#you can also get music for you game and they got nine inch nails and weezer for some of the songs too??? like oh my god??

[slugs-at-midnight]

Fortnite is fun now???

#slugs speaks #i only started playing it recently after not touching it years until i saw Gianni playing it and holy shit so much has changed #i mean it’s understandable since it’s been like 7 sevens but there’s a lego mode that’s like minecraft and it’s super fun #also like little side things you can do in battle royale like fishing and driving around listening to the radio #you can also get music for you game and they got nine inch nails and weezer for some of the songs too??? like oh my god?? #also there’s a hot tiger guy and peter griffin in the game just wanted to let people know #though ultimately im never buying v bucks for things unless they put gabriel ultrakill in the game then maybe i’ll buy

[oceanpulls]

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have a plan to soundtrack everything

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – best friends and Nine Inch Nails bandmates – found unlikely creative fulfilment (and a couple of Oscars) by reassessing what they had to offer as musicians. Now they’re thinking even bigger, and imagining an artistic empire of their own making

By Zach Baron

Photography by Danielle Levitt

Every weekday, Trent Reznor makes his way from his house, a cottagey sprawl behind a white wall in a canyon on Los Angeles’s Westside, to a studio he’s built in his backyard. There he meets his best friend, bandmate, and business partner, Atticus Ross, and they get to work. Reznor and Ross observe the same hours, Monday to Friday, 11am to 7pm. “We show up,” Reznor told me. “We’re not late. We’re not coming in to start to fuck around.” It’s a methodical, orderly existence that Reznor could not have foreseen in the ’90s, when he was fronting Nine Inch Nails and struggling with a drug-and-alcohol problem that was his answer to success. “I would do anything to avoid writing a song,” Reznor said. “I’d rewire the studio 50 times.”

Now Reznor has a wife, Mariqueen Maandig, five children, and multiple jobs. He is sober. Since 2010, when the director David Fincher asked Reznor and Ross to score The Social Network, for which Reznor and Ross won an Oscar, the two men have had steady employment composing for film. This year, Reznor and Ross are also starting a yet-to-be-named company, built around storytelling in multiple disciplines: film production, fashion, a music festival, and a venture with Epic Games.

And then, of course, there is the oldest and perhaps still the most complicated of Reznor’s jobs: being the frontman of Nine Inch Nails. In 1988 Reznor formed what was then a one-man band; the first two full-length records Nine Inch Nails released, Pretty Hate Machine(1989) and The Downward Spiral (1994), have sold more than eight million copies. (Over subsequent years and subsequent albums, the band has since crossed the 20 million mark in sales.) In the ’90s, for a time, Nine Inch Nails were ubiquitous: a phenomenon on the level of Nirvana or Dr Dre. During that decade, the success of the band nearly killed Reznor. “I didn’t feel prepared to process how disorientating that was,” he said. “How much it can distort your personality.”

These days, Nine Inch Nails, which Ross joined as a full-time member in 2016, present a different problem – how do you make something old, something so already well-defined, new again? There are years when Reznor feels like he has the answers and years when he’s less certain. He has put the band on hiatus more than once; after the last Nine Inch Nails tour, in 2022, Reznor deliberately took a break from playing shows as well. “For the first time in a long time I wasn’t sure: what’s the tour going to say?” Reznor told me. “What do I have to say right now? We can still play those songs real good. Maybe we can come up with a new production. But it wasn’t screaming at me: this is what to do right now.”

But he and Ross still come to work, daily, in search of transcendence. “We sit in here every day,” Reznor said. “And a portion of the time organically becomes us just figuring out who we are as people and processing life and a kind of therapy session. And in those endless hours it’s come up: why do we want to do this? And the reason is because we both feel the most in touch with God and fulfilled.”

It is easy to make things when you are a teenager growing up in rural Pennsylvania, near the Ohio border, as Reznor was, and you have nothing to lose and everything to gain; it is considerably harder, once you’ve got older, and found a way to make things that people like, to keep going. It’s an old story: the act of creation can lift you up, but those sharp gifts can also destroy you, and if you make it past that, the sheer blissful regularity of life with money and a family can even you out so thoroughly that there is no friction left to work with. You look inside the cupboard and the cupboard is bare, or it’s a mansion and living inside of it is a person you’re bored of, and so you stop looking. But Reznor and Ross have never stopped looking, and the search for that magical feeling of finding something – that feeling of, in Reznor’s words, “I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know how I just did what I did, but I’ve channelled it into something that worked” – is still the thing that organises their days and their moods.

We were talking in their studio, which was low-lit and cold and full of synthesizers’ blinking lights. Reznor was on a sofa and Ross sat in a chair nearby. The two men first met in the ’90s, when Reznor signed Ross’s band, 12 Rounds, to Reznor’s Nothing Records. Soon after, they became friends, and then musical collaborators. “I was just getting sober,” Reznor said, “and I was in a pretty fragile transitional phase. And I just hit it off with Atticus right off the bat. And part of it was, he was someone who was on much firmer ground, in a mentor-y kind of way, than I was.”

Ross is two years younger than Reznor, but when they met, he’d already been through certain things Reznor was just getting around to. “I got clean when I was very young,” Ross told me. “So I had a bit more experience than him. Put it like this: I knew you could have fun without being high.”

Their friendship has been a constant in both their lives since. “I don’t know if parts of us are broken and we don’t feel good enough,” Reznor said, staring at the ceiling of the studio, “but we know if we work as hard as we can and do the best work we can, it fixes something. At the core of it, that’s what unites us creatively. On top of that, I think his take on the world and role in life helps me understand my place and not feel as detached in some ways.”

Reznor often jokes, or simply explains, that he is a “quart low” on whatever it is that makes people happy. “I think we can both, on our own devices, run below zero as a baseline,” Reznor said. “I don’t mean manic depression, I just mean we don’t take compliments well. It’s like when we won the Oscar, it was the day after: ‘Let’s take today guilt-free, kind of say fuck yeah.’ And tomorrow we’ll have settled back down to a few feet below sea level.”

In their years of collaborating with each other, both men have found some mutual reassurance – a little lift. Reznor gestured at Ross.

“I remember something he said to me – I don’t know if you want me to say this or not – in one of our talks years ago: ‘Here’s what I want today.’”

“I see what’s coming,” Ross said, nervously.

“I just want to feel OK,” Reznor said, quoting his friend. “I want to feel like I’m OK.”

One day this winter, Reznor greeted me at the door of their studio – in the course of reporting this story, I never saw him anywhere else – wearing a black hoodie made by the synthesizer company Moog, black jeans, and black running shoes. At 58, Reznor still retains the angular intensity and jet-black hair of his youth, but time and fatherhood seem to have made him quicker to smile. He looks a little like a college professor now, or an unusually-well-cared-for software engineer. He led me back, past walls of unused gear and several black-clad mannequins, all of which startled me, to their primary workspace, where Ross – a tall west Londoner (he grew up in Ladbroke Grove) with a stern face and a pleasantly reedy voice – sat at a computer, also all in black. (Once, I asked the two men whether their upcoming clothing line would feature any colour. “No,” Reznor said, incredulously. “Of course not.”)

