Trent Reznor has finally opened up about Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’, which famously sampled Nine Inch Nails and gave him his first-ever appearance atop the US charts.
For most of this year, the music world has had their attention firmly fixed upon Lil Nas X and his hit single ‘Old Town Road’.
A crossover mix of country and rap, the tune had a rocky start on the charts, but soon managed to rise to the top, staying there for a record-breaking 19 weeks, and breaking the previous record by an amazing three weeks.
However, attention also quickly turned to Trent Reznor, due to the fact that the song’s main instrumentation is heavily borrowed from Nine Inch Nails’s ’34 Ghosts IV’, which resulted in Reznor not only receiving his first-ever credit at the top of the charts, but also scoring himself a nomination for the Country Music Association awards.
Strangely though, Reznor has remained relatively quiet in regards to the matter until now, sharing little more than just an Instagram post acknowledging his nomination.
However, in a new interview with Rolling Stone, Reznor has broken his silence, discussing the usage of the sample, and how shocked he was at first hearing the song.
Check out ’34 Ghosts IV’ by Nine Inch Nails:
“At first, when you hear your stuff turned into something else, it always feels awkward because it’s something that intimately came from you in some way,” Reznor explained.
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Comparing it to hearing Johnny Cash covering his stark tale of addiction, ‘Hurt’, Reznor notes the entire experience felt strange, but that he ultimately felt that Lil Nas X did a good job on the end result.
“You feel a little bit violated, you know?” Reznor joked. “And then you get over that, and you realize it has become something else, and the Johnny Cash thing is incredible. It’s very flattering.”
“The way it was presented to me originally is I got a call from my management saying, ‘We got a call from a panicked manager saying they had used the sample of something off Ghosts,’” Trent Reznor recalled.
“‘They should have cleared it, but it didn’t get cleared. It’s picking up some steam on the viral Spotify charts. What do you think about that?’ And I said, ‘Look, I’m fine with it. I get how stuff goes. They’re not saying they didn’t sample it. Just work it out, but don’t be a roadblock to this.’
“I hadn’t heard it yet. Then a few weeks later, I was like, ‘Holy shit.’”
Check out Johnny Cash covering ‘Hurt’:
Of course, for fans who had wondered just why Reznor hadn’t spoken up yet, the Nine Inch Nails frontman explained that he didn’t want to take away from any of the publicity that the song was receiving.
“The reason I haven’t stepped in to comment anything about it is, I don’t feel it’s my place to play any kind of social critic to that,” he explained. “It was a material that was used in a significant way and it turned into something that became something else, and those guys should be the ones the spotlight is on.
“They asked if I wanted to do a cameo in the video, and it was flattering, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I don’t feel like it’s my place to shine a light on me for that. I say that with complete respect.”
“Having been listed on the credits of the all-time, Number One whatever-the-fuck-it-is wasn’t something…I didn’t see that one coming,” he says. “But the world is full of weird things that happen like that.
“It’s flattering. But I don’t feel it’s for me to step in there and pat myself on the back for that.”
In related news, Nine Inch Nails recently received another nomination for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. However, considering Reznor’s statement that he “couldn’t give less of a shit” about the honour, we don’t think he’ll be following that too closely.
Check out ‘Old Town Road’ by Lil Nas X:
