Trent Reznor has long been an outspoken critic of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but he’s had a change of heart.
When Stereogum asked about Nine Inch Nails not receiving a nod, Reznor slated the ceremony, “I honestly couldn’t give less of a shit.”
“I saw somebody write something online or comment on Twitter like, ‘What could be less rock and roll than the fuckin’ Hall Of Fame?’ And that is authentically how I feel about it.
“I’ll say this: It’s nice to be appreciated. It’s nicer when it feels like that’s coming from a place that you care about. Like, a Grammy doesn’t mean a fuckin’ thing. It means a few assholes in a room that are trying to make a TV show have good ratings deciding, ‘Let’s give it to this guy.’ It doesn’t feel like it has any meaning behind it.”
Watch: Trent Reznor Induct The Cure at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
However, after inducting goth daddy’s The Cure into the Rock Hall, Reznor changed his tune about the whole debacle — admitting that receiving the honour would be “cool.”
“I get asked to do the Cure, induct them, and I love the Cure. And I wanted them to be inducted properly,” he explained in a new interview with Forbes.
“As I was in the audience, sitting there, it felt kind of cool in the audience. So I’m sitting at a table with the Radiohead guys, super nice, and I think we all kind of looked at it like, ‘This could be bullshit.
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“As we’re there it kind of wasn’t bullshit. We’re watching Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music get inducted, who I love, and then play. And I see a whole arena full of people into it.
“I walk backstage cause the Cure’s gonna come up. I go out and do my thing and I’m not sure if the Cure is gonna resonate with the audience, the audience I see sitting on the floor there is mostly old industry people. Then I walk out to do the induction, it’s loud applause for them and it seems real.
“They come up and I can see that Robert Smith is happy and the other guys in the band are all kind of freaked out. It felt validating. I wanted to see them respected someplace I feel they deserve.”
“It ended up being a pretty cool experience and I thought, ‘Alright, it doesn’t feel as bullshit as I kind of snarkily dismissed it as'”, Reznor concluded. “I don’t have any problem admitting I’ve changed my opinion about something.”