They were on deadline for two films at the moment, including Luca Guadagnino’s forthcoming Queer. “But we’re trying not to work,” Reznor said, drily. Leaned up against one wall was a photo of the two in tuxedos, accepting the Academy Award for best original score for their work on The Social Network. Reznor had contributed to soundtracks before, in the ’90s, but he’d never formally scored a film until The Social Network.

But Reznor and Ross quickly realised that the work, in some ways, wasn’t so different from songwriting. “What do we do when we write a song?” Reznor asked. “We’re trying to emotionally connect with somebody.” Take the Mark Zuckerberg character in The Social Network:“Here’s somebody who thinks this idea is so important that it’s worth kind of fucking your friends over for it. And then realising maybe it wasn’t worth it, or I didn’t realise how I’d feel if I got what I wanted at the price of this. I can relate to that in my own language. Suddenly there’s music.”

“I’m grateful not to be as angry and frustrated and desperate as I have felt in the past,” Reznor said. “I couldn’t have predicted that I would feel this level of fulfilment.”

And Reznor found that he enjoyed the exercise of solving someone else’s problems instead of his own. “There’s something about not being the boss and working again in service to something that I initially felt guilty for feeling kind of fulfilled by in a weird way.”

Reznor said that on another Fincher film, Mank, the director suggested: “What if it sounded like maybe inspired by Bernard Herrmann and as if it were recorded in 1935 and this film canister sat on the shelf for 60 years?” OK, interesting. (Ross and Reznor were nominated for that one too.)

On the first film the two men scored for Guadagnino, Bones and All, “we got a cut of that that was nearly four hours long with no music and we kind of thought, Oh, fuck,” Reznor said. “Four hours we sat without a pee break, transfixed. It didn’t need music. And when you watch that you approach it differently.” Then Guadagnino brought them Challengers, due for worldwide release in April. Reznor said, “He started us down a path, saying, ‘What if it was very loud techno music through the whole film?’” (This is exactly what it turned out to be.)

“I wish I had his notes,” Ross said of Guadagnino. “His notes were so fucking funny on what each piece was meant to do.”

“Oh, yeah,” Reznor said. “‘Unending homoerotic desire.’ It was all a variation on those three words.”

They liked the challenge of scoring, they found, and that feeling of not being in control. They also liked the way it made them crave being in control again: “It makes you more inspired to work on other stuff when we’re finished,” Reznor said. “Even if it’s just, Thank God it’s done now and we can appreciate the freedom we had before we gave it up.”

These days, Reznor and Ross also like having jobs that let them be at home, around their families. Both men had tumultuous or lonely lives when they were younger; both men have found that fatherhood soothes certain unresolved aspects of their pasts. Ross has three kids, and “probably the greatest reward is how balanced and happy they all are compared to – certainly my growing up was an unusual sort of scenario. It was a fairly chaotic youth.” Ross comes from a notable English family, but his immediate lineage was more unstable. “My dad had a club called Flipper’s Roller Boogie Palace in LA in the ’70s,” Ross told me. “He went bankrupt in England and had a judgment passed against him where he couldn’t talk to a bank manager for 15 years. So he moved here and opened this sort of Studio 54 on roller skates on La Cienega and Santa Monica.” Ross held up a coffee-table book full of photos of the club. “You don’t need to look at it, but it was just a mad life. So I grew up in some madness.”

It is particularly endearing to see Reznor, who at a distance was a fierce and terrifying figure in his 20s and 30s, find domestic bliss. I am old enough that my adolescence coincided neatly with the S&M-flavoured, I wanna fuck you like an animal era of Nine Inch Nails; when I was leaving Reznor’s house one day, I noted with some amusement the cheerful mundanity of a basketball hoop in the backyard. “I’m grateful not to be as angry and frustrated and desperate as I have felt in the past,” Reznor told me. “I couldn’t have predicted that there was a world where I would have a sizeable family with kids and feel the level of fulfilment and comfort and be able to live in that.”

Was that something you were consciously seeking before you found it?

“I think I had some abandonment issues from my parents splitting up, or feeling I never fit in, and I’d gotten accustomed to being on my own. And largely due to my own, I think, inability to really be intimate with people, or share or be open or know how to be a friend or a partner to somebody… Trying that out and doing it with pure and full immersion has led to an unexpectedly great outcome.”

-----------------------

The other film project Reznor and Ross were on deadline for was Scott Derrickson’s The Gorge, a science-fiction thriller starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy. They were working on a lengthy, music-dependent scene that they’d already mostly scored. But, Ross said, “the director wants it to be a bit more, I can’t think of a better word than just a bit more scary and intense.” They weren’t sure what that directive meant, exactly, but they were content – they were happy – to try to figure it out: to enter the room once again, carrying nothing, and to try to leave it with something that didn’t exist before.

Ross called up the scene on a monitor at the centre of a long mixing board: Teller and Taylor-Joy in an evil-looking spiky forest. Reznor and Ross have somewhat fluid roles in their collaboration, but today the plan was for Reznor to improvise some music while Ross edited and manipulated it in real time. “Atticus’ superpower,” Reznor said, “is that I can come up with a melody and a chord change, and he can make that sit on the scene in a way that is meticulous, and mind-numbingly boring to watch him do.”

A studio assistant, also in all black, presented himself to help Reznor set up a microphone and a cello next to a keyboard that sat underneath another computer monitor. Ross hit play on the footage and what they’d already completed of the score, a kind of haunted, chanting murmur. “It’s basically atmosphere at the moment,” Ross said. Next to him was a synthesizer whose make and model he asked me not to print and which the two men use as a kind of sound ecosystem to feed stuff into.

Reznor began by pushing down on the piano’s keyboard, while with his other hand he manipulated the sound with a flat synthesizer on the desk in front of him. It began as a kind of mellow pan flute thing, and then, with a push of a few buttons, became more of a sad, Social Network-ish plonk. Ross stood up and started tapping the synthesizer to his left, and the sounds Reznor made began to loop and accumulate – little melodic figures that plunged in and out of feedback. Reznor moved from the piano to the microphone, where he sang a few soft passages in a baritone falsetto, more sad than spooky, and then to the cello, which he played slowly and choppily. Ross moved between the computer and the synthesizer, trying to harness it all as it built to a loud, echoing crescendo.

After about 20 minutes, Reznor sat back in his chair, and Ross soon followed suit. Everything got quiet again. “It’s going fishing,” Reznor said to me, shrugging. “Sometimes something happens.”

