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With Teeth (Interscope) is NIN's first studio album since 1999's conceptual, atmospheric masterpiece The Fragile. Digital piracy having since become a household concern, Reznor made his feelings on the subject known online, telling fans "The last way I'd want you to hear the first new music from me in a long time is a shitty quality rip." Pre-release auditions of the real deal were granted selectively, happening only on Interscope's turf, with their executives holding the CD remote. Promo copies? Fuhgeddaboutit.

The wait and security were well worth it. Emphasizing songwriting and solid, memorable hooks, With Teeth reminds us why Pretty Hate Machine threw open the Gothic-industrial sanctum occupied by Skinny Puppy, Ministry, and Throbbing Gristle to a far wider range of admirers. On the other hand, its warmth and range bespeaks an evolved Reznor, confident in his vision and comfortable in his own skin.

Music journalists, myself included, are falling over themselves, analyzing how With Teeth is both like and unlike your previous work. What do you say?
In my mind, I'm primarily a keyboard guy and sound designer. The Fragile and Downward Spiral developed from that mentality. I'd be in the studio, and start with a sound, or drumbeat, or chord progression, or mood, or even a visual description of a setting I'd heard. Eventually, I'd try to insert a 'song' into that - or wait for one to coalesce - fitting a melody and lyrics into the soundscape, as it were. I actually hadn't thought much about how The Fragile was put together until we were remixing it in surround a few months ago.

That record is certainly known for its intermorphing walls of sound, whereas this new one is definitely more of a rocker.
That's because the process was totally different. I made myself begin with melody and lyrics by setting up a studio in L.A. with not much more than a digital piano. There was Pro Tools for recording, but I treated it like a four-track! No plug-ins or soft synths at that point, and I gave myself a rule that every ten days, I had to finish two complete songs with lyrics. There were no means to go off on sonic tangents or get lost in knob-turning, which, of course, I really love to do. It's not like I self-consciously went, "I'm gonna make this record the opposite of The Fragile." I just wanted to work according to a new discipline, and it was refreshing.

So were you happy with the initial results?
In a few months, I had a collection of about 25 songs, which I whittled down to the best of the best, then went back to my 'real' studio in New Orleans to add all the layers and production I thought I'd need. I was really surprised at how little that turned out to be. It was like, "Wow, this record doesn't need a lot of crap all over it."

I'm betting fans and critics alike wouldn't call your earlier production values "crap." In fact, Bowie's pianist Mike Garson once told me that contributing to The Fragile was like laying his piano parts "on top of falling snow."
Mike has been a huge inspiration to me; he's such a monster player, he never disappoints. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of my thick sonic tapestries. But to be perfectly honest, there was always a little motivation of "Don't look under there" in the mix. Part of the difference is that I'm in a better place in life lately, with more confidence. Historically, I've always been the guy reaching to turn down my vocal, with [producer] Alan Moulder swatting my hand going "Don't touch that f***ing fader!"

On the topic of minimalism or simplicity, there's a fair amount of acoustic piano on With Teeth.
That's also a direct result of the demos. Again, the intention was to replace it with something more 'interesting' when we cut the tunes for real. But as some songs gestated, I tried to substitute a filtered or prepared piano, or synth, and it felt gimmicky. Especially in what's already this harsh, alien environment of distorted guitars and violent drums, there's something beautiful and honest about an unadorned piano anchoring it all. At first, I actually told myself I was copping out, and it took some thinking outside of my own head to realize piano was simply what worked.

How did your new philosophy affect the more openly synth-y songs on the record? "Only," in particular, is just dripping with old-school analog goodness.
We treated all the instrument parts like live performances. Atticus Ross, my Pro Tools engineer, has taught me so much here. My world has always been: Do everything in MIDI, and at the last second, lay it down as audio. That's how Pretty Hate Machine largely was, and it's a natural way to think for keyboard players recording their own stuff. In the past, I would have sequenced a riff, and tweaked away while it looped and looped. Atticus' world is: Immediately print it as audio, and manipulate it in that domain. It seemed stupid to me until I realized how much can be done, but more importantly, it forces a commitment. Not that you can't hit "undo," but there's more advance decision making. I now realize that too many options means I get less done!

It can be like doing the remix before the song is even fully written.
Exactly. "Only," like the whole album, used a lot of modular synths. We'd just roll PT like tape, and I'd play the keyboard part I'd worked out in the demo, but I'd be patching cords and twisting knobs like crazy. When it was over, we got what we got, and I couldn't necessarily remember how! It added an element of playing I honestly had never experienced before, and maybe ten or so great parts came out of it.

So most of the synth sounds on the record came from analog modular synths?
I've really fallen in love with 'em since the last record. Plug-ins have gotten very good - the best ones, like Reaktor for example, are true instruments in their own right, not just toys. Still, there's something about having a tangle of cables hanging there with real voltages coursing through 'em, VCA distortion - a "what the hell's making it sound that way?" factor. On the record we had modules from Doepfer, Analogue Systems, and some from Metasonix. We also used a Minimoog Voyager, and this cool suitcase synth from Analogue Solutions called the Vostok.

"Beside You in Time" is a fascinating track. I hope it's not out of line to say it has almost a bluegrass feel? There's this shuffling backbeat and rhythmic pulse that could be a jaw harp. Then an evolving, droning wall of what sounds like fiddles.
It's interesting you say that. This was, in fact, the first song completed, when a lot of the albums overall "sound" was still undetermined. The drone was done with granular synthesis modules in Reaktor, building chords by feeding in separate guitar and vocal notes on their own faders, blending those in and out, that kind of thing.

That shuffle was an accident, really. I wanted the whole thing to pump - to disorient you and suck your head in like a giant speaker cone. We triggered a gate with the kick drum to get this effect, but something else - I still don't know what - bled onto the track and also opened the gate a little, giving it that backbeat feel. My country tune! [Laughs.] I wound up putting it towards the end of the album, which veers off into more ambient, Fragile-like territory.

Our more technically-inclined readers are going to want a pornographic exhibition of your recording tools and process . . . for the production sessions, not the demos.
You got it. Atticus and I decided on two Mac G5s. The primary one ran a big-ass Pro Tools HD rig, with a lot of interfaces including an Apogee AD-16. We needed tons of I/O because we were still tracking through an SSL mixing board. The second Mac, bussed digitally to the first, ran Logic. Essentially, anything that worked better as an Audio Unit or other native plug-in lived there. I happen to think the latest versions of Logic's own virtual instruments are awesome. I even did an alternate version of "Right Where it Belongs" entirely in Sculpture. We used some Altiverb, and also had a VST wrapper, so I could access the GForce Oddity and ImpOSCar soft synths, two of my favorites.

Oddly, we used ProTools, not Logic, for what MIDI sequencing we needed. I'm not alone in wishing the MIDI portion of PT was friendlier, but Atticus preferred to stay in that environment.

We saw your set at Coachella, and Alessandro is handling the keyboard duties phenomenally. Will the frontman be joining him more anytime soon?
We geared up 30 or so songs for the first wave, and initially focused on the new band getting fluent with the sets and kicking ass. That's happening now . . . everything sounds vital and alive. With the pleasant surprise of shows selling out all over, we'll be back in the States in the fall doing arena shows, and they'll have more "big production." The range of moods will be greater too, so for all those reasons, yeah, I expect I'll be playing more keyboards. Alessandro has a way of making me wish I was the keyboardist in this band!"

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