TRENT REZNOR

Eric Dill is the former lead singer for the popular band Click Five. He has since ventured out into a solo career and we got a chance to snag him for an interview about his upcoming album. Get the scoop below!

Joonbug: How has it been transitioning from a member of a band to a solo career? What do you like and dislike about it?

Eric Dill: My artistic endeavors, when considered, have always been born of my own volition. I have found players my whole life to perform with but never felt artistically connected or bound to them. My best collaborative efforts are in live performance, songwriting and production and this I enjoy doing a la carte. As an artist, nothing is more deadening than being controlled. To become a music entity beyond myself would be tying my hands and diluting vision.

The Social Network was one of the biggest movies of 2010. It was highly praised by critics, and was nominated for quite a few awards at last nights Academy Awards ceremony.

In particular, Trent Reznor and his collaborator, Atticus Ross, were nominated—and won for Best Original Score for their work in The Social Network. They were up against some pretty impressive competition, including: Hans Zimmer’s work on “Inception,” and Alexandre Desplat’s work on “The King’s Speech.”

It is the first Academy Award won by Reznor. He won a Golden Globe for Best Original Score at the Golden Globes for his work in the movie, as well.

Reznor and Ross will also be working on another David Fincher movie, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

On the heels of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and rumors of a new Batman musical, comes news of another head-scratcher of a project—Fight Club: The Musical.

A year ago, David Fincher discussed the idea of making a Fight Club musical for the film’s tenth anniversary. Rumor has it that in a recent screening of The Social Network, his latest directorial debut, for members of the Screen Actors Guild, Fincher broached the topic of the musical once more during the film’s Q&A session, revealing that he may be collaborating with Trent Reznor to work on the music for the production.

How was everyone's Thanksgiving? Are you still recovering? Needed to be wheel-barrowed to work today? I don't judge. As long as there were copious amounts of relatives, overflowing love and thanks, I completely support your gluttonous behavior. But let's give your mouths a break and, instead, let your ears do the indulging. Let's go. Mamas and the Papas - Spanish Harlem I might lose a few of you (or all of you) on this one, but I really, really like the Mamas and the Papas. Back in elementary school, my father would drive up to Pennsylvania from his house in New Jersey to pick me up from my mother's to spend the weekend with him. For the drive back to Jersey, he would put on the oldies radio stations and slowly kick-start my love for them. The MATP frequented the wavelengths, usually with "California Dreamin'" or "Monday, Monday," and soon I'd learned the words, purchased a greatest hits CD and learned all those words. Last night, I went to Trader Joe's and the MATP were playing over the store's sound system. It prompted me to quickly get them in Mixtape Mondays because they are nothing less than brilliant. There is just something so haunting in their harmonizing, in their fierceness and delicacy that their sound seems like a genre all by itself. Even if oldies aren't your thing, please give this song a chance. I have decided to post the live version because Denny, the lead male vocal, has a curious intensity not present on the studio version. Nine Inch Nails - Even Deeper All right, Trent. You are relentless. Re.Lent.Less. You never stop with the gold. And this song is clean, sifted and bright-shining gold. I remember in my senior year of high school, driving around in my still-alive Pontiac Grand Am (holla), headed to the mall or some local clothing store for what had become daily retail therapy. It was my last year of high school and I was dating someone I shouldn't have been, my home life was an unhealthy wreck, I was afraid of college, afraid of newness, and actively hating the beaten and bruised present. It was winter and I couldn't get out this dirty little game of pressing forward - not liking what I saw, pressing rewind - missing what i saw, and doing anything I could to avoid the present. Driving around for hours, avoiding home, listening to music and shopping were the pills I had prescribed myself to make the cold and gray of the season seem less deadening. One particular day, I snatched my stepfather's copy of The Fragile, Nine Inch Nails' double disk of deliciousness, and headed towards 191 - a long and winding road of empty space and time. It was here that I remember discovering "Even Deeper." It was black and sinister and I'm not sure whether it ate or aided the darkness in me, but it felt good. I remember repeatedly rewinding to between 1:55 and 2:25 and replaying it over and over again - trying to sing with as much intensity as Trent, and even taking a thirty minute detour on the way home just so I could spend more time with it alone in my car. The devil in this song still winks at the anxiousness I know I'm capable of feeling in these long and cold months. It speaks to it and teases it and I love it. Do you have that one song (or many) that completely takes you back to a time in your life so different from the one you're currently in, yet you still can feel the breeze of that self, as if you've left a window open in the house of you and the oldness can still blow in? This is that for me. Tons of blown kisses to Trent for this one...and Dr. Dre - I read that he helped Trent with the mixing on this track. Zero 7 - Home Do you have that one song that you wish you could totally just get up on some stage and grab a microphone and sing? It could be a something rough - like Jay Gordon's version of "Slept So Long" (I LOVE IT), something corny like Def Leppard's "Let's Get Rocked," (you love it, don't front) or, like in this case, something so mellow and sexy that pure silk would drip for your lips as you sang it. We all, I think, have that song (or many) that makes us wish we were a performer so that we could exhale that kind of enigma on stage in front of thousands of people and feel the way the real singers must feel when they do it. This Zero 7 song does that for me. Not only do I wish I sounded like this, I wish I had written the song. The lyrics are so damn exquisite. I mean, come on: "Wrapped in silent elegance/ Beautifully broken down/ As illusions burst./ Too late to learn from experience/ Too late to wonder how/ To finish first." Why couldn't that have fallen from my mind? Ah! It gives me chills. So from Spanish Harlem back to Home, I really hope you found something to dig on with these precious specs of diamonds. Have a good week!

