Trent Reznor Gives Update On New Nine Inch Nails Music

16. June 202325. July 2023 Ashley Perez Hollingsworth

Trent Reznor has stayed busy by composing a wide array of film scores. But patient fans are eager for new Nine Inch Nails music. Reznor finally offered an update during a new interview with Rick Rubin and it’s not looking good. TL;DR version, don’t expect anything soon.

“In the context of Nine Inch Nails, in terms of an audience and the culture,” Reznor said, “the importance of music — or lack of importance of music — in today’s world, from my perspective, is a little defeating. It feels to me, in general — and I’m saying this as a 57-year-old man — music used to be the thing that, that was what I was doing when I had time. I was listening to music. I wasn’t doing it in the background while I was doing five other things, and I wasn’t treating it kind of as a disposable commodity.”

He continued “I kind of miss the attention music got, I miss the critical attention that music got. Not that I am interested in the critic’s opinion, but to send something out in the world and feel like it touched places, might’ve got a negative or positive [review], but somebody heard it, it got validated in its own way culturally. Culturally, that feels askew. Like I can’t think of any review I care about today that I even trust. I could write it before it comes out because it’s already written. In fact, ChatGPT could probably do a better job, you know? Or is currently doing the job. That makes for what I feel is a less fertile environment to put music out into — in the world of Nine Inch Nails.”

Seems like we can expect more film scores from Reznor in the future. “I think that’s where some of the excitement of composition in film has thrust me into places I wouldn’t be with my band,” he explained. “It’s made me learn and be in awe of what music is and how powerful it is and how much there is to know about it and how much I don’t know about it. And [I’m] in awe of seeing these different ways it can affect you emotionally, and techniques and sound and soundscapes and things I don’t think I would’ve come across on the typical trajectory of being in a band.”

Listen to the full interview below.

Recently, Reznor and longtime collaborator Atticus Ross provided the score to Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All. Next, the duo will write music for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie and David Fincher’s film The Killer.