@NINHOTLINE

Radio One Rock Show hosted by Trent Reznor.

By Trent Reznor for Radio One Rock Show on April 5, 2005

LCD Soundsystem - Movement
Primal Scream - Accelerator

Hey this is Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, I'm filling in for Mike D on the Radio One rock show. I've been asked to come on and play some music that I uh like, or I uh think might be interesting to listen to. I've selected a few tracks, um - first off you heard LCD Soundsystem, one of my favorite groups. They've put out the best record so far this year, that track is called "Movement" uhhhh and right after that you heard a favorite of mine, Primal Scream with "Accelerator", Kevin Shields mix,that record "Exterminator" came out when we were on the Fragility tour in 2000 and was a BUS favorite and always got us amped up to play a show.

I brought a few things with me: ummm, primarily I just kinda looked at my iPod and saw what the top played tracks were, 'cos I figured I would um let you look into what, into my head and see what I'm interested in or inspired by these days. Next up is uh... Saul Williams, I became aware of him a few months ago on his last self-titled album "Saul Williams", I think he's one of the most inspiring voices in American hip hop right now, in his records, and I think he breathes life into a pretty dead genre right now, in my opinion. This is his track,"List of Demands"...

Saul Williams - List of Demands
TV on the Radio - Dreams

I'm Trent Reznor filling in for Mike D on the Radio One rock show. That was TV on the Radio with a cool track called "Dreams". TV on the Radio is one of those bands that just happen to appear, a bit ago, that is breathing some new hope into some new bands coming out. It's pretty inspiring to hear their record, you should check it out.

Um, now would be a good time to say a thank you to everybody, that we just played, Nine Inch Nails my band, just played (Heresy plays in the background) a couple of shows at the Astoria, we'd been in hibernation for several years and I just wanted to say thanks to those people that came out and saw the show. I think it went really well, I got a new band together this time and we had played three shows in the States as kind of a warm up and then came over here and these were the first kind of real shows, and um, it felt really good to see people excited and realise that people are still are interested in what I'm up to and I want to just say thanks for that.

I also have a number of questions that people have sent in, emailed in... first off,"do you find that success has changed your reasons for writing music, as in when you were writing Pretty Hate Machine you had the hunger for open ears, do you still f- do you think there is a worry of just expecting them to still be open once you've reached a certain point?" From Adam Walsh.

It's an interesting question - I think you what you're asking is what I've found in my own life was, y'know, I wrote Pretty Hate Machine with no real true aspiration of success, it was just kinda something I had to do, I wanted to do, and I had these feelings I wanted to get out of my head and turn them into music, and I did the best job I could do and tried to make the best record I could but I didn't really expect it to have any real degree of success, y'know I thought I wanted that, but it wasn't designed to be a big hit record, and over time and touring and whatever, fate or luck, things started to happen and people started to buy the record and get it and understand it... and that makes it, y'know the next time you go to write an album it's a different set of perimeters you have to deal with, y'know because you were rewarded for your last record and sometimes you start to second guess y'know 'what was it that people liked about the other thing' and you have to consider that, or you do end up considering it even though you shouldn't, when it comes time to write another one, and um, if that's what you mean, that's something I've had to consciously contain to try and make the writing process as true as it can be, from the heart, and not as a reaction to what other people think or, what might be happening in the outside musical world as a reaction against that, so... over time though, when real fame hit, the Downward Spiral era and then it moved beyond that, I reached a point where it... nothing really seemed to be very much fun and I had forgotten that I loved music and the process of getting sick of the career aspect of it and hassle of it and um, before I started writing this new album, With Teeth, I really took some time to get my life in order, and re-address my priorities and in that time period I also re-discovered that, the reason that I got into this in the first place, because I really love music, and I've always felt like I've had a gift and I've always known what I wanted to do - which is play and write and record and listen and love music, and somehow I'd forgotten that in the course of a "career" and it becoming a job and growing up and becoming crazy and everything else.

Um, so this is a rambling answer to your question, but I do feel right now like I'm more in touch with that love of music and I'm more open than I have been in... as far back as I can remember.