Hello, hello, hello! How was everyone’s weekend? Are we ready to dive, ears first, into a week laced with amazing songs courtesy of yours truly? I’m thinking that after accidentally taking last week off (::blows sorry, shameful kisses towards her wonderful editors Chet and Ian::), I’m more than ready to love you all up with some tunes that, hopefully, you’ll end up loving for the rest. of. your. lives. Commitmentphobics beware! THIS IS FOREVER.

Okay, but hold the phone. Before I get into anything serious, I feel it’s only necessary to plug the music of my husband-who’s-married-and-has-a-baby-by-another-woman. Don’t play dumb and scratch your heads. You all know I’m talking about Trent. I know I talk about him too much, but my diary is getting pretty full and I haven’t had a chance to run to Barnes & Noble to replenish my stock, so just bear with me, okay? YOU’RE ALL I HAVE.

Hello, hello, hello! Welcome to the middle of August and the time where I seriously start to slump because I know that these upcoming weeks are the last licks of summer. Back-to-school will be here in less than ten days! Gone will be my lazy, nap-filled days, and instead replaced with classes, homework and jobs. But luckily for me, music has that ability to just completely take you out of present time and throw you around a bit, make you forget what’s been going on. So let's indulge, shall we? Just let the music lull you out of whatever slump you may be in, and get you back on track.

Okay folks. I have let the hatred and initial disgust subside, and now I've very calmly and xanax-ridden-ly hovered over to "eh" land where I'll probably remain until something changes. What am I talking about? Oh, you know, just Trent Reznor's new project with his wife - and former West Indian Girl singer - Mariqueen Maandig, and last-four-Nine-Inch-Nails-releases producer, Atticus Ross.

Stepping back a second before I really rage out, I must tell you all that I love Nine Inch Nails. Like, a lot. An enormous, uncountable, immeasurable amount. I was introduced Pretty Hate Machine the summer before my junior year of high school and the music and lyrics and overall presentation completely redirected and expanded my musical landscapes. The pounding drums and computerized instrumental beats thumped their way through my ears and to my heart where they have nestled warmly ever since. Over the following months, I tore through anything NIN-related (as I was clearly sixteen years late in the game). The Downward Spiral brought me back to the years when I watched MTV obliviously as a kid, not realizing or understanding the brilliant and revolutionary way Reznor blew up the rock scene with dangerously seductive lyrics like the notorious, "I wanna fuck you like an animal" from "Closer," or the deep-seeded wrestling pain and love in "Hurt" with "You could have it all, my empire of dirt. I will let you down, I will make you hurt."

Although we were sad to see Charles Hamilton leave the music scene, his return and release of his latest creation Normalcy more then made up for it. And now, alongside with Josh Madden spinning the records, the tag team will tear up the opening night at our Fashion Week Gala event at Capitale. Renowned DJ Josh Madden is the perfect complimentary sidekick to match the energy of Sonic The Hamilton. Not only is DJ Josh Madden touring the U.S., he is also a stylist and co-founder of the clothing label DCMA Collective. Talk about the interwining of music and fashion! We were able to get some answers as to what make these two tick.

I tend to listen to a guy like Trent Reznor. You-the-reader may or may not be fond of his band Nine Inch Nails, but you’ve got to give credit to his mastery of the new digital music market.

A post on his personal forum lays out details for breaking into a market that may seem dead or dying to corporate music execs, but if an artist can understand what fans of music want they can still obtain a rewarding and profitable experience from The Biz.

Reznor gets right to the point addressing what the elephant record labels won’t talk about, musicians can no longer make money selling just their album.

The National Campaign to Close Guantanamo has received its share of criticism, but the support from popular musicians and members of the music industry have further encouraged the Obama administration to follow through on their efforts to close the controversial prison. Both REM and Pearl Jam have joined with the likes of Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Roseanne Cash, and Rage Against the Machine in protest against the interrogation practices applied at the institution.

Most recently, the coalition has spoken up against CIA interrogators using music to “encourage” the detainees to reveal information relative to their involvement in terrorist plots and/or organizations. It has been reported that music from Britney Spears, AC/DC the Bee Gees, and Marilyn Manson has been used in prisoner control procedures, as well as songs from Sesame Street, Barney, and the Meow-Mix theme song. The songs were pumped into prisoners’ cells at near-deafening levels in what the CIA describes as an attempt to maintain prison security rather than “punitive purposes.” The National Security Archive is filing a request through the Freedom of Information Act to create a list of the exact songs that have been used at the prison. Thomas Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, said, “At Guantanamo, the U.S. turned a jukebox into an instrument of torture.”