The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced its latest class on January 15. The six 2020 inductees are Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, T. Rex, Whitney Houston, The Doobie Brothers, and Notorious B.I.G.
The third nomination turned out to be the charm for NIN and mastermind Trent Reznor. The industrial band was previously nominated for the class of 2015 and 2016.
“A sincere THANK YOU goes out to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame voting body — it always feels great to be recognized for your artistic efforts and I am honored,” Reznor said in a statement obtained by Billboard. “Many congratulations to this year’s fellow inductees (DM finally!) — see you back in Cleveland where it all began for me!”
The “DM” Reznor was referring to is fellow 2020 class inductees Depeche Mode.
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“We’re honoured to be included as one of this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, and to stand alongside the other incredible acts in the Rock Hall and those joining this year,” the synthpop band tweeted. “A huge thank you to everyone who has supported us an d our music over the years.”
We’re honoured to be included as one of this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, and to stand alongside the other incredible acts in the Rock Hall and those joining this year. A huge thank you to everyone who has supported us and our music over the years. #RockHall2020 pic.twitter.com/YV2UV8F7Fi
— Depeche Mode (@depechemode) January 15, 2020
The NIN frontman previously didn’t have the highest opinion of the Rock Hall. In a 2018 interview with Stereogum, Reznor declared that he “honestly couldn’t give less of a shit” about not being nominated for the class of 2017, 2018, or 2019 despite two previous nods. “I saw somebody write something online or comment on Twitter like, ‘What could be less rock and roll than the fuckin’ Hall of Fame.’ And that is authentically how I feel about it,” he said at the time.
But attending the March 2019 ceremony, where he inducted The Cure into the Rock Hall, helped change his mind. “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 people,” he told Forbes. “Then I walk out to do the introduction. 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,” he added. “It ended up being a pretty cool experience and I thought, ‘All right, it doesn’t feel as bullshit as I kind of snarkily dismissed it as. I don’t have any problem admitting I’ve c hanged my opinion about something.”
The induction ceremony is set for May 2nd at the Public Auditorium in Cleveland, Ohio, and will be broadcast live on HBO.