Couple of quick questions: "Have you ever suffered from stage fright?", Joseph in Manchester. Yes, is the answer to that, regularly. Pretty much every time we go on, I feel a bit... uneasy... before the show. As soon as I walk on stage, it's fine. Usually.

Next up, "with band members coming and going, does it ever get frustrating on tour? Do you ever think back to the early years and miss some of the people from those tours? It can get ummmm... I mean, this time around I've pretty much got a new band. Jerome Dillon is still playing drums, but I've got Jeordie White as my bass player, Aaron North guitar, Allessandro Cortini on keyboards, and y'know, teaching people the same songs can get to be a bit old at times, and I do miss it, and I think about back to the first tour that went on with Richard Patrick playing guitar and Chris Vrenna on drums and the thought of us getting into a van, and it's like, figuring how to sleep on the floor of a van and spending an entire year in that kind of condition and the romantic notion of doing that, that was probably the best time I ever had in my life, it really felt like we were on a mission and there was camaraderie, and it was a bunch of kids from Cleveland who didn't know what the world was like, going out and trying to change the world through music. And y'know, I think back to that and it was good times, I miss people through the years, but I do think that the band I have now is the best incarnation it can be, that it can be for now and the most pertinent and relevant that it can be right now.

So we'll come back to more um, thrilling questions and startling revelations, but uh, up next, a kind of down set, this is from Cat Power, the track is He War. This is a song that when I first heard it, I really didn't understand it, I didn't really GET what it was about, and it didn't really seem to make sense to me. But I found after I got the album that I would keep listening to it and it's grown to be a favorite track of mine.

Cat Power - He War
Wilco - Radio Cure

Hi this is (The Frail plays) Trent Reznor on the Radio One rock show,that was the track "Radio Cure" from Wilco, off the "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" record, a record that's grown to be one of my favorites as well. I never really knew that much about Wilco, a lot of people told me that record was interesting, and um, really I think one of the best records I've heard in a long time. Their newest album I didn't, still don't, I haven't penetrated into it yet, but that one I think is great.

Uh, we're gonna answer a couple of email questions, Ben Lagos asks: "In another reality, what would you have done with your life?". Um, I would be a fireman.

Jordan Brown says: "was there ever a point in time when you considered releasing With Teeth as Trent Reznor and not Nine Inch Nails?" Uh, not really no, I mean I like kind of hiding behind the name Nine Inch Nails, and the... what it represents, y'know? And when I would consider doing something outside that, would be if it was something not really under the umbrella of what I would consider appropriate for Nine Inch Nails.

Finally, "what's the most important piece of advice you could give to someone wanting to get into the music industry?" That's a tough question, but I would say... primarily, have an idea, the best you can, of what it is that you want to accomplish and what you see yourself as. Have a sense of what your own identity is, and what, clear as you can be, about what it is you want to convey or express, before the people that could um, turn you into something else, get involved. And secondly, and I'm speaking on this one from very clear and fresh experience, READ THE CONTRACT, CLEARLY, HIRE A LAWYER, DON'T SIGN IMMEDIATELY.

