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Dark Angel Februar 1995 Nine Inch Nails
Autor:Andrez Photos by Max Photography |
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Nine Inch Nails have taken eighties electronic body music and reintroduced guitar and drums; they‘ve then mixed it with elements of an MTV oriented indie-pop, a sense of the austere, a grandiose pomp-rock attitude, and the melancholia of lyrics that conjure up images as dark and brooding as any Joy Division ever established. The product that emerges has been described variously as an avant -garde industrial for the nineties and a cynical, designer hybrid of various popular styles, cleverly disguised and called “alternative‘ Whatever the case is, and regardless of our own opinions, there can be no denying the phenomenal rise of Nine Inch Nails since 1989. Throughout that time the outspoken Trent Reznor has remained at the helm, but the old adage that behind every successful frontman there is a drummer rings true - lurking in the shadows throughout NIN ‘s career has been the master percussionist himself, Chris Vrenna... Andrez - Chris, I‘m aware that you‘re the drummer with Nine Inch Nails, but what other roles do you fulfil in the band? Chris - Oh my god... Well... let’s see... (he laughs) Well, I do interviews! Andrez - Wow, elaborate! Chris - Oh yeah! ...When were off the road, so much of our work is done on computers that Trent and I do a lot of stuff in the studio. So a lot of times there’ll be two or three of us in the studio working away. There‘s always things to do. Andrez - I suppose one of the more obvious and immediate things to ask you is how you feel working with Trent Reznor himself... Chris - Well, I‘ve known him for a long, long time! (he chuckles to himself, perhaps recalling a couple of incidents along the way). We grew up in Pennsylvania together, and I‘ve known Trent for eight or nine years - something like that. We did a couple of local band things together in Cleveland, before Nine Inch Nails was ever dreamed up. He’s my best friend; I‘ve known him for a long time. Andrez - Right... Chris, a lot of N.I.N.’s lyrics have much to gripe about, and seem to paint a picture of being at pain with the world. The lyrics on “Pretty Hate Machine“ reflect this, and your most recent album “The Downward Spiral“ is no exception - you know, stuff like “I drag you down and use you up“ on “Mr Self Destruct“, “God is dead‘, “I wanna fuck you like an animal“, and all that. Trent writes all those lyrics. Is he as miserable as he sounds? Chris - Well, um... not always! (we both laugh). His lyrics are the most personal part of him that I know of. The two of us were living in Los Angeles doing “Downward Spiral“, and like we were living in the house with the video in the living room, and we recorded the entire record in that living room. But when it came to the lyrics, he would literally lock himself up in the house by himself, often for days at a time, and just write. When he felt comfortable with the lyrics had written, it was only then that he‘d come out and let me or Flood or whoever was there have a read. I think that’s his way of venting all those negative sides that I think everyone kind of has a little bit of inside them. Andrez - Do you think Trent would be capable of writing about all those joyful things in life...? Chris - Umm... (pauses to think about it) Quite possibly, I suppose - I doubt it, but maybe! (he laughs again). I guess the music and the band itself is such a release mechanism for all of us that we tend to save up all the negative stuff, and so the band becomes a sort of tool for everybody when we‘re playing live on tour or even recording. It’s only when we get away from it that we really become normal. Andrez - Because Nine Inch Nails is therefore such a focus for negativity, do you think it‘s a positive experience for the audience to unleash things in basically such a selfish way? Chris - Oh, absolutely, especially live. Our shows are very cathartic, because they so emotionally draining and also emotionally charged. We get a big buzz out of the crowd, and they all scream the lyrics along with us, sometimes louder than we’re playing; it just feeds back and forth off each other. It becomes a very physical and violent sort of a show, within ourselves and within the crowd and everything, and when it‘s all over, yeah, I think everybody feels better. The biggest compliment the band ever got and luckily this hasn‘t happened too many tines - is that people who say they were going through a very bad time, like trying to kill themselves or overdose or something like this, have listened to Nine Inch Nails and it‘s really helped them out because they can relate with certain lyrics. I guess that’s the ultimate compliment if someone says your song has quite literally saved that person‘s life. Andrez - I guess so. Chris, in your own opinion how would you say N.I.N. has developed since “Pretty Hate Machine“? Chris - Well, like anybody I suppose we matured a lot. The songs on ‘Pretty Hate Machine“ were really good Pop songs, and much more pop-oriented. Instrumentally, they probably a little light now, looking back on them. We tried to rehearse some of those songs for this tour, but just decided that there‘s no way we could ever play them live again. We‘ve grown beyond them, in away. “Downward Spiral“ was a definite change. Trent really wanted to focus more on moods on this record, even more so than other things, and so lyrically it gets really dark and really down at points. But, on a whole, I think there‘s a sensation of constant change and progression that we go through with the band. Trent hates to repeat himself - its probably the foremost thing that he will never, ever do - so, to do another record like “Broken“, which you know was very guitar and drums and heavy sounding, would be impossible for him now. Just like