Trent Reznor on working with David Lynch as “The Nine Inch Nails” for Twin Peaks: The Return
Reznor spoke about the collaboration for the fifth anniversary of the "Gotta Light?" episode
TV Features Trent Reznor
Five years ago this summer, Twin Peaks returned with its third season after a quarter of a century wait. Among this batch of excellent episodes was one that not only stood out at the time but has gone on to gain a reputation as a landmark work for co-creator/director David Lynch: “Part 8" or “Gotta Light?”
Like the rest of the season, “Gotta Light?” included an in-universe musical performance by a band, which meant that “She’s Gone Away” by Nine Inch Nails—introduced in the episode as “The Nine Inch Nails—also ended up as an important part of the episode. In order to mark the fifth anniversary of its release, Fangoria spoke to Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor about his thoughts on “Gotta Light?” and working with Lynch in general.
Reznor had collaborated with the director (who he describes as “kind of a mythical creature”) before on both the Lost Highway soundtrack and NIN’s “Came Back Haunted” video. For The Return, Reznor received a call a few weeks ahead of filming that asked if he’d be interested in having NIN play in an episode with “no further information” about that episode provided.
Reznor and the group agreed and worked on a song that “ultimately became the music for ‘This Isn’t The Place’” under the impression that Lynch would want a song “that was a bit more broken down or open and David Lynch-ish,” Reznor told Scott Wampler. After hearing the track, though, Lynch asked for something “more menacing and unpleasant” instead, which resulted in NIN speedily writing and recording “She’s Gone Away.”
While filming their performance, J.R. Starr “kept fucking up [the line reading]” as the Roadhouse announcer, calling the band “The Nine Inch Nails,” which was funny enough that it stayed in the show. Following the shoot, Reznor was invited by Lynch to see the scene before it aired but was only shown the group’s performance so he “had no idea how that would fit into what was happening inside the show.” Lynch apparently said the decision wasn’t anything personal but that he had to “keep everything locked down.”
When Reznor did see the full episode on TV he said that calling it mind-blowing “would be a massive understatement.” He also lauded The Return in general, said that it was “incredibly flattering” to take part in the episode, and that he thinks back on the summer it aired as “a really magical time.”
Read the rest of the interview for more on Reznor and Twin Peaks or recognize five years since “Gotta Light?” in another way, like, say, staring blankly at a wall for a while while pondering the depths of human evil.
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23 Comments
I will die on this meaningless hill of the day: Using “gotta” as an abbreviation for “got a” instead of “got to” is madness
I would argue that it does help with the elision of the sounds if you’re looking more to write a dialect than to abbreviate.
I gotta lotta disdain for this madness.
Ya wanna fight over it?
I gottan urge to but gotta go
“Ya wanna fight over it?”
So, you just don’t understand what’s happening.
Ok so you don’t got a light
It works for both. They’re not abbreviations. I’ve seen them and other words of their ilk (“kinda”) referred to as relaxed pronunciations (or condensed pronunciation or even word slurs)
As a Brit, it doesn’t annoy me half as much as “gotten”. At least “gotta” doesn’t pretend to be a real word.
‘Gotten’ is a real word. It’s from Middle English ‘geten’, and it was used by both Chaucer (e.g., “for he woste wel she wolde nat ben geten…,” Legend of Good Women) and Shakespeare (e.g., “With much ado at length have gotten leave, To look upon my sometimes royal master’s face,” Richard III) in Early Modern English. It’s only in the late 17th century that it disappeared in your wretched island but flourished everywhere else.
Leave it to a Brit to not know what a ‘real word’ is in English.
Today in “AV Club is a gigantic piece of trash now”: posting about articles that are 4 days old at this point. What miserable G/O shits are forcing them to come up with this content?
What miserable g/o shits are forcing you to read any of this? Your complaint is tedious.
Did you seriously just simp for a corporation like that? How embarrassing.
No, I’m dragging you.
You clicked the article’s link and posted on it three times, which is exactly what G/O Media wanted you fucking moron.
You’re embarrassing yourself.
Right? Every single article has a string of complaints from members of “The Old Guard” of AV Club commentators (or AV Club Boomers if you will) talking about how great it used to be here ~10-15 years ago. Or simply pointing out every single miniscule spelling error and trashing the writers relentlessly.Are they wrong? No, but, it sure does get tiresome having to sift through that crap every single article to find a few golden nuggets to read in the comments. They contribute to the quality more than they care to admit. Usually the comment section is all we have here for substance.
Run along back to Rumble, inbreeder.
Is this meant to make any sense to me
You know you’re not forced to be here, right? You can always just leave and never come back. I think a lot of people would applaud that decision.
Hahaha I can’t believe the only three Kinja simps on the entire internet all found my comment. Incredible stuff
If you think “simp” is a real thing, you need to touch grass, you sad little child.
I don’t get it. If somebody used the slang or abbreviation or text slang as most of us do these days-Who cares????? I am interested in the article about Nine Inch Nails & understood it perfectly & I use dashes rather than periods & proper grammar when adding comments or texts to save space & quickly type what’s on my mind. I do remember about 15 years ago when for the 1st time I noticed an old friend messaged me on Facebook with terrible punctuation & full of slang & abbreviations & I called him out on it back then. Now 15years later it’s amazing to see how people go out of their way to talk about grammar online to a stranger. This is not a job interview or work or a professional document. Not to mention there are plenty of people who can’t spell very well & let’s not forget how many of our phones will ‘autocorrect what we correctly typed into nonsense & we don’t all feel the need to reread & spell check for autocorrect errors when posting a comment.
I never watched Twin Peaks but now I want to JUST FOR THIS EPISODE-does anyone know if I need to see all the previous seasons or can I skip to that 1 season or episode-Is it worth my time I wonder. Either way I’ll look into it to see NIN but if Trent was involved it’s probably something I’d like but I usually watch more Sci-fi & Supernatural type shows & I have no idea what genre Twin Peaks is. NIN is so underrated yet perform the BEST LIVE SHOWS I’ve seen online & I only discovered them last year & am a Huge fan & always listening to them & Still discovering new songs. My autocorrect keeps changing what I type so I’ll wrap it up here. If I used all proper punctuation this would be much longer by the way. I am trying VERY HARD to see them live this year & I begged for it & they are touring but I am in NY & the nearest venue was Ohio- now sold out & otherwise KY- over 900 miles away & no car- financial & medical issues & even though I know I can find a way to get a ticket & find my way there-It ls approaching fast & in the middle of big meds changes that my quality of life has gone to 0% after 10years in Pain Management & now no relief from pain plus new issues due to this & dental work I had started & need to complete but couldn’t continue with the RX changes & I hope these issues don’t prevent my seeing them in person in concert LIVE-. I will go alone if I have to but I need my teeth fixed properly before then. I feel it would be Positively life changing & inspiring seeing Trent live & will change my life for the better & be 1 thing for myself in years that I really want after not being able to even celebrate Holidays due to not being able to do the most basic things without pain relief & becoming dependant on prescribed meds & since I know Trent went through addiction & overcame-He is a huge success & inspiration it would really be a positive life changing-saving event & give me back some Quality Of life as music is therapeutic & Trents songs are so relatable to me. All of them- Excellent