With Nine Inch Nails, in my own experience, when I first started writing music and I started to take the identity of Nine Inch Nails and I decided it might be time to try and get a record contract, I didn't shoot for the highest and biggest and greatest thing - I wanted something... at first I was just looking to get a deal to put a 12 inch out and get a little bit of money because I knew my identity wasn't quite formulated with, I hadn't quite formulated what I had to say, I was still in flux, I was still experimenting in the studio, and I started by sending demo tapes to small European labels like Sebroza, Mute would be the high end of that level; there wasn't anything in America that was doing anything that I thought was that interesting, so we just went to small indie European things. And, when we started getting offers back of y'know, "we'll give you five hundred pounds to do a 12 inch" it was like "OK, that's all I'm really looking for right now" - now my end goal in life wasn't to be at that level but I knew that I wasn't sure who I was yet, I knew that I was afraid if a big label came in, and handed me a pair of pants and said "this is what you should be wearing, and this is what your song should sound like, and here's the producer" I wasn't sure enough about my identity that I would have felt I could have fought that fought... that fight. I probably would have fought that fight if it had presented itself, but it didn't. And I wound up on a kind of small label in the states that ended up being worse than a lot of the majors - and it didn't have any money on top of it so the worst of all situations. BUT, it allowed me that few months of fighting to argue for who I wanted to have as my producer and what I thought was the right um... identity for my band, and when I finished my record I turned it in and the label told me it was, quote, an "abortion", that "you'll never sell 20,000 copies of it" ...y'know, and as a 23 year old kid that didn't, y'know I hadn't made a record before I didn't really KNOW, I thought "maybe, maybe they're right, they're a record company and I'm just a punk". But after thinking about it for a few days, it was like "you know what, this IS right and what I did IS right and I know it's right, and then I just screwed my career up because that's the record I need to make" and that's the record that came out and that's the record that started the career. So. Also taught me that those people don't really know, have any idea what they're talking about, and you have to believe in yourself first and foremost, because you're swimming with sharks out there, y'know, and you need to have some ideals and firmly believe you have something you need to say and stick up for yourself.

Nine Inch Nails is my band and we have a new record coming out called "With Teeth" at the beginning of May, the first single from that record is "The Hand That Feeds" and here it is...

NIN - The Hand That Feeds
Brainiac - Fresh New Eyes

Just heard a band called "Brainiac" with their track "Fresh New Eyes"; it's several years old, Brainiac's a band that's been really inspiring to me from a sonic standpoint. They're not around any more, unfortunately the lead singer died in a car accident right on the eve of getting signed to a big record label in the States. That's from their last EP, "Electroshock for President", a very cool sounding record and worth checking out. Before that was my latest single, "The Hand That Feeds". And, um, mentioning a band like Brainiac, often in the studio working on recording the record and producing it, this latest record I did with Alan Moulder and also my right hand man Atticus Ross, as a programmer, a lot of times we use bands as points of reference when we're trying to come up with the ways things would sound.

Brainiac, the reason I threw that in here, was a band that, on this particular record, the sound would be something we'd reference, because it sounded very low tech electronic garagey sounding, and I don't mean "garage" in the club sense, I mean "garage" as in where the car is and the band practices. Y'know, it sounds like... it has an interesting low tech sound to it that we, that was inspiring, y'know it also reminds me of um, kind of early Devo had the same kind of thing where it sounded like science fiction almost, but not in a corny way, just in a, in a garage with kit electronics, y'know, even thinking about that visually would lead us into certain paths of production ideas.

So on the new album With Teeth, a lot of times there are several things that happen at once. The songwriting on this record was different than the last couple of albums because I really wrote things with demos in mind, I started with vocals and lyrics, and really just a piano and drum machine and record into a computer, as opposed to on The Fragile and The Downward Spiral where I would record... where I would WRITE in the studio. Writing in the studio started to meld writing, production, arranging and sound design all into the same process. So while I'm working on writing the song, I'm also designing the soundscape, and at the end of the day, or at the end of the week, or whenever it is, the end result is a finished track, not so much demo, but that is the track.

Just to break it up, this time around I tried to split those into different processes, so when I'm working on writing, I'm only concerned about melody, lyrics, chord changes; and then I revisit the best of the best, and then flesh them out with arrangements and um, uh, um, production in general. The other thing that would happen kind of concurrently, is we would, Atticus and I would work on different musical experiments that would follow different rules that we would make up. Y'know and that's where I said Brainiac comes into play. That would be a point of reference, much like early Public Image, or Atari Teenage Riot or Killing Joke, early Killing Joke, kind of loop based music. We'd come up with different things and then meld them together, and try working on stuff with points of reference. Then we'd take the finished song, or the song that's demo'd that we liked, and start to arrange them incorporating some of the new styles and tricks and kind of experiments that we've done from the sonic side of things, IF that makes any sense.

