Nine Inch Nails members Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross were recently interviewed by Kerrang Magazine.
Atticus isn’t devoid of levity, though: he later causes the room to erupt into laughter when describing the first time he heard the Black Eyed Peas’ 2005 hit My Humps. “I thought that was the lowest bar in music that could be hit, with the dumbest lyrics of all time,” is his damning verdict. “But it wasn’t.”
Despite the warmth of their bonhomie, Trent and Atticus have lost none of their ability to engineer uncomfortable environments. For proof, look no further than Nine Inch Nails’ latest album, Bad Witch: the aggressive conclusion to a trilogy that began with EPs Not The Actual Events (2016) and Add Violence (2017), a cautious return resulting in caustic music after 2013’s Hesitation Marks.
“Culture, life and the world changes, so we didn’t take anything for granted,” explains Trent. “In America, the rock scene is pretty sterile, so to come out with [something] fucking noisy, [with] rough edges and an unsafe show felt more relevant than it had in years, and it felt good to us.”