-----------------------

Or, sometimes, everything happens. One of the first things you see when you arrive at Reznor’s home studio are two original paintings by the Yorkshire artist Russell Mills – on the left, a razor against a rusty red background; on the right, a decaying yellow-and-black collage – that ultimately became the insert and the cover art for Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral. This is the record with “Hurt” and “Closer” on it. It’s an album Reznor nearly didn’t survive.

Why do I bring this up? Well. If I may, for a moment, sound like the ageing dude in a black T-shirt leaning against the back wall of a bar where you’re just trying to be young and free of recitations of what the year 1994 felt like, there was a different quality to the way things would happen in music. Bands would labour for years, unknown, and then just get struck by lightning, is the best way I can put it: one day, you’re just a guy, and then one radio station plays your song, and then every radio station plays your song, and everyone is listening to those radio stations, because there is nothing else to do, and then MTV loops your video, and everyone watches it because, again, there is nothing else to do, and all of a sudden you are known by millions of bored people in a way that doesn’t quite happen now. This is a gross oversimplification, of course, but here Reznor is, one of the very few people who have experienced the thing I’m describing. I thought: let’s just ask him what that was like.

Reznor said, OK, he could tell me exactly what it felt like. He gave me a single moment: Woodstock ’94, which Nine Inch Nails almost didn’t play – “it seemed like it was going to be gross, to be honest with you” – but ultimately did. “And when we got there, it was terrifying,” Reznor said. “It was way bigger than I pictured in my head and walking on stage. But this is the point of the story: I knew. You could feel like you were in the right place at the right time.”

In retrospect, how did you handle success?

“Had a drink. That’s what sent me down the path. I wasn’t the guy that, you know, at 12 years old cracked a beer. That wasn’t it at all. Just, I feel anxious around people. I’m not sure how to act, especially now that you’re someone that’s supposed to act a certain way. There’s a projection. It feels uncomfortable to walk down the street and people are looking at you because they recognise you. That’s weird. Suddenly everybody wants to be your friend and you’re the coolest. Everyone wants to date you and shit like that.” Reznor said he found it was “easier to have a beer before I go in that room, and then a couple of beers before I go in that room. And pretty soon over a period of time, wait a minute, things start to get out of control. And you know how the story goes.”

Here’s how the story went: Reznor began to wonder if Trent Reznor could ever live up to the Nine Inch Nails guy that people had in their heads. “The reason I was having to drink was to fix that problem, my own insecurity. But the net result is: I’m not really who I am because now I’ve got drugs or alcohol in my system and I’m not thinking as who I really am. And that comes into focus once one gets sober and has time to reflect and kind of think about what got you there and shit you did.”

Eventually, Reznor got sober, and built himself back up. Today he’s happy to talk about all of it, obviously, but he and Ross have done a lot together since – 10 albums’ worth of Nine Inch Nails (Ross was an official member of the band for five of them), among other things – and Reznor is, by nature, not one to dwell too much on the past of a band that he’s still very much trying to figure out. “We’re not fans of resting on our laurels. We’ve been afraid of thinking about nostalgia. That’s a whole other conversation, but the reality is we’re getting older and our fans are getting older and that’s a fact. And I think, say, during the pandemic, not that you asked this question, but as I’m sure everybody was, I was pretty genuinely freaked out and very clearly came into focus: I’ve got to protect my family.”

He was consumed by fear, by terror of what might happen, of what he might do about it. “I can’t even fit all my kids in a car,” Reznor said. “But in the midst of that anxiety, sitting alone in here, I found comfort in nostalgia. I found comfort looking back at things from my youth that I’ve been afraid to even allow myself to glimpse at because it meant artistic death. Because one has to look forward. One can’t be self-referential. I was so afraid growing up in a little shitty town. I could see people that thought the highlight of their life is junior in high school catching the football. You know what I mean? That’s it. That was the peak. I don’t want to fucking be that person. I could see my fate if I stayed in that town.”

In those moments sitting by yourself, what were you getting nostalgic for?

“I miss parts of living in Pennsylvania. I miss a simpler life that I grew up with. I really loved the first INXS album in 1983. I was a senior in high school, and when I listen to it now I could almost start crying because it fucking reminds me of driving in a shitty fucking car in the summer in Pennsylvania. You know what I mean? Man. I allowed myself to kind of immerse myself in who I was at that time, and what it felt like.”

Reznor had been trying to remake himself ever since he left where he grew up, and now here he is in Los Angeles, over 40 years later. “And I kind of went on a deep dive for a while and allowed myself to realise: I am who I am. And the things that made me weren’t the cool things. I’d always been ashamed of: I came from a shitty town; I didn’t have an exotic upbringing; shitty education, you know what I mean? That’s who I am. I’m not sure what the point of all that confession was.”

Well, except: “It plays into where I’m at now.”

-----------------------

The last time I saw Reznor and Ross, it was once again in their studio. They were sitting very still. Had they been working before I got there?

“We were for a little bit,” Ross said. “And then nervously thinking about you arriving.”

Really? It’s OK if that’s the truth.

“That’s the truth,” Reznor said. They’d just been in this room for the past weeks, months – years, really, he said. Head down. Working. He gestured at me. “It’s a different mindset.”

And “I was thinking about something you said the other day,” Reznor said. That was on a Friday. I’d asked a somewhat rude question about their soundtrack work, which was: why would Reznor or Ross work for anyone else when they didn’t have to?

Now it was Monday. “I thought about that over the weekend,” Reznor said. “It’s like, Why are we doing this? The idea comes from what we think is a good place of ‘Let’s break it up. Let’s get sent down the rabbit hole on certain things and feel like we’ve got tasks being assigned to us rather than us just blindly seeing what happens creatively.’ ”

But, he said, “I think coming out of a stretch of a number of films in a row, I want some time of seeing where the wind blows versus: there’s a looming date on a calendar coming up and we’d better get our shit together. And certainly in the last few weeks I’ve been itching to do what we often do, which is just come in and let’s start something that we’re not even sure what it’s for.”

Some of that energy, he and Ross said, would probably become the next Nine Inch Nails album. Doing soundtrack work, Reznor said, had “managed to make Nine Inch Nails feel way more exciting than it had been in the past few years. I’d kind of let it atrophy a bit in my mind for a variety of reasons.”

But now, “I do feel excited about starting on the next record,” Ross said. “I think we’re in a place now where we kind of have an idea.”

And then there was the company, which Reznor and Ross spent the last two years putting together, piece by piece, with the help of John Crawford, their longtime art director, and the producer Jonathan Pavesi. The idea was, what could they do that they hadn’t already done around storytelling? Some of that might take the form of examining Nine Inch Nails from yet another angle – “we’ve been working on homegrown IP around Nine Inch Nails, stories we could tell, and we’re working on developing those in a way that are not what you think they’d be.” (As in: not a biopic.) They also have a show in development with Christopher Storer, the creator of The Bear, they said, and a film with the veteran horror director Mike Flanagan.