With that said, I'll lead into another band that's been a huge influence to me, one of my favorite bands, My Bloody Valentine, that Alan Moulder has also worked with. This is the track "Lose My Breath", which every time I hear this, takes me very distinctly to a specific place where I remember hearing it for the first time, which happens to be in New York City in the winter. I seem to remember I was spending a lot of time in New York City because I'd just got signed, it was my first real time being in the city, y'know, we were doing some work up there. And that track, that track in particular, but that whole album just kinda... I hadn't HEARD anything like that before, it felt like um, interesting pop songs but something was amiss, this kind of whirlpool of swirling sound, and it just seems, the thing with music in my brain, and I'm sure a lot of others, when I hear a lot of songs, I, it's a very very visual reference that comes up and immediately I'm taken back to where that's the soundtrack to. And it's not just seeing a place, but it's remembering the way it feels and the emotions involved, and the people around me and it's all caught up in melancholy, and that song in particular has a real... when I was looking through my playlist trying to think of songs to play, as soon as I saw that, I thought OK, that, for me there's a lot of power involved there. I think that's just one of the beautiful things about music, the way that it can affect you in a real... gutteral, instinctual, at the core level.

My Bloody Valentine - Lose My Breath
Wire - Being Watched

Hi, this is Trent Reznor filling in for Mike D on the Radio One rock show. I've been asked to play some songs I like, for you, and you just heard Wire, a band that's been around forever but continues to put out great sounding, interesting, challenging music. That's off their record "Send" and that song is being - was called "Being Watched". Uh, another record that I remember that came out and we happen to reference a lot in the studio, is just something that sounded really... cool, y'know? And in a world of sound-alike records, to hear some of the most exciting things coming out of some guys that have been around, believe it or not, longer than I have. Very interesting... thing. I should mention in the next half hour we're gonna give away - two signed back catalogues of Nine Inch Nails material, so keep listening for a question, that if you answer right you will win... that.

Speaking of questions here are a few that have come in my direction from the internet. Let's see here: "What is the story with Nashville Tennessee? Are you banned from playing in that state? What really happened?", Chris Span. Well, y'know, I read that question, and I have no recollection of being banned from Nashville, Tennessee, but now that I think about it, I do remember something... happened. I'm imagining what that was involved a lot of alcohol and a smashed dressing room, but I'm not quite sure because I don't really remembered if it happened or not, so, we'll see. I didn't see any Kentucky dates on the upcoming tour, so there may be some truth to that.

Next up: "George Bernard-Shaw once said 'The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.' Which type of individual would you consider yourself, and why?" Well. I suppose up into a point in my life I would have definitely thought I was the unreasonable man, but I have learnt that there is strength in being the reasonable man as well, and sometimes going with the flow isn't defeat as much as is the smart move. And we'll leave that cryptic answer at that for you to read into that what you will.

One more: "I've read that you have a severe allergy to turkey-ham, is this true?" (smirks) I'm not making it up, it does say that here. No, it's not true. I don't mean to disappoint you, I have many allergies, but none of them are... dealing with food.

And finally: "What is your worst injury from live performance?" Um. My worst PHYSICAL injury from live performance would probably be - it always happens when you're being a smart ass on stage and, two come to mind. One was in Belgium, and I can remember the crowd sucked and I was pissed off about it and I was throwing a tantrum on-stage. And I turned around and threw a mic stand at the drum kit, and the base of the mic stand happened to catch the cymbal, and when I turned around the cymbal falls off and hits me 'pss' right on the top of the head, and I thought I'd cut my head open. And it hurt really bad. So I had to try to look cool, and I turned around and tried to feel if blood was coming out, and it wasn't. But it, just uh, that was a bad one. And the other one was uhm, also similar circumstances, where, powered with god knows what and probably a lot of tequila, I threw a mic stand like a javelin, an amazing amount of distance across the stage, happened to hit the kick drum right in the center of drum head, and bounced right back at me, and stabbed me in the upper thigh and I still have a scar to this day from that (laugh). So watch yourself on stage.

