The Soundwave 2014 lineup is set to expand next month, as a second round of bands join Green Day, Avenged Sevenfold, Megadeth, and more on the 50+ strong lineup. But it’s going to need some major names to impress Trent Reznor, who thinks that the “bill sucked” enough to turn down an offer to play the event.
The ringleader’s revitalised Nine Inch Nails were heavily rumoured as headliners for the Soundwave 2014 lineup earlier this year, but come announcement time, NIN were nowhere to be found. Later, some snarky statements from festival promoter AJ Maddah emerged, slagging off Reznor and co. in several biting tweets.
“Sadly Trent wants to be mainstream now and reach Justin Timberlake’s audience,” Maddah told one disappointed fan about the band’s Soundwave snub, while telling another they had disappeared “up their own arse sadly.”
“Yeah, I caught some wind of that,” the 48-year-old Reznor tells News Ltd in a new interview. “He seems like a pretty cool guy,” adds the 48-year-old industrial rock pioneer sarcastically, elaborating frankly on his reasons for turning down Soundwave’s (and Maddah’s) offer.
Adding: “I’m trying to make the best music I can, hoping that it is expansive and challenging. How that got misconstrued into I’m trying to be – what was it, Justin Timberlake?”
“OK … A better way of saying it is, ‘I think your bill sucked and I’d rather not be on that bill’,” adds Reznor. “That’s a much more truthful way of saying it.” “A better way of saying it is, ‘I think your bill sucked and I’d rather not be on that bill’.” – Trent Reznor
Back in August, Reznor gave a more democratic response to his fanbase, while teasing plans for a forthcoming Nine Inch Nails tour. “Australia: we love you and we’re coming. Didn’t feel Soundwave was the right vibe for us or our fans – working on a better scenario,” wrote Reznor in August. That “better scenario” turned out to be a massive co-headline tour with Queens Of The Stone Age next March.
“I didn’t even have to think about it,” the Nine Inch Nails linchpin says today, “And, just to address the Soundwave thing … what I think about is, as a fan, would I want to go see Nine Inch Nails on that bill? I wouldn’t go see Nine Inch Nails on that bill. But I’d be excited to see ’em with Queens.”
Presented by the Frontier Touring Company, the March co-headline tour will feature NIN and QOTSA side-by-side, no great surprise given that Joshua Homme and Trent Reznor have worked closely together several times before, most recently on this year’s Like Clockwork… album, Reznor just one of the many all-star cameos on the record.
Whie Homme and his desert rock troupe are headed Down Under off the back of their sixth and latest release, Reznor is touring off of Nine Inch Nails’ comeback record, Hesitation Marks – in which the 48-year-old – in the words of our Tone Deaf reviewer – “doesn’t need the fury and aggression any more; he’s found smarter and more interesting ways to sound majestically menacing.”
Some fans have taken issue with the sleeker, sinister but less roaring sound of the new record, especially given Reznor had telegraphed it would harken back to his bleak, abrasive 1994 masterpiece, The Downward Spiral, but the results are similar only in concept, not in sonics.
“I’m certain I disappointed some fans that I didn’t make Downward Spiral Part Seven, and that I’m not still actively in addiction and I’m not ready to kill myself. I can understand that,” Reznor tells News Ltd. “But at the same time I’m not regretting who I am now. If I were to try to make (music) like that it would be immediately debunked as being false, insincere, pointless.”
Nine Inch Nails And Queens Of The Stone Age Co-Headline Australian Tour 2014
With Special Guest Brody Dalle
Thu 6 Mar – Sydney | Entertainment Centre
Ticketek 132 849 or www.ticketek.com.au
Sat 8 Mar – Newcastle | Entertainment Centre
Ticketek 132 849 or www.ticketek.com.au
Tue 11 Mar – Perth | Arena
Ticketek 132 849 or www.ticketek.com.au
Thu 13 Mar – Adelaide | AEC Arena
Ticketek 132 849 or www.ticketek.com.au
Fri 14 Mar – Melbourne | Rod Laver Arena
Ticketek 132 849 or www.ticketek.com.au
Mon 17 Mar – Brisbane | Entertainment Centre
Ticketek 132 849 or www.ticketek.com.au
Wed 19 Mar – Auckland | Vector Arena
Ticketmaster 0800 111 999 or www.ticketmaster.co.nz
Sat 22 Mar – Christchurch | CBS Canterbury Arena
Ticketek 0800 842 538 www.ticketek.co.nz
Frontier Members pre-sale via www.frontiertouring.com/ninqotsa
Tue 22 Oct (12pm local time) to Wed 23 Oct (12pm local time)
(or until pre-sale allocation in exhausted)
General public on sale from Thursday 24 October (9am local time)
