Trent Reznor has long thought very little of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but he’s recently changed his tune.
Reznor said in a new interview with Forbes that inducting The Cure during the 2019 Rock Hall ceremony helped him come around.
“I get asked to do the Cure, induct them, and I love the Cure. And I wanted them to be inducted properly. I thought I could do a good job, went there. As I was in the audience, sitting there, it felt kind of cool in the audience,” said Reznor. “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 bulls–t.’ As we’re there it kind of wasn’t bulls–t.”
Reznor continued, “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 bulls–t as I kind of snarkily dismissed it as.’ I don’t have any problem admitting I’ve changed my opinion about something.”
It’s a good thing he doesn’t have a problem with changing his mind, especially since Nine Inch Nails is nominated alongside 15 other artists for the 2020 class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. However, NIN currently ranks 10th in the Rock Hall fan vote, which lasts through January 10, 2020 at 11:59 PM EST. The top five artists from the fan vote will make up the “fans’ ballot” and be counted among the other ballots from the Rock Hall voting committee. Fans can vote for artists in three different ways:
-By searching “Vote Rock Hall 2020” or any nominee name plus “vote” on Google to cast a vote
-By voting at RockHall.com
-By voting in person at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland
2020 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees
