-NIN Spotlight-

{ - Trent Reznor is originally from Pennsylvania                     }
{ - Latest release is '94's 'The Downward Spiral'                    }
{ - Movie about latest tour could be out as early as this summer     }

{April '94}

Trent Reznor:  I don't know the psychology of why someone enjoys horror 
	movies or likes being scared, or enjoys films or music that might be   
	considered depressing.  I'm not sure what draws people to that - 
	I am drawn to it; I'm intrigued by extremity in those 
	departments, I don't know why.  I mean, I've tried to figure it 
	out - maybe it's because I grew up in a place where....there wasn't  
	anything - there was no culture, there was no influence, and so what
	you got, you go through magazines, and what might be on TV or - there
	was no art cinemas, there was no college radios, there was no 
	underground book stores or any sort of thing like that, so....maybe
	my desire to just....escape led me to searching for extreme.  I don't
	know.

{play 'Down In It' video}

{1990}

TR:  I always wanted to do this, but I just lacked the drive to do 
	it....the determination to get it done....discipline - and when I was 
	working in this studio where I realized that I was wasting my 
	time - in Cleveland, Ohio, vacation spot of the United States and.... 
	I just decided for once in my life I was really going to work on 
	something and see if I could do it.  And I don't think I'd ever 
	done that before that.  Things had kinda come easy in certain respects
	and I'd always taken the easy way out.  So, this was a challenge 
	to myself to see if I could get a record deal, put out a quality 
	album, things like that.  And the success thing, it's just been really 
	wierd.  I mean, it's flattering, and I mean, I don't fear it.

{play 'Head like a Hole' video}

{April '94}

TR:  It's cool to do a show and see the people who show up, you know, and 
	the people who tend to relate to that, and not....necessarily the  
	super-mainstream, well-adjusted people.  I do think, I mean I hope
	that there are some people receiving whatever's being said.

TR:  Well, the character on stage is an amplification of me, of the energy
	in me and my personality.  I don't walk around throwing mic stand 
	when I'm eating dinner at a restaurant.  But it's not an *act*, it 
	was never conceived to be some persona that I....you know it's not
	me - it _is_ me, it's a different side of me, you know.

{play clip of 'March of the Pigs'}

TR:  The idea for this record, 'Downward Spiral', came about the end of '91
	when we had done touring and finished the first Lollapalooza, and
	we went to Europe, and I was sitting in the hotel room and I was 
	kind of seeing the energy that Nine Inch Nails was drawing upon, it
	was a definite negative vibe, and although....it was powerful, 
	it's ultimately not the end of the road: a means towards something 
	else - I'm not sure what that is and.... I kinda came up with the idea
	of 'Downward Spiral' which I knew would be a pretty harrowing 
	exploration of that.  So, this record was focussing on those		
	certain  things that were bothering me that I felt needed exploring
	- which is not to say that everything in my life is totally terrible
	and negative, but it was a record about a certain set of things and
	that's what I wanted to explore.

VJ:  The theme of pigs on the album - any particular reason?

TR:  Chance more than anything, I mean people say that it was because I 
	was in the Tate house, but you know, it was a reference to that,  
	which it wasn't conciously a reference to the murders that took 
	place there.  That wasn't the reason I was in that house, but again,
	it's hard for me to try to say that and people believe that it wasn't
	a plublicity stunt of some sort.

{play 'March of the Pigs' video}

{April '94}

TR:  I like making music, I like touring, but I could do without the 
	publicity side of things, and interviews and personality profiles,
	and people probing into my own life about whatever they think they
	need to know, or they think they know about me.  To the whole music
	as fashion thing, I try to stay awy from it.  But I kind of realize
	that it is a necessary part of an image and the way I'm portrayed is
	part of the whole ball of wax.

{play clip of 'Wish'}

TR:  I don't know or care, really, what people think about me, I'll read 
	interviews of me where I'm portrayed as something that I know I 
	don't think I am, if I know who I am anymore, but I don't care, you
	know, these people who read this don't know me, the interviewer
	didn't know me, and I could argue all day, you know, hey, I have fun
	once in a while right, you know, I have a good sense of humour.  You
	know it doesn't mean enough to me to try and come back. 

