David Lynch’s odd first meeting with Trent Reznor: “Two naked dudes come walking out of the fog”
Over the years, the late surrealist genius David Lynch collaborated with industrial rock’s favourite moody pioneer, Trent Reznor, on a number of occasions. After a near miss in 1989 when Lynch was the first choice to direct the Nine Inch Nails music video for ‘Head Like a Hole’ but lost out in the end, the two men finally worked together on the soundtrack for 1997’s Lost Highway. At that time, Reznor was a die-hard Lynch fan who was incredibly nervous to meet his eccentric hero – and their first encounter, replete with fog and mysterious naked men, didn’t disappoint.
Reznor grew up in a small town called New Castle, Pennsylvania, and has been open over the years about how sheltered his childhood was. The town was so tiny and unassuming that there was no art scene, which meant that a creative, lonely outcast like Reznor had to dream about one day escaping the confines of the cornfields that surrounded him. He also admitted that the only true life experiences he had “came from watching movies, watching TV, and reading books, and looking at magazines. And when your culture comes from watching TV every day, you’re bombarded with images of things that seem cool…”.
One of the artists making these “cool” images that spoke to Reznor was Lynch, whose 1986 classic Blue Velvet had a particularly mind-expanding effect on the young musician. “David Lynch was a hero. Kind of a mythical creature,” Reznor told Fangoria in 2017 before confessing that he entered the cinema to see that nightmarish noir classic without knowing what to expect. Naturally, it completely rewired his brain. “I’m sure the word had been put out regarding my respect for him,” Reznor added, “And particularly, how important Blue Velvet had been in the alternate trajectory of my life – and certainly my artistic life.”
This is why, when Reznor fielded a call from his management in the mid-90s and was told that Lynch wanted to meet him, he was instantly overcome with both excitement and panic. He found out that the director wanted to discuss sound design for his new film, and Reznor immediately had a million questions. “I remember a sense of panic, like – when? How? What’s he wanna do?”
Reznor spiralled before he was told, “He wants to come to New Orleans for a few days, hang out, and just work on some sounds.”
At the time, Reznor lived on Magazine Street in New Orleans, a quiet residential area. He agreed to the meeting with Lynch – but then began to worry that he’d act like too much of a fanboy and embarrass himself. So, he invited his buddy Peter Christopherson of the English experimental band Coil to take the pressure off by running interference.
“Peter was a great sound designer but also a weird guy,” Reznor admitted, “And I thought it might help to have a buffer between Lynch and me, the dude who’s legitimately freaked to be on the scene”.
To Reznor’s mild annoyance, though, when it came time for their studio session, Magazine Street was blanketed in a thick veil of fog. He and Peter decided to wait outside the house, so Lynch didn’t wind up driving around in circles, trying to see two feet in front of him. However, when the iconic director finally emerged from the mist, a perfectly surreal moment that wouldn’t have been out of place in one of his movies took place.
“He suddenly emerges from the fog,” remembered Reznor, “And at that exact moment, from down a side street, two completely naked dudes also come walking out of the fog.”
Reznor couldn’t help laughing as he thought back on Lynch’s visage, beholding the two nude revellers ambling down the street across from him. “I’ll never forget the look on [his] face, like, ‘What the fuck is going on here?'” smiled Reznor. “It wasn’t planned; just one of those random New Orleans experiences.”
Ultimately, the absurd encounter turned out to be the perfect icebreaker for the pair, and they subsequently spent several days together in Reznor’s studio. He claimed Lynch was precisely as you’d expect from his movies, saying, “He talks loud. He speaks in riddles. Most of the agenda wasn’t to compose music, but to listen to noise.”
The most Lynch-y moment for Reznor, though, was when the oddball maverick couldn’t quite describe how he wanted something to sound, so he did the only thing that made sense to him – he wrote on a piece of paper, “I want it to sound like that”.