Reznor put on a pair of black-rimmed glasses so that he could examine a piece of paper next to him. “We just wrote some notes because I knew I’d forget what the fuck I’m about to say.” There was a short film coming with the artist Susanne Deeken. There was a clothing venture, a T-shirt line made in collaboration with a notable designer whose name they’d like to keep secret for now, which will arrive this summer. There was a music festival that they were currently planning, “where we’re going to debut as performing as composers along with a roster of other interesting people,” and a record label, both scheduled to launch around the same time.

And for two years they’ve been working with Epic Games on something that is not exactly a video game, in the UEFN ecosystem Epic has built around Fortnite – “It’s what Zuckerberg was trying to bullshit us into calling the metaverse,” Reznor said. “You can’t say that word any more, but in terms of the tool kit, thinking about it through the lens of what could be possible for artists and experiences, we thought that would be an interesting way to tell a story through that.”

They were nervously contemplating the prospect of having day jobs again, of being responsible for more than just themselves. Early on, as they contemplated launching the company, they’d sat down with David Fincher to ask him about movie production: how does it work? “And he’s like, oh, you’re fucked,” Reznor said. “I can distil a two-hour conversation into that. Because, he said, ‘I know you guys, and no one’s going to care more than you do, and you will not be able to let it go.’”

Reznor has actually had this experience before, of being sucked into a project bigger than Nine Inch Nails and having it take over his entire life. Years ago he worked as an executive, first for Beats and then for Apple, building a streaming-music service.

“Trent was very clear when we started,” Ross said. “We cannot let this get into Apple terrain.”

Reznor laughed. “What I mean by that is – I will make this brief; I’m trying to think through what I’m about to talk shit on. Just to self-censor for a second.”

Reznor paused for a moment and then explained. For years, he said, he’d wondered: what would make a good streaming service? This was before the advent of Spotify in the US or Apple Music. Jimmy Iovine, Reznor’s old label boss – later, Iovine would also become Ross’s brother-in-law, after he married Ross’s sister, Liberty, in 2016 – was launching a music service at Beats, which was then acquired by Apple, and Iovine said to Reznor: come try to make this thing a reality. And Reznor surprised himself by saying yes.

“It was a unique opportunity to work at the biggest company in the world at a high level,” Reznor said. “And it was interesting, the scale of the people that you reach through those platforms, just the global amount of influence those platforms can have was exciting. The political situation I was dropped into was not as exciting.”

Reznor enjoyed working with Apple’s design team and its engineering team. “But it made me realise how much I want to be an artist first and foremost.” Reznor also became discouraged with the possibility of fixing the problem that he was trying to solve. “I think the terrible payout of streaming services has mortally wounded a whole tier of artists that make being an artist unsustainable. And it’s great if you’re Drake, and it’s not great if you’re Grizzly Bear. And the reality is: take a look around. We’ve had enough time for the whole ‘All the boats rise’ argument to see they don’t all rise. Those boats rise. These boats don’t. They can’t make money in any means. And I think that’s bad for art. And I thought maybe at Apple there could be influence to pay in a more fair or significant way, because a lot of these services are just a rounding error compared to what comes in elsewhere, unlike Spotify where their whole business is that. But that’s tied to a lot of other political things and label issues, and everyone’s trying to hold onto their little piece of the pie and it is what it is. I also realise, I think that people just want to turn the faucet on and have music come in. They’re not really concerned about all the romantic shit I thought mattered.”

Anyway, Reznor said, turning to Ross, “That was a long-winded way of saying, when we talked about this company, I just said, ‘Be aware of what success might look like because it will turn into something that eats up lots of cycles and time and attention and energy.’ ”

But, Ross said, taking on new responsibilities was, paradoxically, also a way to stay a little younger. “I know we’ve all been talking about being dads and being adults and all that,” Ross said, “and there is a part of me that thinks: it’s important to keep the kid alive.” Meaning the child inside yourself, rather than the one you’re responsible for.

He told a story about him and Reznor visiting the director David Lynch at his house to work with him on the 2017 revival of Twin Peaks. “And I don’t know how old he was at the time,” Ross said, “but he was older. But just walking in there, and he had the room set up and there’s a screen there, there’s some chairs here and there’s some musical instruments there and he’s smoking a cigarette. There’s nothing old about that dude. You know what I mean?”

Lynch showed them some Lynchian footage. It was incredible, even if they didn’t quite know what they were looking at. Lynch was probably 70 or 71 at the time. “But it’s that thing of it doesn’t matter how old he is,” Ross said. “He is alive. It’s that bit of it all that one doesn’t want to lose with age.”

The point was, Reznor said: “Let’s try some stuff. We’re bored. We are. You know what I mean? We’re grateful. We enjoy doing films. We can write a better Nine Inch Nails record, I think. We can put on a cooler tour. We are aimed to do that. But man, what if we try to do that?” Meaning, the company. “What if we could take what we’re good at, like we did with film? We identified something I think we’re good at and we figured out how to apply it to something else. What if we take that theory and try it on some other things? And that’s led us into: we’re not beaten down completely yet. And it feels exciting. That’s what matters to us right now.”

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Styled by Mobolaji Dawodu Grooming by Johnny Stuntz using Dior Capture Totale Hyalushot SFX Makeup by Malina Stearns Grills by Alligator Jesus Tailoring by Yelena Travkina Set design by Lizzie Lang at 11th House Agency Produced by Emily O’Meara at JN Production

#my ninposting #my transcription #trent reznor #atticus ross #nin #nine inch nails #trent #reznor #gq

[indieyuugure]

SOBBING WHY DID THIS TAKE SO LONG 😭

Anyways time for 3 more ✨ (took at least 1 The boys video and 3 SaberSpark videos)

My gacha style is kinda simple so yeah.. also i have no clue what music to use for an edit so if you have any ideas PLEASE tell me 😭

Bonus:

Hot cocoa for you and raph because where I am it’s absolutely freezing and I’m gonna get some for myself

Aw, I LOVE IT!! 🥰 Mikey looks great! I think you forgot his freckles, but I’ve never played any of the gacha games, my sister says they can be pretty restrictive, STILL LOOKS AWESOME! OMG!

Uh you could look up Jounetsu no Kaze, Shinobi (by GReeeeN), and Kaikai Kitan from Jujutsu Kaisen. Those all got some pretty cool part to em. (Nine Inch Nails is always good too)

Hot chocolate!

Oh dear.

#tmnt #q&a #the mutation situation #tms fanart #lol #hot cocoa #indie tmnt #indie’s turtles #i love this

[kayden-valcourt]

🤘🏻Introduction!🤘🏻

Warning: Flashing/blinking gifs This is my introduction + rules for requests!

