Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor reacted to backlash from Taylor Swift fans for criticizing her and other artists for not speaking out more about what is happening in the world in a new Kerrang interview. He also responded to someone who said he was ‘attacking’ women like Swift with his comments.
“My point being that there are many, many artists that are far more successful and relevant to youth than me in 2018.”
“Over the years I have learned that if you have influence and you feel strongly about something, then maybe it’s your civic cultural duty to speak. My point in bringing this up isn’t to re-articulate this, but there’s a real concern about careers and the consequences of having a voice, which feels, to me, at odds with being an artist in general.”
“The difficulty of doing promotional press,” he says, leaning forwarding and fixing Kerrang right in the eyes, “is that I feel we’re having a conversation, a discussion, in which some relevant points are made, and some stupid shit comes along, too. It’s not the fault of the New York Times piece itself, but the other 50 articles that reference it, with headlines like ‘Trent Reznor slams Taylor Swift.’ It goes around the room and suddenly I’m like, ‘I said what?!’ It’s pointless to try to explain, particularly to the angry mob.”
“They’re not interested [in an explanation].”
“I saw someone ask, ‘Why are you attacking women?’ I thought, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’”
