How Trent Reznor described himself and his music at 25: “A bummed out guy from Cleveland”
By the summer of 1990, Trent Reznor was already the official new poster boy for “industrial” rock, even though Nine Inch Nails’ debut album, Pretty Hate Machine, could just as easily have been described as electro-pop for the angsty.
“There’s a built-in crowd for industrial music in every city,” a 25-year-old Reznor told Musician Magazine. “But the typical comment I get from people is, ‘Usually I hate this kind of music but I think your record is the most . . . whatever.’”
Reznor was far too clever not to understand where these types of reactions were coming from, but he also had no reason to go on record saying Nine Inch Nails were a more “palatable” form of industrial music. Pretty Hate Machine hadn’t been a cynical or calculated project, after all. Reznor was just an equal appreciator of industrial rock’s formidable brutality and electro-pop’s hooky craftsmanship, so, as he worked on the record in his small Cleveland, Ohio, studio, he did what came naturally, never really knowing if anybody would ever hear it.
Since he wasn’t trying to be as political as Ministry or as romantic as The Cure, there was also no reason to worry about overthinking his lyrics. The words came out more like journal entries – real journal entries, not the simulated emo version. They were vulnerable, honest, and sometimes disturbing or cringey, with Reznor operating under the simple idea that his own favourite music had always had a recognisable humanity to it, more so than any one cohesive type of sound.
“Instead of taking the typical macho-man rock n’ roll approach with my own music,” Reznor said, “Or spouting some political nonsense that I’m not into to start with, I just tried to address personal things that, hopefully, somebody could relate to.”
It’s particularly effective, in a strange way, when Reznor delivers his words in the normally machismo style of an ’80s hip-hop MC, only to communicate a sentiment 180 degrees away from an LL Cool J or Ice Cube. “I used to be so big and strong,” he talks-sings on ‘Down In It’.
Adding, “I used to know my right from wrong / I used to never be afraid / I used to be somebody.”
Like most guys in their 20s, Trent was sometimes quick to judge music that didn’t feel honest or relatable, be it commercial pop or hair metal. But while out touring Pretty Hate Machine, he started expanding his understanding of the true meaning of “relatability” in the vast expanse of popular music, opening his heart a bit, Grinch-style, to the many methods available to people for connection.
When talking with Musician Magazine in 1990, Reznor recounted a night on tour, when his van driver had a country music radio station playing, and the lyrics of the tunes were making him physically ill. “But then I thought,” Reznor said, as if communicating an epiphany, “If I was a simple truck driver, driving around in Idaho with a load of potatoes in the back and missing my girlfriend, I could totally relate to those lyrics”.
“But I’m not,” he added. “I’m just a bummed out guy from Cleveland who has a death band.”
