Came across this really interesting interview with Trent Reznor, the mastermind of Nine Inch Nails. It’s chock full of goodies. First, in a refreshing bout of honesty he calls file sharing stealing, but then admits that he does it too:

But on this record, I know people have it and I know it’s on everybody’s iPods, but the climate is such that people don’t buy it because it’s easier to steal it…. I understand that — I steal music too, I’m not gonna say I don’t. But it’s tough not to resent people for doing it when you’re the guy making the music, that would like to reap a benefit from that. On the other hand, you got record labels that are doing everything they can to piss people off and rip them off.

Next, he blasts his label because they were pricing his latest release, ‘Year Zero’, considerably higher than other releases:

[They said], basically it’s because we know you’ve got a core audience that’s gonna buy whatever we put out, so we can charge more for that. It’s the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy it. True fans will pay whatever”. And I just said “That’s the most insulting thing I’ve heard. I’ve garnered a core audience that you feel it’s OK to rip off? F— you’… They’re thieves. I don’t blame people for stealing music if this is the kind of s— that they pull off.

He also goes on to say that he came up with and funded out his own pocket, the online promotion for ‘Year Zero’, and now the record labels are playing it off as though it was their own idea.

He even mentions that this is his last album on his current contract with the label and that he’d like to release his own material through his website, which, by the way, I think would be a great idea. All it would take is one major artist like Reznor to do this, sell 200-300 thousand copies and the whole market would blow wide open when other artists realize that at those (relatively) smaller numbers they make 3-4 times as much as they currently do and they have total control.

Very interesting indeed! Check it out.

Full article here.