Nine Inch Nails’ new song “God Break Down The Door” debuts as Zane Lowe’s World First on Beats 1 on Apple Music. Trent Reznor joins Zane for a conversation about the recording of the song and the band’s forthcoming album Bad Witch and why it took longer than expected. Trent also chats about the band’s upcoming fall tour and reminisces about the time NIN opened for The Jesus & Mary Chain.
Trent Reznor discussed the song in a new Zane Lowe interview.
ZANE LOWE: “God Break Down the Door.” Lots of interesting things I want to talk about on this particular piece of music. Your voice in the beginning it’s like you’re in a different character in a different place. I wonder about that experience in particular vocally recording the song.
TRENT REZNOR: We find if we don’t watch ourselves we tend to try to get some more comfortable with because it feels better. And from the sound of the drums to the kind of frantic drumbeat to looking around the studio and seeing the untouched baritone tenor and alto sax that are sitting there. They’re there because they remind me that I can’t play them as well as I used to be able to. For 20 years, I’ve been saying I’m going of really get my technique back because it would be fun to do. And there they sit taunting me in the corner. We pulled them out and we just started fucking around really, led with Atticus arranging. I was just kind of going, an hour performance kind of turned into this thing that felt like we hadn’t been there before and that started to reveal a whole different character. The space changed and then we felt motivated. When it came time to sing I was really just trying things out, just to see. I never had the courage to sing like that, I didn’t know I could sing.
