Trent Reznor: Nine Inch Nails Working on New Music, Possible Tour

Trent Reznor

In early 2009, Trent Reznor [founder of the American industrial rock band] announced that Nine Inch Nails [NIN] were embarking on a 20th anniversary farewell tour, and the band wrapped the year playing intimate venues like New York’s Bowery Ballroom and L.A.’s Wiltern Theatre. “I’ve been thinking for some time now it’s time to make NIN disappear for a while,” he said. “After some thought, we decided to book a last run of shows across the globe this year.”

Since then, Reznor has stayed busy recording with his new band, How to Destroy Angels, writing music for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and scoring The Social Network and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo with composer Atticus Ross. “It’s really been an unexpected, weird ride,” Reznor tells ROLLING STONE. “I’m grateful to have the opportunity to work. I’m just trying to approach things with integrity and try to find things that are interesting to me.”

But Nine Inch Nails fans can now rejoice: Reznor tells ROLLING STONE that the band is working on new material. In an interview surrounding Black Ops 2, Reznor was asked about the likelihood of new NIN music. “All signs point to yes,” he said. Pressed further, he added, “Yeah, there will be new music. There are some things in the works.”

Those “things” could also include live performing again. “Yeah, if it feels right, it’s a possibility,” he says. “I never said that that wasn’t going to happen, just that it couldn’t go on as it was. Having a few years doing other things, I’ve enjoyed [them] and I’m enjoying doing How to Destroy Angels, and there will be a place for stuff that falls in the Nine Inch Nails column of things. It’s a different kind of work.

“Stay tuned,” he adds. “We’ll see what happens here.”

First, fans can look forward to new music from How to Destroy Angels, Reznor’s band with his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, and Ross. The band will release An Omen EP on November 13th, and Reznor promises a full-length record soon. “It’s coming out sometime Quarter One of next year,” he says. “Music videos will start to creep out pretty soon. You’ll hear about some live performances coming up. That’s going to happen next year. We’re just trying to have fun and try to give it its best shot for people to actually check it out. And that was one of the main reasons we decided to sign with Columbia.”

Reznor says to expect a different sound from their 2010 debut EP. “I just listened to it a few weeks ago for the first time in quite a while. Not to pat my own back, but it sounded better than I remembered it sounding . . . What we’ve done since then is we’ve really been working on this record in the background, behind Social Network and Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. We’ve found a cohesion that’s not as easily identifiable as the things that made it. It feels like we understand more about what this project is that separates it from various other things that we’re up to.”