I love David Fincher and I think he's a genius.
— Trent Reznor
My life has two modes. One is sitting around writing and contemplating or building things. The other is execution mode. It takes a while to switch from one to the other.
When I was growing up, rock & roll helped give me my sense of identity, but I had to search for it.
I do remember my first purchase: the Partridge Family's 'Greatest Hits.' I got it for $3.99 at a failed chain of pre-Wal-Mart-type stores called Jamesway. God, I'm old.
It probably wasn't until Nine Inch Nails played the first Lollapalooza that I actually went to a festival.
I watch people, friends of mine, and see how they portray themselves online and I find interesting that it's kind of a hyper-real version of yourself, how you'd like to be seen, in a way.
I'm not Prince or Rivers Cuomo, who brags about having hundreds of great songs.
'Yeezus,' I really love it. I think the sound of it is cool.
My advice today, to established acts and new-coming acts, is the same advice I'd give to myself: pause for a minute, and really think about 'What is your goal? Where do you see yourself?'
MTV can't do less for me, let's put it that way. I'm fine without them.
I believe sometimes you have a choice in what inspiration you choose to follow and other times you really don't.
I don't have to save rock. I don't even like rock that much.
Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is, 'Oh, I'm on stage playing a song,' because you're daydreaming about something else, you're on autopilot. You have to fight that.
Frankly, I have always dreaded writing - there always seemed to be pain involved, unpleasant self-examination and a lot of fear.
It's not like I ride a broom into interviews. I don't hang upside down with a cape on.
I doubt I'll ever pay someone to do a remix again, because there's some amazing stuff just coming out of bedrooms.
I don't have a family. I'd like to have one. I just haven't somehow gotten around to it yet.
My music, I hope, takes 100% of your concentration. I know how to do that.
The band Grizzly Bear, I think they're excellent. There's a beauty and a musicality there that I wish would have been in vogue in the late '80s, when I was forming bands.
I think my music's more disturbing than Tupac's - or at least I thought some of the themes of 'The Downward Spiral' were more disturbing on a deeper level - you know, issues about suicide and hating yourself and God and people and everything else.
With a Nine Inch Nails show, I'm building on a legacy that comes with a certain set of expectations. I have to push that forward, I have to reinvent myself, I have to feel current and valid.
When I was growing up, the people who liked the Beatles, I didn't like, so I didn't pay attention to them.
I would love to be looked at some day - and I'm not ever saying I'm at this level - but I'd love to be mentioned in the same breath as a Bowie or an Eno. Those are the people that I admire artistically, their career trajectory, the integrity throughout their career, the bravery of their career.
I'm sure there is a group of people that assume Nine Inch Nails is just noise and chaos - or whatever it might be dismissed as, and sometimes is.
I miss how a record label can help spread the word that you have something out.
I'll be honest, watching the music industry collapse has been demoralizing and disheartening at times.
Making noise is easy; making stuff people understand is an easy thing to do.
When fame presented itself to me, I was not at a point in my life where I was equipped to deal with it.
When Twitter made its way to my radar I looked at it as a curiosity, then started experimenting. I approached that as a place to be less formal and more off-the-cuff, honest and 'human.'
It's one thing to sit back and say, 'Hey let's play a club, that will be great,' but then you get there and say, 'Hey wait, this is the dressing room? Where's my dressing room?'
The music I always liked as a kid was stuff I could bum out to and realize, 'Hey, someone else feels that way, too.' So if someone can do that with my music, it's mission accomplished.
I often find myself listening to a record because a lot of people or magazines have told me it's good and I'm supposed to like it, and I try to stay in touch with what's happening and I'm also a fan of music. I find myself trying to like something that I really don't think is that great.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think music should be free.
I don't even know why I'm saying this in an interview situation, but I always feel like I'm not good enough for some reason. I wish that wasn't the case, but left to my own devices, that voice starts speaking up.
I really try to put myself in uncomfortable situations. Complacency is my enemy.
Being a rock & roll star has become as legitimate a career option as being an astronaut or a policeman or a fireman.
Now U2's not my favorite band, but I do respect them, and in the same way I respect Bowie: They change without fear of change.
Live interaction with a crowd is a cathartic, spiritual kind of exchange, and it's intensified at a festival.
Being in a band with my wife, I'm very aware of the multitude of ways that can go wrong. We're best friends and are interested in the same things, so it's natural to make music together.
I'd never want to be Gene Simmons, an old man who puts on makeup to entertain kids, like a clown going to work.
What is exciting is taking back the excitement of being able to debut something to an audience in exactly the way you want to.
Why don't the Grammys matter? Because it feels rigged and cheap - like a popularity contest that the insiders club has decided.
The dynamic of a relationship changes when one person gets sober.
I think the thing I've always tried to do is - and I didn't plan it, it just started to come out that way - is try to make challenging music that flirts with accessibility.
Self-examination with a close-up mirror in an antiseptic environment is what Nine Inch Nails is based on.
When I sit down to make a set list I usually think, 'We'll build it up here, take it down here, go into a quiet section here, explode here,' in a way that there's a flow and it doesn't feel like shuffle on an iPod.
Musicians have always adopted Macs.
I thought I'd reached the bottom a few times, but then I'd realise there was another 30 floors of despair below that.
One of the biggest wake-up calls of my career was when I saw a record contract. I said, 'Wait - you sell it for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it and then you own it?'
Anyone who's an executive at a record label does not understand what the Internet is, how it works, how people use it, how fans and consumers interact - no idea. I'm surprised they know how to use e-mail.
