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Trent Reznor Explains What Sucks About Nine Inch Nails’ Festival Set Times

LOS ANGELES, CA - JULY 23: Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails performs onstage on day 3 of FYF Fest 2017 at Exposition Park on July 23, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for FYF)

The Village Voice has an enjoyable new interview with Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor, by veteran rock journalist Lizzy Goodman. By the tone of the piece, Reznor was in good spirits and eager to pierce his own myth as the clench-jawed spokesperson for the gothy and disaffected of America–it opens with him wondering aloud whether drinking apricot LaCroix will “harm my credibility.”

The whole thing is worth reading, but the biggest chuckle comes when Reznor lightheartedly gripes about his band’s performance schedule on multiple summer festival bills–a late-night Sunday set he dubs the “Chili Peppers slot.” From the Voice:

Those included a headlining slot July 23 at FYF in L.A., where NIN — as an act “in the dying genre and the oldest people on the bill” — played what Reznor calls “the Chili Peppers slot”: Sunday night, 10:45; and at Panorama, where he is set to take the stage at a similar hour on July 30. “I know what I’m doing at that point in a festival. I’m thinking” — the singer mimes looking at his watch — “ ‘If I leave now, I can miss traffic.’ Nobody wants that. I mean, it’s an honor to be asked to do it, but it’s a pretty immediate mirror to find out where you’re at.”

NIN just released the good-to-great EP ADD VIOLENCE, and though they’re coming back from a multiple-year stretch between shows, they have a reputation as a killer live act. Curious Panorama attendees would do well to stick around and see them after A Tribe Called Quest and Justice on Sunday. Traffic won’t be that bad.