with a cape on.

- Trent Reznor

Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is, 'Oh, I'm on stage playing a song,' because you're daydreaming about something else, you're on autopilot. You have to fight that.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

I think there's something strangely musical about noise.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

Any time I sit down and write music, the first part of that is always centering myself and thinking about who I currently am.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

Being a rock & roll star has become as legitimate a career option as being an astronaut or a policeman or a fireman.

- Trent Reznor

My input for the first 16, 17 years of my life was AM radio, FM radio - pretty mainstream stuff. Rolling Stone was probably as edgy as it got.

- Trent Reznor

Frankly, I have always dreaded writing - there always seemed to be pain involved, unpleasant self-examination and a lot of fear.

- Trent Reznor

After coming from a major label, I realized the entire business has been decimated, and you can't look to labels to try to figure it out because they don't even use the technology, and they're oblivious to how people consume music these days.

- Trent Reznor

Now U2's not my favorite band, but I do respect them, and in the same way I respect Bowie: They change without fear of change.

- Trent Reznor

I believe sometimes you have a choice in what inspiration you choose to follow and other times you really don't.

- Trent Reznor

When fame presented itself to me, I was not at a point in my life where I was equipped to deal with it.

- Trent Reznor

As long as it feels valid to me and feels sincere, I'll do what I do under the moniker of Nine Inch Nails if it's appropriate. I would hate to think I would ever be in a position where I'm faking it to get a paycheck.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

Musicians have always adopted Macs.

- Trent Reznor

I like the idea of subversively communicating with people... so that you make people see things in different ways.

- Trent Reznor

When Twitter made its way to my radar I looked at it as a curiosity, then started experimenting. I approached that as a place to be less formal and more off-the-cuff, honest and 'human.'

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

I found that when I was putting my own music out, with my Twitter feed as the pure marketing budget, I'm preaching to the choir.

- Trent Reznor

If you can use a search engine, you can find any piece of music that's been recorded for free. I'm not saying that's right, but it's a fact, and I'm surprised that more people don't accept or acknowledge that and try to adapt in some way.

- Trent Reznor

When I'm on stage, the songs that we've chosen to play from the back catalog are things that still resonate with me, and matter to me. And the songs that I couldn't be a part of, we don't play anymore.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

My experience with record labels throughout my career has generally fallen into wishing I could do things that they're not built to do, whether it be arguing about having a nicer package - because I do believe some people care about that - to trying to always bank on art-versus-the-easy-commerce route; there's always been headbutting involved.

- Trent Reznor

I'm very much aware of the dangers of becoming a cliche. Mr. Anger, someone who gets meaner, angrier on record.

- Trent Reznor

I realized that I was afraid to really, really try something, 100%, because I had never reached true failure.

- Trent Reznor

I'd never want to be Gene Simmons, an old man who puts on makeup to entertain kids, like a clown going to work.

- Trent Reznor

Fear has governed my life, if I think about it.

- Trent Reznor

I feel uncomfortable because I'm insecure about who I am.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

Making noise is easy; making stuff people understand is an easy thing to do.

- Trent Reznor

Balance is good, because one extreme or the other leads to misery, and I've spent a lot of my life at one of those extremes.

- Trent Reznor

I really try to put myself in uncomfortable situations. Complacency is my enemy.

- Trent Reznor

When I was growing up, rock & roll helped give me my sense of identity, but I had to search for it.

- Trent Reznor

People want to listen to a lot of music and do whatever they want with it. They don't want DRM, they don't want subscriptions. They don't want a player that only can do this but can't do that and you only have one copy. They don't want that. You know? I don't want that.

- Trent Reznor

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.

- Trent Reznor

I watch people, friends of mine, and see how they portray themselves online and I find interesting that it's kind of a hyper-real version of yourself, how you'd like to be seen, in a way.

- Trent Reznor

I spent a long time experimenting, saying, 'Here's a record that's free, or $5 if you want a nice version or $250 if you'd like a really nice coffee-table thing.' Everything felt like the right thing to do at the time and then six months later would feel tired. And I would feel tired. So that's one reason for returning to a major label.

- Trent Reznor

Bow down before the one you serve, you're going to get what you deserve.

- Trent Reznor

In Nine Inch Nails, I've been the guy calling the shots since inception. I'd gotten used to that.