Sup, my name is Kayden and I am a guitarist, metalhead, programmer, Skater, and artist!

I am 16 years old plus a professional Gemini!!

If you wanna join me and my friends' server use the link below!

I mainly chill and draw all day, or sleep all day, or talk to people all day, or look at the wall all day, it truly just depends on the day man. I love talking to people too, so don't be shy to talk to me because I'm always looking for new people to talk to and be friends with!! also here is my Carrd https://bivh.carrd.co

I love to listen to music, if you can't tell. I am especially fans of nu metal, black metal, heavy metal, glam metal/hair bands, hard rock, alternative rock, punk rock, and classic rock! Iron Maiden, Korn, Metallica, Rob Zombie, Murderdolls, Nine Inch Nails, and Slipknot are my current favorites!

I also love to play my guitar, it's an Epiphone SG Special, cherry red color. I love to play and it's one of my few hobbies!

I'm super into learning about and collecting photos of my favorite bands/band members, I especially am into Joey Jordison as of right now. I have over 100 photos of him and I think my favorite pictures of him are ones taken during his time in Murderdolls.

I'm also an artist, more of a cartoonist. Digital art is my thing, I am shit when it comes to painting, sculpting, sewing, using charcoal, and anything else like that. Cartooning has been my thing since I was 12 and I plan to continue with it since I haven't stopped. I also have characters and write stories and lore for them, I plan to work on a comic when I get my art style down and have the time. I also do requests!! rules for requests:

Nothing 18+ (nudity and sexual) this includes any fetish or kink material, I probably won't draw heavy gore for requests just because it might make me a little uncomfortable to draw that for someone else, I also won't draw animals/pets/"feral" characters (I just don't have the skills for that yet).

But I can draw characters from a show, your ocs, honestly anything.

I have the right to decline/ignore your request, these are free and I do them on my own time, thank you!!!!

I also love playing video games, specifically Minecraft, Fallout 4, Skyrim, Gmod, and TF2. I also have Pesterquest + Hiveswap which I read sometimes.

I'm also in some fandoms, gee imagine that. I like Breaking Bad, a lot actually, I also like Homestuck (Pesterquest and the canon comic), Fallout 4, old Disney Movies (Aristocats, Lady and the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, Bambi, etc), Suicide Squad, Evil, Beavis and Butthead, Rick and Morty, Family Guy, American Dad, Futurama, Bojack Horseman, Beastars, Q*bert, Disenchantment, and others. Sollux is literally me IRL, idk how some asshole stole my identity and turned it into a character but they did and somehow got away with it.

I'm always open to talk to new people plus make friend, I'm actually hella lonely and need better people in my life! Thanks for reading!!

#Kayden Valcourt #Introduction #looking for friends #discord server #public server #Meet me #guitarist #artist #cartoonist #digital artist #metalhead

[gojos-thot-patrol]

I now present you with:

Even more Random JJK men headcannons I made while in my feels

This time Featuring: Megumi, Itadori, and Sukuna

MEGUMI:

Megumi loves a very specific type of country music, and that is "Scorned woman gets revenge" country.

Play any of that stadium, "I fuck my truck while drinkin beer" country and he's liable to punch you in the neck. CARRIE UNDERWOOD HOWEVER.

Not Carrie, but if you put on Gunpowder and Lead for this man, he is going to give you a concert you will never forget. That is his JAM.

Other than that, he listens to a lot of Tool. I dunno, he just seems like the kind of guy to like Tool. And Alice in Chains.

Doesn't like Nine Inch Nails though. First song he heard was Animal and it just ruined the whole band for him.

Is a weirdly good artist. Like, he claims he's never taken a class, and doesn't really practice a lot, but his art is so good it's hard to believe that's true.

He uses this power exclusively to draw fanart.

Oh, hes a closeted weeb. Like, hes super into anime and manga, but hes so ashamed to admit it. And for no real reason honestly.

Hes a movie guy. That giant collection of movies you saw Itadori watch? Yea, those were all Megumis. He was pissed when Gojo took them and gave 0 explanation as to why.

He says his favorite movie is the Godfather, but it's not. It's Kevin Smiths Dogma. He thinks Alan Rickman is fucking hilarious in that movie.

He can never say that though, because of he did, he'd lose all movie buff credit

Also, Nobara got him into musicals. No, not Hamilton, that's too basic. He's into things like "The Guy That Hates Musicals" and "Sweeny Todd."

Unironically sings "my friends" to himself as he shaves.

Also, he has an incredible singing voice, but good luck actually hearing it. You gotta catch him in the moment.

Watches art videos on YouTube to fall asleep. Watching people color is just really soothing to him.

He really loves chocolate. Like, all types, in all shapes and forms, except white chocolate. Fuck white chocolate, he hates that shit on principle.

"It has no coco in it, it's just soild cream! Who wants to eat cream?!"

He does, but he won't admit it on principle

Generally speaking, he's not great at video games. He can't tell you why, but they make him motion sick.

The exception is Rythm games. He kills at those. 100% on expert, first try, every time. Man's got rhythm.

Does not believe he has any rhythm at all.

ITADORI:

Hes weirdly specific about sheets. He truly believes in getting a good, comfortable, nights sleep, and that your bedding contributes to that.

Seriously, this is a man that would gladly drop 50, 60, 100 american dollars on sheets. And be Damm fucking happy about it too.

He convinced Nanami to his side as well. Nanami was of the opinion that sheets are sheets. Like, yea don't get the cheapest, scratchiest, sheets available, but 13000 yen on sheets is excessive.

Itadori was like "just touch them. Touch my sheets Nanami, please." And Nanami was like "no, that is weird, do you hear yourself?" Finally, he did it to shut the kid up.

He immediately dropped 13000 yen on some sheets.

Itadori genuinely loves doing house work as well. Dinner, dishes, laundry, he loves that. He finds it meditative. He just puts on his music and goes.

He also loves Magic the Gathering and DnD. He's finally convinced Nobara and Megumi to play with him, and is living his best life watching his friends slowly get sucked into his nerd culture.

He uses out dated slang. And this is hell on Sukuna, who is trying to learn modern language from him.

Seriously words like, Gnarly, Totes, Metal, and Home Skillet, are all common place in Itadoris vocabulary.

One time, Sukuna was just kinda rambling, and to placate him Itadori said "oh, word?" Absent mindedly and it just threw this demon for a whole ass loop. "What do you mean "Oh word?" I said many words, what word is confusing you, punk?!"

He loves birds. Genuinely, they're one of his most favorite animals. He had a green and pink parakeet for most of his life, but sadly he bad to rehome Cosmo and Wanda once his grandfather got sick.

It's ok though, they're new owners are super nice and still send Itadori letters with updates and pictures of the babies

He will point out birds and tell random facts about them as the crew goes through Tokyo. Everyone actually greatly appreciates this from him, cause fun facts are fun!

