Trent Reznor Quotes

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Trent Reznor

Profession : Musician

Birth : May 17, 1965

You can punch a wall or write a song. Just as painful either way, but you have something to show for it at the end of the day with a song.

Trent Reznor

I realized when I was 23 that I had never really tried anything.

Trent Reznor

The idea of politics is just so uninteresting to me - I've never paid much attention to it. I don't believe things can really change. It doesn't matter who's president. Nothing really gets resolved. I don't know. I guess that's not the right attitude to take.

Trent Reznor

Nine Inch Nails was born out of Cleveland, Ohio, with me and a friend in a studio working on demos at night. Got a record deal with a small, little label, went on tour in a van, and a couple years later found that somehow we touched a nerve, and that first record resonated with a bunch of people.

Trent Reznor

Bow down before the one you serve, you're going to get what you deserve.

Trent Reznor

It probably wasn't until Nine Inch Nails played the first Lollapalooza that I actually went to a festival.

Trent Reznor

The 'Downward Spiral' album was a record all about beating everybody up - and then 'Hurt' was like a coda saying maybe I shouldn't have done that. But to make the song sound impenetrable because I thought it was a little too vulnerable, I tried to layer it in noise.

Trent Reznor

Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is, 'Oh, I'm on stage playing a song,' because you're daydreaming about something else, you're on autopilot. You have to fight that.

Trent Reznor

The dynamic of a relationship changes when one person gets sober.

Trent Reznor

I think there's something strangely musical about noise.

Trent Reznor

I feel uncomfortable because I'm insecure about who I am.

Trent Reznor

When I was growing up, rock & roll helped give me my sense of identity, but I had to search for it.

Trent Reznor

Sometimes we pee on each other before we go on stage.

Trent Reznor

I foolishly thought that if I just 'made it' then everything would be okay. And everything wasn't okay.

Trent Reznor

It's not like I ride a broom into interviews. I don't hang upside down with a cape on.

Trent Reznor

To me, rock music was never meant to be safe. I think there needs to be an element of intrigue, mystery, subversiveness. Your parents should hate it.

Trent Reznor

I think the whole aspect of social networking is vulgar and repulsive in a lot of ways. But I also see why it's appealing - I've had that little high you get from posting stuff online. But then you think, 'Did I need to say that?' I've explored that enough to know to stay kind of quiet these days.

Trent Reznor

I think the reason I was 23 before I ever wrote a song was that I was afraid of testing myself. What would I do if I discovered I didn't have anything to say?

Trent Reznor

When I'm writing music, I'm not playing a character. I'm not Alice Cooper or Gene Simmons or someone like that, who has acknowledged that they are writing music for a character.

Trent Reznor

I had to come to terms about becoming an addict, which, for a long time, I lied to myself about the status of until I couldn't lie any more, 'cause I was either going to die or get better.

Trent Reznor