The Pink Floyd album Trent Reznor called a “turning point for me”
For Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, the discovery of Pink Floyd represented a pivotal moment in his life and opened his mind to new musical boundaries. The discovery couldn’t have occurred at a more crucial time for Reznor, and it would cause a ripple effect on his career and the atmospheric brand of music that he’d later make.
Reznor’s childhood was isolated, creating a feeling of disconnection with the rest of the world. However, fortunately for him, music was a source of escapism for him as a teenager and offered him a route out of his lonely life into an exciting otherworldly realm. It allowed him to pretend he was somewhere different, and Pink Floyd was a window to a place he previously didn’t even know existed.
Even though he was on a different side of the Atlantic to Pink Floyd, Reznor felt a deep connection with their album The Wall, labelling it “very personal” to him. Reznor made the aforementioned comment during a conversation with Roger Waters in 2000 for Revolver Magazine, which was a dream come true for the Nine Inch Nails musician.
Reznor was overcome with excitement, revealing that he’d been awake since 7:30am with an overwhelming sense of eagerness about the encounter. To begin the conversation, Reznor explained his love of Waters’ music and told how The Wall changed his life.
He recalled: “I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania. Not to sound too kiss-ass, but when The Wall came out, it was a turning point for me. I was in high school at the time, and I remember that music had always been my friend—a companion, the brother I didn’t have, or whatever. I came from a broken home. I was alone a lot as a child. And when The Wall came out, that record seemed very personal to me, even though I was in a completely different lifestyle, place, and situation than Roger would have been at that time.”
Reznor continued: “I’d never heard music that had that sort of naked, honest emotion. I had that sense of, ‘Wow, I’m not the only person who feels this way.’ When it came time to start writing my own music, after some failed attempts at generic lyrics, I realized that if I went inward and took journal entries and turned them into songs, it seemed to strike a chord in others.”
The Nine Inch Nails musician then explained how The Wall has been a benchmark to him throughout his career and inspired his magnum opus, The Downward Spiral. He added: “And then when I made my second album, The Downward Spiral, I aspired to start with a story. I tried to write songs that fit into the slots in the plot line. I soon realized how hard that is. I tried to abandon it. But when I got toward the end of the record, I realized I had kind of done that anyway – what I thought I couldn’t do.”
While Reznor didn’t initially believe he’d have the capability of creating a narrative-led album in the same mould as The Wall, he surprised himself with the impressive result. Although the two records are incredibly different, his fundamental appreciation of Pink Floyd helped push The Downward Spiral to its destination.