He's actually just full of fun facts. Like, sometimes he'll read random Wikipedia pages for fun, and will just throw out the facts he has as like, a conversation starter.

His favorite flavor of anything is peach. Not even for the meme or the joke, peach is just the perfect flavor as far as hes concerned.

It's also pink, like him. So. There is that.

After watching all of those movies for months, he decided his favorite movie genre was the RomCom. Even if he got punched a few times, it was worth it.

Are the cliché? Yes. Are they ever really well Shot or get creative with cinematography? No, not really. Do they sometimes have some troubling tropes? You betcha. But they were also fun, and familiar, and warm, and they always had a happy ending. And happy ending are important to Itadori.

In general he's kind of a hopeless romantic. He's not looking for love, persay. If it comes, cool but he's certainly not seeking it out.

But he does love the concept of love. And how it's used in media, specifically. It can be the ultimate good or the ultimate bad with very little in-between and that fascinates him.

His favorite holiday is the entirety of Golden Week cause he loves having the week off to research birds.

SUKUNA:

Fucking loves Britney Spears. His all time favorite artist, she has an undeniable energy, and a command over attention that he can not help but respect.

She also put out Criminal, so, he has no choice but to stan.

His first week being awake again was a fucking trip. He'd been asleep for thousands of years, and oh my gods had the humans been fucking busy.

The microwave blew his fucking mind. "You mean you've harnessed the power of the fucking sun in a small box in order to just, reheat your leftovers whenever you want?! THE FUTURE IS NOW YUJI ITADORI."

Don't even get him started on indoor plumbing, he really just though everyone in this Era had money money.

Jokes on him.

He can not handle spicy food. Sukuna can be defeated with a chili pepper and it's almost embarrassing.

Hes addicted to Baja Blast though. As far as he's concerned, that is the one thing humans did right.

He has threatened to shut the entire operation (that being Itadoris life) down over being denied the cancer in a cup.

He really tries to use modern slang, but in-between his age and Yuji not using any that was created after 1998, he never stood a chance.

"Where are your chickens, Punk?" "M...my chickens?" "Yes, your chickens! Your friends, your homes, your cooking wear!!" "...Ryomen, are you trying to say 'where are your peeps?!'"

He loves cats. They're independent and graceful creatures and he has to respect it

Also, LOOK AT THEIR WITTLE NOSES AND TEEFIES!! DEY ARE SO COOT AND WITTLE!

Hes really into documentaries, he uses them to catch up on all the things he missed out on while asleep.

The main thing he learned was that humans never really changed. And it almost bummed him out.

Greatly appreciates Itadoris passion for quality bedding, but he will never say that out loud.

Genuinely enjoys art in all of its forms. Will force Itadori to go to museums and such for him. Almost lost his entire mind when he found out Megumi was not only an artist, but a damn good artist at that.

Can not sleep at night. Even when Sukuna was mortal, he was nocturnal. This sucks for Itadori, cause while he's trying to sleep, Sukuna it trying to converse and he does not like to be ignored.

Hes queer as hell but can't admit it. He'll say things to Itadori about hot people he sees in public, and this includes men. He'll say some of the raunchiest shit about men.

And everytime Itadori is like "uhh, hey man. Is there something you want to tell me?" "No, nothing other than the things I'd do to that man." "Sukuna, are you, like...gay?" "Thats a bold question to ask punk. "Gay" is a concept you and your generation made up. In my time, there was no concept of "sexual orientation" or "monogamy" or any of those other terms you humans use to put yourself in a box. If you were attracted to someone, and they were attracted to you, you fucked. And that was that, the other parties genitals were very rarely taken into account when making a move on someone." "Thats not really an answer." "I know."

He actually doesn't talk a whole lot about his Era, or his time when he was alive. No one really knows why either. Whenever asked about it, he just kinda mutters about it being a long time ago, or ignores the questions entirely. Either way, he isn't about talking about it.

He things tigers are cool as fuck. Gotta be one of his favorite genders.

"Did I do it right? Is this how you "meme" or whatever the fuck you call it, Punk?"

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #megumi #megumi fushiguro #Itadori #yuji itadori #sukuna #ryomen sukuna #jjk headcanons #jujutsu kaisen headcanons

[trillgutterbug]

tagged by @malewifemanhunter ty!!

name: trill q gutterbug, the q stands for queer

star sign: who knows or cares

height: 5'10, which means i can definitively say coffee doesn't stunt your growth, even if you start drinking it age 4

time: 9:38am 😓 i do NOT want to be awake rn but the rest of my family is gone atm so the grisly burden of letting the chickens out at ass o'clock fell to me. (eta it is now 12:13 bc i fell asleep for two hours before posting this)

birthday: the day laura ingalls wilder was wed

favorite bands/artists: of montreal, why?, clipping., and nine inch nails are the eternal faves i can't get sick of, but im also tremendously partial to kendrick and lil nas and hozier and mcr and twenty one pilots and the like. also i listen to a lot of chillhop and electroswing, because im a good person with good taste

last movie: i think mad god, which was fantastic and completely incomprehensible. i don't usually have the attention span to sit through a movie if im watching it alone, so.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (eg, the way i still have to finish everything everywhere all at once, which i got an hour into last week, enjoyed tremendously, then got up to walk around and listen to a podcast and play a video game and jerk off or whatever the fuck, and just haven't gone back!)

last show: i believe the latest ep of what we do in the shadows.... or maybe sunny? or euphoria? whatever it was, i was watching it with jackie im sure!

when did i create this blog: idk where to find that info, but im p sure 2014, after LJ shat the bed and i dipped from active fandom for a couple months and when i came back it was like.... owo where'd everyone go?! here, apparently.

what i post: constant thirsty nonsense about a rotating string of fandom obsessions, shitposts, sometimes a bit of tumblr-brand anarchism and socialism bc even the junkfood buffet churns out a smidge of healthy caloric content every once in a while

last thing i googled: i don't use google but the last thing i duckduckgo'd was........ where's wade wilson from, bc i saw something that said vancouver and one of the movies implied regina but i swear to GOD i know it's winnipeg from some other source. results annoyingly inconclusive.

other blogs: @truelevelb1tch, my rick and morty side, which is going to pop off again in a MONTH (!!!!!!!!!) when s6 starts dropping 😱😱😱. i do not apologise for the person i become when r&m occurs, fair warning

do i get asks?: not enough to worry about, thank goodness

following: idk where to find that info either, but it's probably a few hundred, the vast majority of which are inactive at this point. i probably see <50 blogs on my dash??