{play 'Wish' video}

{1990}

VJ:  Let's take a look at some of your videos, these things keep you and your
	team entertained?

TR:  Well, after a hard show, we like to come in and put the Video 
	Aquarium on whereyou can - 

VJ:  [interrupts] And what *is* this? [pointing to Video Aquarium box]

TR:  It's, ah, about 2 hours of just a fish tank and the sound of bubbles 
	and stuff.

VJ:  So the fish go about the screen?

TR:  It's just if you put a video camera on your....fish tank and miced it,
	that's what it would pretty much be.

VJ:  Better than valium?

TR:  [nodding] Soothing....kind of a valium replacement thing.  We're looking
	to get the Video Fireplace [points to ad for Video Fireplace on back
	of Video Aquarium box].

VJ:  Oh, now that would be cool.

TR:  Kind of for a different feel.

VJ:  That would be like the champagne kind of....

TR:  [nodding & half-smile] The cuddling moments on the bus.

VJ:  Yes.  [giggles] Schartzenegger, Predator [picks up box].

TR:  [half-smile on face for the rest of this interview] Just mindless
	violence, you know, to take aggression out - we have a special copy
	though that features New Kids on the Block - a special cameo by them
	[takes box, turns it over and points to a group shot of NKOTB glued
	overtop of the original picture].

VJ:  And, ah, Arnold blows them away?

TR:  Yes, he massacres them all.

VJ:  And the world is saved.

TR:  Right, pop music is safe once again.

VJ:  And here's a classic - Al Pacino's Scarface [picks up box].

TR:  Um, we basically watch this to count how many times he says....a certain
	word....it's....quite a few; we've not quite got them all, but....
	Again, serious mind-numbing violence to take the pressures of the 
	road off a road-worn band.

{show clip of Video Aquarium, and someone puts their hand in front of the 
 camera, holding a small ball or something, then someone screams quietly}

{show 'Hurt' video}

{April '94}

TR:  I'm just sick of seeing bands wearing flanel shirts, and looking 
	like gas-station attendants [VJ starts giggling, TR looks at him 	
	then keeps going].  You know, we're doing everything we can just to
	not fit into that mold.

-Original Broadcast of Trent Reznor's April '94 Interview-

[info sliding across bottom of screen with 'March of the Pigs' video playing
 full-screen]:

{Reznor rented the Tate house to set-up a home studio to record "The Downward
 Spiral".  He named the facility "Le Pig".}

TR:  I had the song 'Piggy' written long before it was ever knows that I 
	would be in that house.  'March of the Pigs' has _nothing_ to do with
	the Tate murders or anything like that, I'm not going to say what it
	is about, but it's not about that.  Ya, the name of the studio being
	"Pig", that was a definite bad taste kind of joke about being there.
	You know, it was written on the front door at one time, you know, 
	I'll admit to that.

[info sliding across bottom of screen with 'Happiness in Slavery' video 
 playing full-screen]:

{It is not unusual for Nine Inch Nails videos to be deemed 'unsuitable for
 air', but "Happiness in Slavery" takes the cake}

VJ:  What kind of response did you get from people that saw that ['Happiness
	in Slavery' video]?

TR:  We knew when we were doing it that we were going to go too far - 
	that we would be beyond the limites of what was playable in....
	American television, but it was interesting to us, I use that as 
	a barometer of what we wanted to do, so....we just made it was far 
	as we wanted to take it or as we had the resources to take it, and	
	when it was done, we considered, for maybe 10 minutes, editing it to
	be seen, and we thought no, what the.... At that point we knew we 
	wouldn't get get any airplay but it just seemed like the right thing
	to do, and it was the thing I wanted to do, it expressed the song the
	best way it could - It wasn't a calculated idea to put a, you know,
	to get somebody's penis in a video.

{clip of 'Wish' video}

VJ:  So how much is the recording career an extension of physically and 
	mentally who you are?

TR:  It's all that I am right now.  Maybe for the last....I don't know how
	long, I mean for....well, since things started happening.  I have
	become what I do.

{clip of 'Wish' video}

VJ:  Are you really, in one sense, just coining on....negative energy?, do
	you think?, at times?

TR:  No, I think I'm exorcising bad feelings, and that means dredging up some
	negative energy, but I think the act of it turns it into a positive
	thing.

END