- Trent Reznor

I can still make a living with touring. And maybe you buy a t-shirt. And I would rather 10 million people get my record and listen to it for free than 500,000 that I coerced to pay $15 for it, you know?

- Trent Reznor

If there used to be 100 people at a major working on a record, now there are 18, but they're the good ones. There's a lean, mean hunger.

- Trent Reznor

I often find myself listening to a record because a lot of people or magazines have told me it's good and I'm supposed to like it, and I try to stay in touch with what's happening and I'm also a fan of music. I find myself trying to like something that I really don't think is that great.

- Trent Reznor

For me, 'The Social Network' isn't about Facebook. It certainly isn't about how people use it. It's about a flawed character and his pursuit of that grand idea that defines him and validates his life and how far he'll go to get it, and the repercussions that come as a result of that - what he gives up in the process.

- Trent Reznor

Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me.

- Trent Reznor

MTV can't do less for me, let's put it that way. I'm fine without them.

- Trent Reznor

I miss how a record label can help spread the word that you have something out.

- Trent Reznor

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've become impossible, holding on to when everything seemed to matter more.

- Trent Reznor

I thought my goal in life was to be in a successful band, and I had got that, but I was as miserable as I had ever been, and I couldn't understand why that would be.

- Trent Reznor

Self-examination with a close-up mirror in an antiseptic environment is what Nine Inch Nails is based on.

- Trent Reznor

I've learned to recognize, a lot of it forced through the process of recovery, that I'm wired wrong in certain ways; the chemical balance of my brain is off in terms of depression a little bit.

- Trent Reznor

I tend to not listen to my own music when I'm not working on it. No real reason other than it's nice to get away from it.

- Trent Reznor

I think it's just an awkward time right now to be a musician.

- Trent Reznor

I think the thing I've always tried to do is - and I didn't plan it, it just started to come out that way - is try to make challenging music that flirts with accessibility.

- Trent Reznor

I love David Fincher and I think he's a genius.

- Trent Reznor

I think early on in my career, I was heavily inspired by bands like Throbbing Gristle and Test Dept, and films of David Lynch, for example, where the soundscape plays a very important role in the listening experience.

- Trent Reznor

My dad and I are best friends. He's pretty much responsible for the way I turned out. He would provide a little artistic inspiration here and there in the form of a guitar, stuff like that.

- Trent Reznor

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?'

- Trent Reznor

It probably wasn't until Nine Inch Nails played the first Lollapalooza that I actually went to a festival.

- Trent Reznor

If I go onstage, I want to give people everything they want and more. I'll wash their car for them on their way out.

- Trent Reznor

When I was growing up, the people who liked the Beatles, I didn't like, so I didn't pay attention to them.

- Trent Reznor

I like the idea of working in an album-sized chunk, you know, and I never looked at Nine Inch Nails as a project that would be a hit-driven, single-based kind of thing.

- Trent Reznor

Now that I have a thousand albums in my car all the time, I listen to more music. I was too lazy; I always had the same five discs in there. I'd never think to change it.

- Trent Reznor

The reality is that people think it's okay to steal music.

- Trent Reznor

I think it's easy to make impenetrable music that nobody can get, and you can hide behind that sometimes.

- Trent Reznor

My music, I hope, takes 100% of your concentration. I know how to do that.

- Trent Reznor

I was up above it. Now, I'm down in it.

- Trent Reznor

I don't have to save rock. I don't even like rock that much.

- Trent Reznor

When I was 25, people used to say to me that having kids would change you, and I'd roll my eyes.

- Trent Reznor

I realized when I was 23 that I had never really tried anything.

- Trent Reznor

I think the reason I was 23 before I ever wrote a song was that I was afraid of testing myself. What would I do if I discovered I didn't have anything to say?

- Trent Reznor

I don't have a family. I'd like to have one. I just haven't somehow gotten around to it yet.

- Trent Reznor

You know, if nobody knows who you are, nobody's going to buy your record.

- Trent Reznor

'Yeezus,' I really love it. I think the sound of it is cool.

- Trent Reznor

This isn't meant to last. This is for right now.

- Trent Reznor

Sometimes we pee on each other before we go on stage.

- Trent Reznor

Books are better than movies because you design the set the way you want it to look.

- Trent Reznor