average hours of sleep: like eight, which is NOT enough for me, but it varies wildly between 5 and 10 depending on what im doing for work on a given day/whether i have to get up early for animal-related reasons/if im up reading fic until 3am/time of year/blah blah

instruments: flesh flute....,,,

what i’m wearing: nuthin

dream job: I Do Not Dream of Labour

dream trip: i hate travelling! but i am partial to visiting my cousins' farm on the reg, so let's say that

nationality: canadian

favorite songs: the trapeze swinger by iron and wine has been my fave song for about ten years. it's almost ten minutes long and if stats across various laptops and ipods and phones could be collated, it would show a playcount in the thousands lol. i first heard it as the closing music on the amazing podfic for the inception fic presque vu and it gutted me on the spot. ode to the mets by the strokes is also on the same trajectory. otherwise, my fave songs come and go in the usual way, by liking something and listening to it repeatedly until i can't stand it. (eta: just went into my music app to see if i'd forgotten anything, and literally the only thing on my "most played" list is the trapeze swinger, so...)

last book i’ve read: currently reading (aside from the massive eternal stack of ww2 ref books) the half life of valery k by natasha pulley and grimscribe by thomas ligotti. most recently before that i read borne by jeff vandermeer, the kingdoms by natasha pulley, blood meridian, the d&d 5e player's handbook, and some postapoc scifi thing that was so forgettable i genuinely cannot conjure up the name of it or its author!!

top 3 fictional universes i’d like to live in: idk, they all seem uniquely bad in ways that do not necessarily improve upon the unique ways in which our current universe is bad. but to be sporting i'll say star trek of course, anything jared harris is in bc i want to fuck him more than im afraid of space terrorists or freezing to death or nuclear radiation, and the fictional universe i've been manifesting in my imagination for years where we never invented agriculture and i died at birth for simplistic umbilical cord-related reasons

lowkey tagging @kaasknot, @collapsinghorizons, @mollynoble, @twobrokenwyngs, @pohjanneito, @lingua-mortua, @sloppyplanetary, @alakeeffectgirl, and @quiescentire

#meme

[trentreznorfanboy]

part 2 of the cool interview, and some more pics :>

“Pro-file: Nailing a New Look” pt 2

Q&A with Trent Reznor and Rob Shriden about All That Could Have Been

By Mathew Honen for Macworld on February 1st, 2002

This is a continuation of my previous post, the rest of the interview, and some pictures to go along. I enjoyed reading this interview, they talk about something I don’t see a lot, I hope you enjoy.

Q: What was the experience of using DVD Studio Pro like?

Sheridan: At one point during the set, there are these three giant video screens that come down behind the band and project these incredible videos that Bill Viola [did for us]. During that portion of the set on the DVD, it's cutting between wide and tight shots and shots of Trent singing. But because these screens were so amazing looking, we thought it would be great to be able to switch between an angle where you could just watch the screen and then back to the cut showing the band playing.

Reznor: There some extra things in there that we shouldn't get into too much because over time they'll be revealed. But there are a lot of little hacks into the OS of the DVD, menus that you think pop up differently than they did the last time, to try and make the whole experience immersive. It was fun to be able to see what you could do with the medium and actually do it.

Q: Didn't you record Pretty Hate Machine on a Mac?

Reznor: Yeah, I've had a Mac since the very first one. I was also using a Commodore 64 for MIDI. At the time of Pretty Hate Machine, I had a Mac Plus. I did all the sequencing of that record on that. With Broken, Studio Vision had come out. That was the first marriage of MIDI and digital audio, and that forever changed the way I was going to record. Now that it's gone from recording everything on tape with a few things on the computer to recording everything on the computer, it's really changed the roles of a lot of people in the studio. The programmer's job is much more the engineer now. All the engineers now have to know Pro Tools.

Q: After providing the music for Quake, are you scoring any more games?

Reznor: I've been discussing things with Id Software for Doom III. It's not formalized at this point, but it's something I really want to do. When I did Quake, we were still questioning if the audio was going to be streamed off of CD, which if it wasn't was incredibly limiting. But with as interactive as things are now, and as immersive as the engine they've been working on is graphically, and some of the program is so moody; it's like scoring a film. Yet it's much more intense than a film because it doesn't always go the same way, it has to be interactive. Plus the mood of the game is so dark and evil, it's interesting to me.

Q: What kind of rig do you have in your studio?

Reznor: I set this up several years ago to Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar. It's an SSL analog big console, and we've moved away from two 48-track analog tape to everything being recorded on hard disk. We have 72 tracks of in-and-out ProTools hardware. The main computer in there right now is an 867MHz G4 with 1GB of RAM and several fast SCSI cards. We still use SCSI drives. We have a few of them laying around to always have at least two 36GBs online at all times, and we have a big tape backup system that backs us up every night. We have a secondary Mac in the control room as well that we use for software synthesis and running through plug-ins in real time. I think the coolest thing that's happened in the last few years is with synthesizers going virtual. That's why we have another Mac that's just up to run things in real time, running Reason or Reactor, or a number of software samplers like Battery or Absynth. Reason is from Propellerhead--it's spectacular. There's a lot of gear just being reduced to a PowerBook.

Q: Do you have a Titanium PowerBook?

Reznor: I'm about to as soon as I can get Apple to give me one. In the meantime I've got a gasoline-powered 500MHz G3.

#trent reznor #nine inch nails #nin #i love trent reznor #industrial rock #nin pictures #nin pics #and all that could have been #2000s #early 2000s

[fangirlinglikealoon]

Thank you @i-like-yoongi-a-latte for tagging me! 😊💕

Name: M

Sign: Scorpio

Height: 176,5 cm 😁 Or between 5'9 and 5′10

Time: 14:16

Birthday: November 20th

Favorite band/artist: there’s so many so this will be a mix of current faves and all-time faves: Mokoma, Stam1na, Blind Channel, Slipknot, Nightwish, HIM, girl in red, Motioless in White, Electric Callboy, Biffy Clyro, Nine Inch Nails, Raised Fist, Endstand, Wasted, Halsey, Alan Walker, ISÁK, Sentenced aaaaand let’s mention Huora and Erika Vikman too

Last movie: Guardians of the Galaxy 2 was on TV last weekend so I watched that

Last show: Friends reruns on TV and binged the last season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine last week

When I created this blog: August 2012

What I post: Usually I just reblog things that I like. For the past year or so I’ve mostly posted about Blind Channel but I haven’t forgotten hockey which used to be my main thing. There’s also some movie and music stuff and artsy things and if I have time to read fics then I reblog those too

Other blogs?: Just this one big ol’ mess 😊

Do I get asks?: Not that often and when I do it’s usually ask game things. I do like to get asks but sometimes it takes a while for me to reply but eventually I will!

Followers: I’m glad you all exist! 💕

Average hours of sleep: Before summer it was around 6 hours, sometimes less, sometimes more. But after I got unemployed during summer I’ve slept as much as I want so it’s somewhere around 8-9 hours maybe?

