Trent Reznor: “The music business sucks”

Trent Reznor And Atticus Rossthe two Nine Inch Nailsfirst dedicated themselves to composing film soundtracks in 2010, making their debut in the role with the music for David Fincher’s “The Social Network”. Since then, they have composed the music for a number of popular films, including Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers,” which achieved great success earlier this year.

Reznor has continued his career as an independent artist since Nine Inch Nails split from Interscope Records following the release of 2007’s “Year Zero,” releasing all subsequent albums on his Null Corporation label since then, excluding ‘EP “Add Violence” from 2017 and “Bad Witch” from 2018 released with Capitol.

In a new interview given to IndieWire (site specializing in cinema, film and TV), Reznor declared that the transition of him and Ross (his “partner” in NIN) to soundtracks is partly due to the fact that “the culture of the music world sucks.”

The two illustrated the difference between working on Nine Inch Nails’ music – which involves demands from the industry, regardless of whether they are independent or not – and working on film soundtracks. They say the latter is a much more “collaborative” experience.

“What we look for in film is a collaborative experience with interesting people,” Reznor said. “We didn’t get that from the music business, by our own choice.”

Reznor went on to say that he and Ross like to “work in service of something, where we don’t have control of the entire project and we work intimately with a director or a small team to try to help realize a collective vision, solving that puzzle without the burden of “how will it be marketed?” and all that.

Reznor then struck a blow to the music world. “Yes. The culture of the music business sucks. That’s another story, but what technology has done to disrupt the music business in terms of not only how people listen to music, but also the value they place on it is shocking,” he added.

Reznor later clarified that his position does not come from being an “old man”, but rather a lifelong lover of music. He added: “Music now seems largely relegated to something that happens in the background or while you’re doing something else. It’s a long, bitter story.”

Although it’s been more than four years since the band released “Ghosts V: Together” and “Ghosts VI: Locusts” in March 2020, Reznor said earlier this year that he and Ross plan to , despite the results achieved in the field, to move away from soundtracks for a while to make another Nine Inch Nails album.

In an April interview with the website Far Out, the singer also said that the amount of work on the soundtracks “has managed to make Nine Inch Nails feel a lot more exciting than it has in the last few years. I had let that atrophied a little in my mind for a variety of reasons,” he said.

However, during his appearance on Rick Rubin’s Broken Record podcast the previous year, he stated that he had no desire to return to tour. “I don’t want to be away from my kids,” she revealed.