Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor mocked Ashton Kutcher being called a ‘tech genius’ in a new Vulture interview.
“My experience with Beats Music, and then at Apple largely was dismissed from outside, maybe justifiably, as here’s another celebrity moron holding up a phone and expecting some sort of credit. That kind of situation, which mine isn’t, would be insulting to the people that actually are doing the important jobs. And I don’t want to hear about ‘Ashton Kutcher’s a fucking tech genius.’ I don’t give a shit about that. He seems like an asshole.”
He also discussed his issues with musicians openly discussing having sponsors.
“I’ve thought about this a lot and I don’t have a good answer. I’ll try and piece together a theory with you right now: Something that’s struck me as a significant shift, and I don’t know when it started, is when the corporate entity became a benefactor as opposed to a thing musicians shunned. When I hear Grizzly BearThe Brooklyn indie-rock group’s 2010 song “Two Weeks” was used in a Volkswagen commercial. The previous year, the same song was used in a Peugeot spot. in a Volkswagen commercial, it kind of bums me out. I like Grizzly Bear a lot; I don’t want to think of a fucking car when I hear their song. But somewhere along the line it became okay to get in bed with a sponsor. More specifically it became okay for rock bands to talk about. When I started to hear musicians talking about their sponsorship deals as something to be almost proud of, it bothered me.
I remember having a conversation with a well-known EDMDespite a slippery and debatable definition, EDM has generally come to serve as an umbrella term for beat-driven electronic music made for dancing. artist. Half of the brief conversation was him humblebragging about how many corporate sponsors he’s got: I can’t do this thing because I don’t want to piss that sponsor off and I can’t do that thing because I need to make sure this other sponsorship deal stays in place. That’s not what the spirit of being a musician or a rock star is. Why are these people even making music? I’m doing it because I have to get something out and I feel vital when it resonates with someone else. When I can get paid, too, that’s a nice consequence.”