Coming up! This next hour, some things that are inspiring to me, or things I'm listening to currently, and it ranges from some classic, older material to some interesting new stuff. You'll see a whole variety of things ahead of you, we'll leave it as a surprise, but it's things that have influenced me and uh, or are currently my favorites. So, looking at tracks coming up here that I can play for you, um, what a great opportunity to play my own music (he and someone else in the background laugh). This is another track I did for a movie soundtrack, but it was a much different circumstance than "The Perfect Drug". This was for the Oliver Stone movie "Natural Born Killers" and Oliver had got in touch with me about working on the soundtrack for this film that he was doing that was pretty um... experimental in nature. And I'd always liked his films and when I saw the rough cut of "Natural Born Killers" I was hooked, because I really thought he was doing an interesting thing, and the use of music as a sound collage was very exciting to me. And he was looking for a couple of original pieces, and um, this was another one of the same situations I described, where you have a week, write a track, but it turned out, I think, pretty cool. Kinda lesser known track of our, and also one we play live now that I think is coming into it's own. This is the track "Burn" from Nine Inch Nails.

NIN - Burn
LCD Soundsystem - Losing my Edge

Hi, Trent Reznor here, that was another track off the LCD Soundsystem record, that was "Losing my Edge"; maybe I'm getting lazy and I played two songs off the same record but I really think that's a good record and worth checking out. That's the DFA production team at work, and I just find their stuff exciting, find it... it seems fresh, and uh, makes me want to unpack the drum machine and get busy. Coming up next, got a track by one of my favorite bands, the Jesus and Mary Chain. We had the, our first tour we ever did as Nine Inch Nails, we opened for Jesus and Mary Chain, and that was on their "Automatic" record. And I remember seeing them on the US PsychoCandy tour, and that was the one that was guaranteed to last nine minutes but might go as long as fifteen (laugh) and, they came to the, this place called the Fantasy nightclub in Cleveland, where a VERY early incarnation of Nine Inch Nails were rehearsing. And, uh, it may not have been Nine Inch Nails, but it was some band I was in that was rehearsing in the Fantasy nightclub and they were playing in the theatre downstairs and there was this big dilemma because the drummer lost one of his sticks, and he only had two, and they weren't going on unless they could find another one. So, luckily, my band had one, the show went on... nine glorious minutes, the show was over. But, it always struck me that first record - "Psychocandy" - was, is still a big influence, is one of the most interesting sounding and design records, where, behind an impenetrable wall of noise is some actually really good, catchy songs. And to see them evolve into what they turned into and uh, it was a cool thing. And when we toured with them, I don't think they even grunted a word at us, but it was still cool to be around them. This track, "Darklands", off their, I believe, second record, before the record that we toured with. But something, when I hear now, really takes me back to that kinda time, and that really well written song, wrapped up in melancholy. S'just a great track, this is Jesus and Mary Chain.

Jesus and Mary Chain - Darklands
Soft Cell - Seedy Films

Hi this is Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails on the Radio One Rock Show. That was... the one and only Soft Cell with their track "Seedy Films" off their... I believe... first album "Non Stop Erotic Cabaret". Something that uh, always just seemed like a cool sounding record to me, I've always thought Marc Almond is a genius, and um, Soft Cell, I thought... I mean, they've been quite a big influence to me: just the tone, the way he could describe a situation that seemed desperate but vulnerable, and incredibly... seedy. He's unmatched. I really like the records towards the end of the band's lifespan, like um, "The Art of Falling Apart", that was a great sound of a band going crazy, kind of sound to me, and I've always thought Marc was a great guy, and it was sad to hear about his accident a while ago and I wish him the best.

We have a contest! If you can answer this question, you can win two back catalogues of Nine Inch Nails material signed by me. They've asked me to come up with some sort of question, that uh, I've come up with one I think that shouldn't be that hard, see what you think. Can you name the band that in 1990 (could have been 91, I think it was 90) who invited us to play opening for them. I'll give you a hint: they were a real real big rock band. Very big. Their lead singer is currently a bloated recluse with sewn on dreads. (laughs) See if you can come up with the name of the band - you should email your uh, the answer to rock.show@bbc.co.uk and if you get the right answer and are chosen, two of you will get signed back catalogues of Nine Inch Nails material.

Good luck on that one.

