10 Things We Learned from Trent Reznor’s How to Destroy Angels Reddit AMA

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All four members of Trent Reznor’s How to Destroy Angels project took to Reddit yesterday for an hour-long Ask Me Anything session, and the result was a wide-ranging and occasionally testy discussion about the band’s music, upcoming live shows and long-term plans. We’ve read the whole damn thing and pulled out the band’s most interesting and revealing responses. If you’re interested in knowing what HTDA’s live show is going to look like, or why they put an underscore after their name — or just why Reznor saw fit to call one of his fans the C-word — click through and all will be revealed.

1. Trent Reznor does not like being asked why he’s signed to a record label instead of giving his music away for free: “Sorry, the wifi on our yacht is having issues, we can’t get your full question to load. Try sending me an email at gofuckyourself@youcunt.com”

2. Trent Reznor does not care if you play an instrument (and he likes The Knife): “I don’t really care if you can play an instrument or not. I don’t think that’s a mandatory skill required to make music that can connect with people. I do think computers have made it easy to make lazy music that sounds nice. I find a fair amount of what’s championed today feels to me like it falls in that category — much more fashion than substance. There’s also a lot of current music I think is great … The Knife is a good example.”

3. Trent Reznor believes talcum powder is not as good as cornstarch: “That’s not an awesome idea. Douse yourself in it, run around screaming and sweating for a couple hours (preferably drunk) and see what happens. Stick with the Argo.”

4. You can most likely bring your camera to their shows, but they’d rather you didn’t: “Our intention is for an open camera policy, but we haven’t dived into specifics with the venues yet, so I don’t want to make any guarantees. In the case of this show, I think if you are able to see it in person you should go in blind. It’s going to be a difficult thing to convey on video (although we’ll try our best for the Coachella live stream).”

5. Where such shows might be, however, is still uncertain: “This is an answer to every ‘Are you coming to city/country X’ question: We don’t know. With NIN tour plans falling into place, future HTDA tour dates are completely up in the air, and not something we are directly in control of right now. The HTDA production is a complicated one to move around, so we’ll just have to see how this first run of dates goes and take it from there.”

6. The band won’t be playing any of Reznor and Ross’s soundtrack material: “Are there any plans to incorporate … The Social Network / The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo material into the live set? No.”

7. How to Destroy Angels is an ongoing project: “HTDA is definitely not over. We’ll continue to work on it as long as it’s fun and rewarding to do so.”

8. The underscore after their name (which they style as “How to destroy angels_”) was Reznor’s idea: “I’d like to work my way up to an umlaut, but I wanted to ease into it.”

9. You may well be able to get your hands on some of the album stems in due course: “There will be multitracks. We’re just figuring out the best way to put them out there… The record label has suggested using indabamusic.com as a way to have an organized remix contest — thoughts on that site? We’re not familiar with it. Other ideas?” [After a healthy discussion with fans as to the merits of various options] “Based on the overall comments here, I think we’re sold on Indaba. I’m going to get into more specifics with the label.”

10. Trent Reznor is good at video games: “It’s true. He’s untouchable at the dual-stick shooters like that and Robotron.”