Nine Inch Nails Quotes
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I've watched with a kind of wary eye how gaming has progressed. I was there at the beginning with Pong in the arcade, and a lot of my great childhood memories were around a 'Tempest' machine.
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Though I still have no semblance of a life outside of Nine Inch Nails at the moment, I realize my goals have gone from getting a record deal or selling another record to being a better person, more well-rounded, having friends, having a relationship with somebody.
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There's always been an element of 'right time, right place' to Nine Inch Nails. When we stepped onstage at Woodstock '94, I could sense it. I get goosebumps thinking about it now. Like, 'I don't know how we did this, but somehow we've touched a nerve.'
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I'd never want to be Gene Simmons, an old man who puts on makeup to entertain kids, like a clown going to work.
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One of the biggest wake-up calls of my career was when I saw a record contract. I said, 'Wait - you sell it for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it and then you own it?'
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I think my music's more disturbing than Tupac's - or at least I thought some of the themes of 'The Downward Spiral' were more disturbing on a deeper level - you know, issues about suicide and hating yourself and God and people and everything else.
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I watch people, friends of mine, and see how they portray themselves online and I find interesting that it's kind of a hyper-real version of yourself, how you'd like to be seen, in a way.
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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.
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Jumping through any hoop or taking advantage of any desperate situation that comes up just to sell a product is harmful. It is.
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I wanted to escape Small Town U.S.A. To dismiss the boundaries, to explore. My life experience came from watching movies, TV, and reading books and magazines. When your culture comes from watching TV everyday, you're bombarded with images of things that seem cool, places that seem interesting, people who have jobs and careers and opportunities.
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In my life, I was always floating around the edge of the dark side and saying what if take it a little bit too far, and who says you have to stop there, and what's behind the next door. Maybe you gain a wisdom from examining those things. But after a while, you get too far down in the quicksand.
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My music, I hope, takes 100% of your concentration. I know how to do that.
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The music I always liked as a kid was stuff I could bum out to and realize, 'Hey, someone else feels that way, too.' So if someone can do that with my music, it's mission accomplished.
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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.
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I think there's something strangely musical about noise.
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I'm sure there is a group of people that assume Nine Inch Nails is just noise and chaos - or whatever it might be dismissed as, and sometimes is.
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I realized that I was afraid to really, really try something, 100%, because I had never reached true failure.
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I believe sometimes you have a choice in what inspiration you choose to follow and other times you really don't.
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I do remember my first purchase: the Partridge Family's 'Greatest Hits.' I got it for $3.99 at a failed chain of pre-Wal-Mart-type stores called Jamesway. God, I'm old.
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Personally, I do the best work with people I'm closest with. I know what their tastes are, and they are similar to mine. That close personal relationship is what delivers the best work.
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My advice today, to established acts and new-coming acts, is the same advice I'd give to myself: pause for a minute, and really think about 'What is your goal? Where do you see yourself?'
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My experience with record labels throughout my career has generally fallen into wishing I could do things that they're not built to do, whether it be arguing about having a nicer package - because I do believe some people care about that - to trying to always bank on art-versus-the-easy-commerce route; there's always been headbutting involved.
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I would love to be looked at some day - and I'm not ever saying I'm at this level - but I'd love to be mentioned in the same breath as a Bowie or an Eno. Those are the people that I admire artistically, their career trajectory, the integrity throughout their career, the bravery of their career.
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I spent a long time experimenting, saying, 'Here's a record that's free, or $5 if you want a nice version or $250 if you'd like a really nice coffee-table thing.' Everything felt like the right thing to do at the time and then six months later would feel tired. And I would feel tired. So that's one reason for returning to a major label.