Couple of questions that have been emailed in: one, "Is hatred a great fuel for your creativity?" Um. Hatred has been a great fuel, as anger is an energy, so they say. For me, I found that uh, in a therapeutic, and kind of cathartic way if I could take um things that were really bothering me, or maybe I could punch a wall, or I could write a poem. And one of them felt a lot better to end, and, to be able to take some real negative energy and turn it into something that had a beauty to it, was a lucky accident that I had found out. And then, the next stage of that was, being on tour in places I had never been and singing these angry words out and seeing people yelling them back at me where it means something different to them but something just as important... was I'd really felt I might had found my niche in life, or my purpose, at least what I thought back then. Yeh, it's been a fuel - I think there's other fuels now, as I've learned, as I've gone on. But that was probably was the most important... hatred and anger and sadness. It was definitely the main impetus, at the beginning of my song writing, and still is to some degree but there are other things at this point now as well.

Next up! Bobby Day is asking: "What was your biggest goal in making 'With Teeth'?" Um. Good question. I mean, honestly, my biggest goal really was um, to try to make the best record I could, y;know, and I'd um... the first record I've worked on completely sober, y'know a new lifestyle and head- mind-space and I'd come from a very very bad bad terrible desperate at-death's-doorstep place. And the reason the record took a while to make, was I wanted to take some time to feel healthy, to feel sane, to feel OK in my own skin, before I started the challenge of trying to make a record, or to see if I could even write, or to see if I had anything to say. And when I finally got around to doing it, that's was pretty scary because I didn't really know what was going to come out, or what was going to happen... if ANYTHING was going to happen. And much to my pleasant surprise, when I finally got around to disciplined writing, and said "I have the courage now and I'm ready to face whatever comes of this", I had a million ideas, and things kept on flowing out of me, and it was the easiest process I've ever had writing an album or making a record. So my goal really, has been achieved, I think I've made a great record, and it would be nice if it's accepted by people, and would be nice if it's successful, or if people like it. But those are things I can't really control, that's up to others. The part I can control, and that part that takes the most effort, is what I've done, and I've feel I've succeeded at that .And that's my answer to that!

I have a few more songs to play here, before we're done. Next up is a band called Pere Ubu, who, I lived in Cleveland for a while (that's where Nine Inch Nails kind of came from). And Pere Ubu were the local legends of the... like this important band that Talking Heads have cited as a major influence, and a host of others. But I remember at the time, their music, I couldn't understand it: it was a weird fat guy with a warbly voice and... it was abstract enough that at the time I didn't get... I didn't GET it. And oddly enough in the last few years, I've really rediscovered them, and it sound fresh and exciting, and I'm going to play you a track called 'Final Solution' which has been covered by everyone, but these are the guys that wrote it, and the track sounds surprisingly heavy for being as old as it is, and interesting, so I thought I'd include it here. This is Pere Ubu with 'The Final Solution'.

Pere Ubu - Final Solution
The Rapture - House of Jealous Lovers

Hi, this is this is Trent Reznor here from Nine Inch Nails, you just heard The Rapture with "House of Jealous Lovers" another track that um, was one of those ones that turned my head when I heard it. Also a DFA production, but I've rambled on enough about them and how great they are... so... wanna remind you there's a big competition going on, if you uh remember the question, and you send in your email, two of you can win back catalogues signed of Nine Inch Nails. The question was, one of our big appearances, Nine Inch Nails, big appearances in the UK, was with the invite from a gigantically successful invited us to open and be humiliated in front of them. The question is, and this was in 1990 0r 91 I can't really remember, the question was, what was that big rock band called. If you know the answer to that question, send your email into rock.show@bbc.co.uk, and you can be one of two people to win a signed back catalogue of Nine Inch Nails.

