(Photo credit: Reuters)Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have revealed a number of exciting new projects in the works, including a new Nine Inch Nails album, a music festival, and their own production company.
The duo spoke to Zach Baron for GQ’s annual Creativity Issue. While much of the interview covers the backstory of Reznor and Ross’ friendship and creative partnership, there are also a few anecdotes about what’s next. Notably, after spending the last several years scoring films, Reznor and Ross seem ready to make a new Nine Inch Nails album.
“I think coming out of a stretch of a number of films in a row, I want some time of seeing where the wind blows versus: There’s a looming date on a calendar coming up and we better get our shit together,” Reznor explained. “And certainly in the last few weeks I’ve been itching to do what we often do, which is just come in and let’s start something that we’re not even sure what it’s for.”
He added that doing soundtrack work has “managed to make Nine Inch Nails feel way more exciting than it had been in the past few years. I’d kind of let it atrophy a bit in my mind for a variety of reasons.”
Ross expressed similar sentiments, saying, “I do feel excited about starting on the next [NIN] record. I think we’re in a place now where we kind of have an idea.”
Nine Inch Nails most recently released a collection of ambient instrumental music, Ghosts V: Together and Ghosts VI: Locusts, in 2020. Their last album with lyrics came in 2018 with Bad Witch.
Beyond a new Nine Inch Nails record, Reznor and Ross are launching their own production house / storytelling company called With Teeth. “We’ve been working on homegrown IP around Nine Inch Nails, stories we could tell, and we’re working on developing those in a way that are not what you think they’d be,” they explained.
Among those projects: a TV show with The Bear creator Christopher Storer; a film with horror director Mike Flanagan; a clothing line called Memory Fades; and a collaboration with Epic Games involving the UEFN ecosystem Epic has built around Fortnite. If that weren’t enough, the duo are also planning to launch their own record company, and a music festival, “where we’re going to debut as performing as composers along with a roster of other interesting people.”
The company and the various projects associated with it were at least partially inspired by a visit with David Lynch a few years back. “And I don’t know how old he was at the time,” Ross recounted, “but he was older. But just walking in there, and he had the room set up and there’s a screen there, there’s some chairs here and there’s some musical instruments there and he’s smoking a cigarette. There’s nothing old about that dude. You know what I mean?”
As Ross sees it, their new-found responsibilities are a way to keep his inner child alive.
Or, as Reznor noted: “Let’s try some stuff. We’re bored. We are. You know what I mean? We’re grateful. We enjoy doing films. We can write a better Nine Inch Nails record, I think. We can put on a cooler tour. We are aimed to do that. But man, what if we try to do that?” Meaning, the company. ‘What if we could take what we’re good at, like we did with film? We identified something I think we’re good at and we figured out how to apply it to something else. What if we take that theory and try it on some other things? And that’s led us into: We’re not beaten down completely yet. And it feels exciting. That’s what matters to us right now.’”
You can read the full article here.
(Consequence)