he’ll never do another record like “The Downward Spiral” again. It puts pressure on us, individually, to always grow beyond what we just did, and to try something completely different. Andrez - I was speaking to Bill Leeb of Front Line Assembly recently about his new album, “Millennium“, which ironically sounds more like N.I.N. I think than old Front Line stuff... Chris - Yeah, yeah... It‘s really heavy! I’ve actually heard it too; it’s really different for them! Andrez - Yeah, I was quite surprised by it. Anyway, one of the things Bull and I talked about was Trents comments about Front Line Assembly in Spin magazine in ‘92... Chris - Ah... Andrez - ...And, of course, the whole furore that resulted from that article. Bill seems to be pretty happy about the outcome these days, but the question remains - how do you feel about Front Line Assembly? Chris - Well, yeah, it’s been fine and its cleared up. Trent felt really bad about the whole thing, because it ended up being highly misconstrued. You know, people have their own personal tastes when it comes to music, and somehow that whole thing ended up being blown out; Trent felt really bad about it, so he tried to send a letter to Bill saying “look, there‘s an article coming out and it doesn’t sound too good, but...” - and you know how things get blown out of proportion... Andrez - So, how would you react if Nine Inch Nails‘ music was described as ‘notorious. boring, uninspired bullshit“? Chris (laughs) ...Well... (he laughs again) You know... well... Andrez - I guess it‘s another label! Chris Yeah, and everybody has their own opinion! Andrez - Yeah, exactly. Well, don‘t relax yet because I‘ve got another one to throw at you! Nine Inch Nails seem to be a band that’s either loved or loathed, and N.I.N.‘s music was once described here in Australia, and I quote, as “grand standing, MTV rebellion, cock-rock bullshit“... Chris - (laughs) Wow! Andrez - So how do you feel about that kind of tag? Chris - (still laughing) ...well... I don‘t know! We do get bad press - the English press doesn’t like us much. They still call Trent a spoiled, snotty, snivelling computer geek. Andrez - That sounds familiar... Chris - That kind of stuff, but you get used to it. I guess we all go through phases where you hate being labelled and you constantly fight it; then you just give up and think “oh well…” Everybody needs to label something. Industrial is pretty much dead, but if any heavy metal band uses one sample somewhere then they‘re called industrial. All the monikers are pretty useless now, but in our case we do have our roots in electronic things, and we do what we‘d like to do. And, yeah, the songs are written with a pop sense - that was the thing that Trent and the rest of us have grown up with, so we like to write from a pop framework. Even though it may be heavy and “industrial” or whatever, there’s still some sort of hook there and still some sort of melody, and overall some sort of pop song beneath. I guess it all kind of fits. Andrez - So what was the kind of music you both grew up with? Chris - Um, for me heavy metal - like the bad heavy metal of the ‘80s, Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult, and all that... Andrez - What‘s bad about that? Chris - I don’t know... I guess its okay, but I know some people would say its not Slayer or Pantera and all that stuff that we now know as metal. But I do still listen to Sabbath, and I was also into a lot of New Wave - early Depeche Mode and Yazoo and Thomas Dolby and all that junk. Pretty much anything with a drum machine! Andrez - (laughs) Yeah... Well, anyway, N.I.N.‘s appearance at Lollapalooza in many ways kick-started the band‘s career in the ‘States, and it‘s snow-balled from there. How has the whole experience been like for you personally? Chris - Interesting... (another of his chuckles comes across the telephone line). I mean, the first record came out in 1989, and that Lollapalooza was in 91, so for a couple of years there the band had been kind of slowly bubbling over in the club scene - and, yeah, that Lollapalooza appearance did kick things along a bit. It was funny, because we made a video for “Head Like A Hole“ right back at the beginning of 1990, when we did the remix for it and the single was released, and MTV would never play it... Then all of a sudden along comes Lollapalooza, and suddenly it‘s like the buzz-word - people saying “hot new band Nine Inch Nails”. It‘s kind of like what are you talking about? What do you mean “hot new band“? ...you know? Lollapalooza was kind of odd, too, because that was actually the end of Nine Inch Nails for awhile. The tour we‘re on now, which started in February ‘94, is in fact the first tour we‘ve done since then. There was a huge gap while Trent was getting off TVT and signing to Interscope, and there was almost as big a gap between the release of “Pretty Hate Machine“ and “Broken“, and another big gap between “Broken“ and “The Downward Spiral“. You could say that just as the band started to get well known, the band itself went away for a long time. But it‘s kind of good, and Woodstock did the same again for us last year. Andrez - Did you enjoy that experience? Chris - Yeah, Woodstock was a really good time. It was also interesting, because we played just after Crosby, Stills & Nash and right before Metallica! That’s kind of an odd line-up of bands on stage one after the other, but it worked really well and the crowd was really great. We were already on a pretty successful tour, but that really took our name out there again. Since then, in the ‘States we‘ve had to increase the size of the venues where we play, and our videos get a lot more airtime. Andrez - Where did you get the album title “The Downward Spiral“? ...Because apparently the term “downwardly spiralling vinyl torture“ was mentioned in a review of “Pretty Hate Machine“ that appeared in Siren magazine — is it related to that at all? Chris - No, no... But that‘s an odd coincidence! Trent‘s idea for ‘The Downward Spiral‘ was to utilize the ‘70s idea of a concept album - not just to write ten songs, put them together on a CD, and call it an album. Instead, he wanted to have a definite starting point and a definite end. So the album starts with “Mr Self Destruct“; where “Broken“ was hard, fast and heavy, “Mr Self Destruct“ is harder, faster and heavier. That track starts as the high point, and from there the rest of the album is written not so much as a regression, but as a complete collapse of certain things - especially on an emotional and spiritual level - right down to the last song, which really is ‘The Downward Spiral“ and is basically a suicide song. The whole record is geared to lead to that point, downwardly spiralling to the very end. Andrez - “The Downward Spiral“ was, as you mentioned earlier, mostly recorded at Le Pig, where some of the Charles Manson atrocities took place - I think Sharon Tate was one of the victims there... Chris - Yeah. Andrez - In the lead up to the release of the album, much was made of this fact in advertising and promotion. How do you personally feel about such an approach to “selling“ the album? Chris - Yeah... it was an interesting novelty at first, but... (Chris pauses to reflect). Well, when we first moved out there, that wasn‘t the reason the house was chosen; it was chosen because it was in a perfect location where we didn‘t have neighbours dose by. Since we were putting a recording studio in the living room, we had to have a house that was the right size as well as secluded, so we wouldn‘t get into trouble for making loud music all night every night. It was also centrally located, the rent fitted our budget, and apart from the main house there was a small guest house back behind in the yard, where I was staying. (he again pauses). Yeah, the house was an interesting piece of American history, and given the fact that Nine Inch Nails have always been considered a dark and moody band, it kind of fit... Honestly speaking, though, it did get out of hand. People still ask me “Was it scary to live there‘, and the answer is no, it wasn‘t at all – it’s just a house! (he laughs). Andrez - So there‘s no ghost of Sharon Tate stalking the stairs? Chris - No, there‘s no ghost and the walls don‘t bleed! Nothing like that. I read “Helter Skelter“ just before I moved in there, mainly out of curiosity because I didn‘t know anything about the Manson Family murders. For the first few days it was interesting to check out parts of the house that were in the photos with bodies and all that, but after awhile it wore off. It was an unfortunate incident, and it was still a beautiful house. Andrez - I‘ve heard that at live performances Trent likes to throw corn flour all over himself and the other band members in order to achieve a more grungy look. Chris - Yeah, that‘s actually something we’ve been doing since the very beginning. We still do it occasionally. Andrez - Why don’t you just get a vacuum cleaner and put it on reverse? Chris - Well, I guess it’s just something we‘ve done all along. One of our first photo shoots was done with an art photographer, and one of his things was that he would cover his models - who were usually nude - in corn starch or whatever. It created this ghastly kind of dead-looking image that was really effective. So when we were first playing live, even before “Pretty Hate Machine“ came out, we would do this to ourselves just to recreate that image. It‘s kind of stuck as one of our little things, even after all these years, and it’s still fun to do! Andrez - You guys were supposed to tour Australia in 1994 but it was cancelled at the eleventh hour... Chris - Yeah. Andrez - We heard a couple of interesting rumours, as per the norm - one of them was that you were beaten up by Trent, and that‘s why you didn‘t tour. Chris - (laughs) Well, that actually happened after the fact, yeah, I was! Andrez - Yeah? Chris - Yeah - not a literal beating up, though. We tend to get a little violent on stage - as I said, it’s a bit of a cathartic release for ourselves and the crowd - and things sometimes get out of hand. We were doing some warm-up dates at smaller clubs before we went out to Australia, and we suffered two hospital injuries that occurred during those warm-up dates... Andrez - What, did Trent hit you with a big sack of corn flour, or something? Chris - (laughs) ...No…! Actually, our guitar player broke his hand on stage one night, and then a couple of nights later I started developing a really weird problem - all of a sudden I thought “my god, my groin hurts”, and it turned out I’d somehow given myself a hernia. Andrez - Maybe it was lifting those sacks of corn flour... Chris – Possibly! But, between a guitar player with a broken hand and me laid out for over a week, we just decided it would be bester if we postponed things and started from scratch. (Chris chuckles to himself for a bit). After that, when we started the real U.S. tour two or three weeks later, during a song when we were performing in San Francisco Trent whipped around with his mike stand, and it had one of those big steel bases, and it went right over my drums and split my head right open... Andrez - Ouch. Fantastic. Chris - So, um, that pretty much stopped the show for a few minutes, while I got taped up, and then I had to head off to the hospital for something like 18 stitches. Andrez - With corn flour in the wound, and everything... Chris – Yeah! That was not one of our better nights. Nine Inch Nails may tour Australia in 1995, and they will commence recording their next album later this year. Thanks to Warner and Chris at PBS-FM for arranging the interview, and also thanks to Steve and his article in “Vivisect” for some background stuff.
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