More of the endless email questions that have come in. Some important stuff like "are you going to be wearing those killer shorts this tour?" Uhm. I'm not exactly sure what pair you're talking about, but I doubt it. "Trent, when are you going on tour again? You're the introvert guy, intimate studio session guy - doesn't it bore you?" We're on tour right now, and we will be on tour for the next year pretty much, supporting the new record that's coming out and... um, does it bore me. It doesn't bore me, I mean it used to be, it used to be, once, I remember from the Pretty Hate Machine tour, for example, it was so much fun to be on tour, that the thought of going back to a dark studio seemed terrible - y'know, and I just wanted to stay on tour forever. And, that's not the feelings I have now, and truth be told, work and the studio are work while writing is true, difficult, cerebral work that is a much harder experience and a much more rewarding experience in the long run. Playing live, although I enjoy it, and I do enjoy it; at the end of a lengthy tour can get to be basically executing a plan over and over again. But that doesn't mean that it's not exciting to do that, but, it's more from the physical and more from the uh...it's less... it requires less brainpower. And it um. I think in a perfect world, if tours were three months and you could do everywhere in the world and quickly move onto the next thing, it could probably be more rewarding as an artist all in all, but, physics and reality don't quite allow that at this point yet.

And finally: "Which piece of your own work are you least satisfied with in retrospect and why?" Uhm. Good question. Y'know I can listen back to even Pretty Hate Machine, which I have recently done and it's like visiting an old friend. It's not the record I would make now, and I know the guy that made it, but I'm not the same guy, and, on pretty much every level. But I don't hear anything and really just cringe, because... that was who I was then and that was, all of the records have been pretty accurate snapshots of who I was at the time. I can look back at The Fragile and see things that I love about it. I can look back and see things that I'm disappointed by with it, but I did the best job I could with the resources I had at the time. At the time that I did that record I was in trouble and um, I couldn't think as well as I'd like to, and I, I compensated, or overcompensated by the things I could do at that time.

The only thing I think I really don't like that much, is The Perfect Drug song. It was one of those things where you have a week, do a track for a movie, and the mindset you kind of adapt in that situation, or I did, was "Let's go in and experiment and see what happens, and if it's not - whatever comes out of it it's not the end of the world." And I think what came out of it, married with a bloated over-budget video... just feels like the most... the least thing that I would play to somebody if they said "play me, y'know, the top 100 songs you've written." That probably wouldn't be in the top 100. But uh, I'm not cringing about it, but it's not my favorite piece.

I've been playing, over the last hour and x amount of time, some music that happened to be at the top of my iPod playlist of things that I just end up listening to a lot. Some of it's old, some of it's new. What I'm about to play is particularly old, but particularly important. This is by the Talking Heads, off their "Remaining Light" album, still one of my all-time most inspirational records, produced by Brian Eno. I've studied this record, I've listened to this record probably twenty million times, just the way that it is poly-rhythmically put together has been... just blows my mind. One of my favorite records of all time, this is the track "Born Under Punches" by the Talking Heads.

Talking Heads - Born Under Punches
Saul Williams - African Student Movement
Autolux - Here Comes Everybody

Hi, this is Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails filling in for Mike D, who is, will be back next week. He's in Los Angeles, and oddly enough, I'm here. This is the Radio One Rock Show, um, I've been playing some music that I like and find interesting. What you just heard was a band out of LA called Autolux, the track was called "Here Comes Everybody" - highly recommend checking out their album, again, it's one of those ones I remember just hearing on the radio in LA, and kind of announcing itself as an interesting track amidst a bunch of crap. So um, went out and got the record and found it was all real good. Before that, Saul Williams, um, another track off his record "Saul Williams" that was "African Student Movement" - we're trying to get him on tour with us, and he may be here when we get back to play some dates, which will be um. We're playing a number of dates in the UK in July - Nine Inch Nails that is. We'll be doing festivals across Europe in June, and you can check nin.com and it has updates of where we are and what we're up to. All sorts of things like that. Want to thank you for taking the time to listen, it's been fun here being able to play some stuff that I find interesting. Thank you for listening. We're going to... I'm going to be back here throughout the summer, festivals in Europe in June, dates around the UK in July... and just hanging out. To take us out, we have one more Nine Inch Nails track, this is from The Fragile. This is one of my favorite tracks and I don't know how many people have listened this far into the record to get to it, because it's on the second disc, but this is one of my favorites - this is the "Big Come Down".

Nine Inch Nails - The Big Come Down

Transcribed by Saturnine

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