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Mojo
May 2005
In the Studio this month: Nine Inch Nails
Autor: Martin Aston
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MOJO WORKING IN THE STUDIO THIS MONTH...
Nine Inch Nails
Title: With Teeth Due: May Production: Trent Reznor, Alan Moulder Songs: All The Love In The World, The Collector, The Line Begins To Blur, Right Where lt Belongs, Love Is Not Enough TALKING TO this writer in 2003 about the impact of hearing his junkie anthem, Hurt, stripped and shook up by Johnny Cash, Trent Reznor confessed, “Let‘s made me want to minimise, to focus on what‘s truly important, which is the song and not the bells and whistles of presentation.“ Two years later, Reznor reckons his new album With Teeth, his first non-remix/studio record since 1 999‘s The Fragile, has stayed true to his word. “In December 2003, I left my studio [New Orleans] and rented a house in California, to minimise my situation. I left behind the banks of synths and primarily built things around electric piano.“ With only two guests, regular drummer Jerome Dillon and Foo Fighter mate Dave Grohl, Reznor set himself a deadline: “Two songs a week. To avoid arrangements and dressing up the sound, and to concentrate on melody, chord changes, progression. Seventy-five per cent of those demos are on the final album.“ Inspired, he says, by the likes of P1L‘s Flower Of Romance and Talking Heads‘ Remain In Light, Reznor limes With Teeth alongside the industrial origins of NIN‘s 1992 debut Pretty Hate Machine. “This time I wasn‘t so governed by fear or being afraid of having nothing to say, and of being in the studio surrounded by stuff which made me turn to improvising and sprawling soundscapes that went off on tangents. This one‘s more disciplined.“ With Teeth, at nine months “the quickest I‘ve ever made an album“, has been part of a broader clean up campaign. Reznor‘s drug/alcohol dependency, along with his long-term manager (“my best friend, but the split got ugly“), is finally gone. “I‘d reached the point in my addiction when I was either going to die or get better,“ he admits. “Part of my old modus operandi was to isolate — New Orleans is a good place to disappear — but it felt like time to get back around my peers, hence California. To establish a new routine that wasn‘t cluttered with crap.“ Martin Aston The buzz: “It has a slightly ominous tone, but not everything‘s aggressive. The album explores all different moods.“ Trent Reznor |
