Nine Inch Nails‘ frontman Trent Reznor has revealed that at the height of his drug addiction in the ’90s, he turned to none other than David Bowie for advice on getting sober, with the rock-and-roll superstar acting as mentor, big brother, friend and shaman to the industrial vocalist.
48-year-old Reznor has now been clean for more than a decade, but told The Guardian that the making of the outfit’s iconic 1994 album The Downward Spiral took a mental toll on him, exacerbating his drug and alcohol addiction. When Nine Inch Nails undertook a co-headlining tour with Bowie in 1995, Reznor sought out his advice:
“It reminds me, when I was in the throes of that [addiction] was when we toured with Bowie, and this was the Bowie that had come out the other side and was happily married. I was nearing the peak of my addiction, and his role to me was kind of mentor, big brother, friend, and also he’d give me kind of shamanish advice.”
The singer also said that the band’s upcoming album Hesitation Marks is a companion to The Downward Spiral, reflecting the other side of his journey to sobriety:
“The despair and loneliness and rage and isolation and the not-fitting-in aspect that still is in me, but I can express that in a way that feels more appropriate to who I am now. And often that rage is quieter.”
Hesitation Marks, the eighth studio effort from Nine Inch Nails, is released in Australia on Friday, 30th August, but if you can’t wait that long, get up to speed on the new material the band has been debuting live, like Disappointed, Find My Way and Copy A.
(via NME)
