When Nine Inch Nails was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year, Trent Reznor didn’t go in alone.

Along with the band’s frontman and founder, the NIN inductees included Reznor’s longtime collaborator — and eventual official band member — Atticus Ross, as well as current and past touring members Robin Finck, Chris Vrenna, Danny Lohner, Ilan Rubin and Alessandro Cortini.

In an interview with Consequence of Sound, Reznor says he “felt it was the right thing to do” to include the other members.

“I think, kind of lazily, the approach was, ‘OK, we’re just going to induct you,'” Reznor recalls. “Then I thought I’d push back and say, ‘Well, you need to at the very least induct Atticus, and you should induct these guys.'”

He continues. “The endless kind of justification of that, which wasn’t necessarily fought by me, as much as me telling my manager: ‘Make this f***ing happen…Enough.'”

Reznor adds that he researched which members got in with bands that were inducted in the past, such as The Cure, who he himself introduced when they were enshrined in 2019.

“Again, I wasn’t the one presenting the case, but I felt strongly that it’s a shared recognition,” Reznor explains. “And it would certainly feel better to me. It wasn’t rolling a boulder up a hill. They weren’t against it. I don’t know where their minds were at, but I’m glad it turned out the way it did.”

In addition to getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Nine Inch Nails released a pair of ambient albums in 2020: Ghosts V: Together and Ghosts VI: Locusts. Meanwhile, Reznor and Ross’ scoring career continued with the David Fincher film Mank and the Pixar movie Soul.

By Josh Johnson
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