Trent Reznor Swipes at Prince, Rivers Cuomo in Fan Interview
Someone needs to give newly engaged rocker Trent Reznor his own talk show. After blasting Chris Cornell’s Timbaland-produced album Scream on Twitter in March, and even staging an elaborate April Fool’s hoax at the former Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman’s expense, the brains behind Nine Inch Nails is at it again, making more well-known frenemies through his online efforts.
In a recent Digg-related interview, Reznor answered fan questions, then he did a follow-up to respond to 10 more queries from his message board, reports TwentyFourBit. When asked whether there was a stockpile of unreleased NIN material, Reznor set his sights on Prince and Weezer’s frontman. “I’m not Prince or Rivers Cuomo, who brags about having hundreds of great songs,” Reznor replied. “And to that I would say, ‘Prince, if you have a hundred great songs or a thousand, how about picking a few and putting them on your record that you’ve put out, because your last several have sucked.’ Same for you, Rivers. I say that constructively, you know.”
Next, Reznor sort of reflected on his words and snickered, adding, “I may be happy and engaged but I can still be a prick.” This is the first time Reznor has publicly acknowledged his engagement to West Indian Girl’s Mariqueen Maandig.
Since fulfilling his contract with Interscope and becoming a free agent in October 2007, Reznor has communicated directly with fans via blog posts, Twitters and message-board chats almost exclusively. While still under contract in May 2007 Trent blogged about the record biz misunderstanding fans and overpricing albums. In March 2009, he instructed fans not to buy tickets from scalpers and criticized the secondary-ticket market. Earlier this week, Reznor angrily posted on the NIN message board when his iPhone application update was rejected by Apple: “You can buy The Downward Fucking Spiral on iTunes, but you can’t allow an iPhone app that may have a song with a bad word somewhere in it.”
In March, Reznor updated his more than 400,000 Twitter disciples with a pithy review of Cornell’s album, which sees the rocker trading in his guitar for a sampler. “You know that feeling you get when somebody embarrasses themselves so badly YOU feel uncomfortable? Heard Chris Cornell’s record? Jesus,” he wrote.
On April 1st, Reznor added salt to the wound, announcing on his Website that a new Tim-helmed Nails album, called Strobe Light, was on the way, and that it would include the songs “Everybody’s Doing It” (featuring Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Bono and Jay-Z), “Coffin On the Dancefloor,” “Even Closer” (featuring guest spots by Justin Timberlake and Tool’s Maynard James Keenan), “Laid, Paid and Played” (with Fergie and Ministry’s Al Jourgensen) and “Still Hurts,” which boasts a duet with Alicia Keys.
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