Trent Reznor...Sober...but still sick as hell

Trent Reznor's Upward SpiralHeather AdlerPublished: Wednesday, February 07, 2007Nine Inch Nails is nominated for best hard rock performance at the 2007 Grammy Awards

Trent Reznor, the dark prince with a crown of shit who brought industrial anthems into the mainstream, didn't just write about depression. He screamed. He lived it. He injected it into his veins, carved it into his chest and bled it all over the stage to the adulation of troubled teens and the horror of concerned suburban parents everywhere. But that's all over now.

"I hated everything. I hated everyone. I hated everything about myself. I hated music. I didn't care about anything," says Mr. Self Deconstruct himself, the blacker-than-black Reznor. "That's a bleak place to wind up at, but things couldn't be further away from that now."

Things certainly have changed for the now 40-year-old electronic marvel. During the six-year hiatus between The Fragile and Nine Inch Nail's latest release - the blisteringly dark, stripped down yet ferocious With Teeth - Reznor, for the first time, looked the dark demons he'd been dancing with in his music right in the eye. He battled through his drug and alcohol addictions and the crippling depression that haunted him for so long.

"I was certainly depressed and I was in the thralls of withdrawal for about a year after the Fragile tour," he says in a surprisingly casual tone. "Through my actions, I was certainly behaving in an irresponsible enough way that I was, in a cowardly way, trying to end it."

Although it might be hard to believe, the man behind the NIN machinery was actually as bad off as his image purported. Despite selling millions of records, travelling the world, winning dozens of awards and becoming an idol for the disenchanted, Reznor says he's very shy, has trouble dealing with people and is often consumed with the fear of failure. Chemical relief was his way of coping.

"I said I couldn't be creative without (drugs)," he concedes. "Really, I was afraid to give up drugs. Once I did, once my brain started working again, it dawned on me that I didn't turn to drugs for creativity - I just tried to make myself feel not so terrible about myself. That's why I did it. In the end, the drugs were crippling. They killed any bit of art that I had in me."

Today, Reznor is sober, his pale skin has an L.A. glow, his long black hair is shaved short and, while he might not exactly be a shiny, happy person, he says he's at least "a lot more comfortable" with who he is. But that doesn't mean the fan base that fed off his shadow for more than a decade is. After all, when you're the poster boy for bleakness, you attract a certain kind of disturbed - and they have a funny way of showing their devotion.

"My favourite (item a fan's given me) was a letter written in blood," he says. "It started off saying, 'We're your biggest fans. We'd do anything for you. In fact, we're writing this in our own blood.' I don't know what it says after that because I haven't finished the letter. I left it sitting out while we were recording and it was funny watching people read it. They would always get to that line and then drop it."

Even though he's managed to pull himself back from the depths of despair, Reznor says he still doesn't mind being the patron saint for music lovers with a promiscuous appetite for self-destruction. In fact, he hopes he can help them find the light, too.

"I look out and I see people that must, in some fashion, relate to something I've said and what I've said came from my heart and from my guts," he says. "It made me feel good as a fan when I was growing up - be it through books, music or movies I related to - that I could find something that felt like something I wish I could have written if I could express myself that eloquently. Those things made me feel less alone, less detached and less desperate. I see that in a lot of these people and I think that's a cool thing. I'm not necessarily saying please jump over my fence and hang out in my backyard waiting for me to come home, but I am saying that it's flattering to feel you've touched somebody in some way. ... I've always wanted to make something that matters."

Reznor's Lighter Side

Is it really possible to be as bleak and black as Trent Reznor's image seems to paint him? We tried to find out.

Why don't you show other sides of yourself, ones that aren't so dark? You must have a lighter side.

I try to, as much as possible, keep my life private because I think it's demystifying and it goes against what I'm really trying to do, which is make music that matters. I want to make something important, that you can read into, that you can make your own. Trent Reznor the guy does whatever he does in normal life - whatever normal is - but I think there should be mystique in music and in art. I'm not saying that because I'm hiding something, but I think with TV and the Internet it's easy to overexpose. I don't want to give too much away. It's interesting to keep things precious.

How do you want to be remembered?

I don't know. For me, I think it's unhealthy to think too much about legacy. I have some peers who I think are very concerned about that. When the chapter is finished on this era, they don't want to be a footnote - they want to be a paragraph or a chapter title. It really depends on how things go. If Kurt Cobain hadn't killed himself, he would have most likely put out a mediocre record by now and wouldn't be the icon that he is.

Tell me something warm and fuzzy about yourself.

Well, if I told you, then it wouldn't be a surprise.

Please? Maybe you have a big pair of fluffy slippers or something ...

No.


Listen to the words of his last two albums....wow