Trent Reznor Loves Downloads
By JJJ for 03-10-08 on March 10, 2008
TRENT REZNOR LOVES DOWNLOADS
Last year Trent Reznor told Aussies to steal his music. This year he's asking you to pay. The Nine Inch Nails frontman was fuming when he saw his record Year Zero selling for 35 bucks. He blamed his label telling Aussie fans to punish them by downloading his music without paying. Now he's ditched Interscope records and is trying to find his feet as an independent artist. His first release is Ghosts I-IV a 36 track instrumental work. Instead of just getting it into stores Reznor is giving fans the option of how they want to hear it. The range includes free samples, a US download and for the deep wallets an ultra deluxe edition costing US three hundred bucks. That includes a cd, dvd, vinyl, art work and a Reznor autograph. Trent Reznor says none of this would have been possible if he was still on a major label. Interview by Michael Atkin from JJJ's Hack program.
TR: Weâd finish the record, and if I were to go to them and say âhey, Iâd like to make something that has a nice hardbound book and I like it to fit, something you could sit on your coffee table and it held itâs own with the nicest things youâd find in the nicest high end art book stores, there would be a number of reasons why that wouldnât make financial sense and, you know, record labels sell plastic disks to record shops and theyâre not concerned about aesthetics, and if things donât have an easy to identify target demographic then theyâre not interested in doing that, and I understand thatâs the business theyâre in. Iâm proud of the way weâve presented this record and Iâm proud of the way that weâve treated the fan and ourselves in the process. It feels like, finally, thereâs not some jerk in a record label saying no, and then not paying you at the end of the day.
JJJ: You had some problems with the website going down when people first started downloading, do you know why that happened? Was it just because of the volume?
TR: Iâve been through this with a few different web developers and, I mean, just to be frank, we got caught with our pants down when it was so much more than we thought it was going to be. I added the player aspect where you could listen to tracks and then I also insisted that the quality, the fidelity, of that was pretty high, so that was a huge hit of bandwidth, but those who should have been paying attention to that aspect of it kind of didnât pay as much attention, so streaming high quality music on top of the only type of downloads that we offer were of the highest fidelity. So, comparing that to say a Radiohead download our smallest download was, I think, six times bigger than theirs. All of itâs an excuse because it should have been dealt with, is the bottom line, and I apologise for that.
JJJ: You mentioned Radiohead then, did you wait to see what happened with them before you went in to this?
TR: No. I think what they did was a cool thing, I think that the way theyâve kind of parleyed that in to a marketing gimmick has certainly been shrewd, I think that at the end of the day if you look at what they did though was very much a bait and switch; letâs get you to pay for a MySpace quality stream as a way to promote a very traditional record sale. Thereâs nothing wrong with that, but I donât see that as being the revolution that theyâre kinda getting credit for.
JJJ:So you think they didnât look after fans enough by making that download a high quality?
TR:What they did right? They surprised the world with a new record and it was available digitally first. What they did wrong? By making it such a low quality thing, not even including artwork and including things theyâve even said themselves say the proper way to get this record is on a CD and thatâs coming out in a few months, and to me that feels insincere. It relies upon the fact it was, you know, quote en quote âfirstâ and it takes the headlines with it.
JJJ:Letâs talk about how Ghosts is going. The ultra deluxe edition, the first part of that is sold out, and the five-dollar download is still number one at the moment on Amazon.com. This is your chance to prove the doubters in the music industry wrong, can you tell me how many copies youâve sold?
TR: Uhh, I would if I knew. Iâm out of town right now so I havenât even been in touch with the actual figures. After the first day I heard some scattered figures, and Iâm not trying to avoid the question, I honestly donât know.
JJJ: Critics of this sort of approach say that itâs only possible for artists, like yourself, that have a massive profile, what would you say to that?
TR: Well I think thatâs a fair critique, and Iâll tell you another level thatâs not impossible to add is that being able to put out this record like we have has cost me money to develop the website to do it.
JJJ: Can you tell us how much you had to spend on that?
TR: Well the development of the site was in the twenty thousand plus range, the digital model of paying for our bandwidth, which is a big burden, and the upkeep, and customer service, and credit card processing crap and all the things that has nothing to do with music. But, to answer youâre question before, certainly itâs easier for a band that has a reputation and has some interest.
JJJ: Do you think the major label has a cause to feel a bit hard done by cause theyâve spent all this money promoting you while you were on their label to give you this profile and now youâre using it to have freedom and to make money off it now?
TR: I mean thatâs a fair point that you make, but youâre leaving out of the equation my relationship with the record label, in particular Interscope Records from 1991 to 2007 was one where they lent me money, when I paid that money back they owned that record, they make the lionâs share of the sales of the profit of that record. If you look at my bottom line at the time that Iâve been at Interscope theyâve made more money off Nine Inch Nails than Trent Reznor has. I will never shed a tear to see that dynasty crumble, itâs long overdue.
JJJ: Do you think the major labels now will adapt to this digital world? Theyâre starting to negotiate with the download sites to broker deals.
TR: I really donât know. The level of ineptitude Iâve seen displayed at major labels is stunning. The people in charge of a lot of the digital technologies and the aspects that are decimating their business, that Iâve seen, are people that seem to not even be on the internet, might have an AOL email account. I mean for them to right now in 2008 be considering brokering deals with download sites itâs like, youâre five years too late.