Instruments: I’d love to know how to play anything but lol nope. If I started to learn some instrument first I’d try bass 

What I’m wearing: Black and red Stam1na hoodie, oversized Nine Inch Nails t-shirt, black college pants and white and red woolly socks

Dream job: At the moment some fun news reporter’s job that I could do from home. Working in a movie or music mag/website would be the dream dream but thatn probably would require leaving the North behind 🥺

Dream trip: Road trip around UK, Central Europe and route 66 in the States and also trips to hockeys game in Chicago and Raleigh

Favorite songs: At the moment Eloonjäänyt by Stam1na (forever fave), Sydänjuuret by Mokoma, Skin Ticket by Slipknot, Alive or Only Burning by Blind Channel, Serotonin by girl in red, Skylight by Biffy Clyro, Another Sun by Blind Channel, Metsästäjä I-II by Stam1na, Best Day by Electric Callboy and Thoughts & Prayers by Motionless in White

Tagging: Not gonna tag anyone but if you see this and feel like doing it then you can say I tagged you 😊

#i used to have my name in my blog bio but i took it off but if you wanna know what it is you can send me a dm #also if anyone of you is curious about whatelse i listen to you can ask for my last.fm #I dont' remember the last time I did one of these #but this might help all the followers i've gotten from the bc fandom to get to know me a bit better #also thanks for this elena and sorry it took a while for me to do this 🥺 #gc 💛 #about me #tag games

[zombiemollusk]

i got tagged by @n3cropants, time for personal info.

Favorite time of year:

autumn/winter. i can stand cold better than heat and it has all the neato holidays plus my birthday.

that said, i could do without the rain, and swimming and coin-hunting in fountains are generally more pleasant in the summer.

Comfort foods:

sugary baked goods. cakes, cookies, pies, tarts, donuts, you name it.

Do you collect anything:

hourglasses.

Favorite drink:

coffee, and pretty much anything fruity. i often aim for stuff with vitamin a in it (not too much of it though, i know vitamin a poisoning is a thing).

Favorite musical artists:

sneakerpimps switchblade symphony nine inch nails kidneythieves genitorturers ghost diablo swing orchestra portishead akira yamaoka david wise

bunch of others too but these are the ones i could think of off the top of my head

Current favorite songs:

hell’s coming with me - poor man’s poison dead man walking - city wolf nexus - promare soundtrack black box messiah - diablo swing orchestra the song that plays in the jellyfish area in the game “minus 1” (the most recent version; apparently it was different in older versions?) the song that plays in the abandoned sea area in the same game that nightcore version of rockefeller street like half the soundtracks of megaman/megaman x/megaman zero

Favorite fics:

i’ve mentioned it before but hours might well be the best puffshipping fic ever. their dynamic as depicted in the fic is pretty much exactly as i imagine them, they get great characterization and development with a great payoff, and it’s just an all-around sweet fic.

i also like being dead ain’t easy and mazaki anzu has never lost, both of which depict pairings i’m normally not a fan of (violetshipping and azureshipping respectively) but manage to work really well here.

on the danganronpa side of things, blackened skies, system restore, and back route are all reeeeally good. grammar’s a bit questionable at times but by god the characterizations are soooo good.

there are more i keep thinking of but i don’t really feel like hunting down every fic to link so screw it, here’s my ao3 bookmarks. have fun.

tagging: if you see this post, congratulations, you’re tagged.

#zombie talks #me #music #fanfiction

[musicarenagh]

Getting Real: A Chat with The Listros about 'Hands Against The Wall' The Listros are a rock band fronted by the brothers Sean and Evan, and their latest song, "Hands Against The Wall," has been creating quite a stir. This song came out on February 9, 2024, and people just cannot stop talking about it. "Hands Against The Wall" is not any regular song, it’s a deep look into the muddy waters of toxic relationships. I mean, those times when want and addiction get all muddled up, then you are like drowning in a circle. Yes, this is what this song is actually about. From a musical perspective The Listros are doing something very exciting. They're combining rock and EDM influences to create something that's unique and new. Sean is responsible for the vocals, guitars, synths, and programming, with Evan holding down the drumming. They are a team that has produced a song that has got many people bobbing their head and also feeling something deep. Then how was the puzzle put together? Actually, it is Sean who wrote the song at home while being influenced by artists such as Nine Inch Nails and Linkin Park. When he had the fundamentals covered, he hired AJ Healey and Ross Hayes Citrullo to polish it off. They implemented certain changes, re-recorded parts, and mixed it all together to have the final version. Where does this name come from? As it turns out, the story is in fact related to Sean's own personal experiences with a rocky relationship. The song depicts the highs and lows of love, desire, and the other not-so-pretty parts. In this The Listros interview, we’re exploring their creative process, the things that inspire them and how it feels to be part of this music environment. From jamming in their bedrooms to conquering the stage, the brothers Sean and Evan are telling us what is required for one to make it in the music business. Follow The Listros on Facebook Spotify Soundcloud Instagram Tiktok Listen to Hands Against The Wall below https://open.spotify.com/album/5TeJ0sG96H1Svp3hqPqAlf What is your stage name? The Listros Is there a story behind your stage name? It’s our last name. Where do you find inspiration? Mainly from listening to our favorite artists music. We initially take an idea we like from a song we’re inspired by, and then it always grows into something entirely of our own making. As for lyrics, a lot of inspiration comes from the experience of the self. The voice in our heads that fills us up with lies about who we are and what we can or cannot do. Temptations, addictions, self loathing, greed, are all examples of themes upon which we like to write about from our own personal experiences. Writing and singing about them is a form of therapy. We write for ourselves. What was the role of music in the early years of your life? From an early age, there was always a fascination with the arts. Sean’s first taste of music was from an early love of musicals, particularly Singing In The Rain and Moulin Rouge. Eventually, after hearing Led Zeppelin for the first time at age 9 and age 7, Sean and Evan became obsessed with rock music. Their older brother, Joe, started taking guitar lessons in which the family bought a Squier Stratocaster. One day, Sean picked it up and the rest is history. Evan’s drumming came about after discovering his drumming ability from the video game Rock Band in high school.  Are you from a musical or artistic family? Our family has a huge love for music and art. We grew up being exposed to incredible music growing up from our parents. Our older brother, in particular, is the biggest lover of music. He was always discovering and showing us music from a variety of genres. His taste was, and still is, excellent. That consistent exposure to great music really helped form our musical tastes. [caption id="attachment_54142" align="alignnone" width="2000"] Our family has a huge love for music and art. We grew up being exposed to incredible music growing up from our parents.[/caption]

Who inspired you to be a part of the music industry? There’s a few. Initially it was just Jimmy Page, then Metallica, then Trent Reznor, and Hans Zimmer. How did you learn to sing/write/to play? Initially, at age 9, Sean took guitar lessons, but quickly grew to hate the weekly learning curriculum they made him endure. Learning boring songs like ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’ or ‘Hot Cross Buns’, combined with the difficulty he felt learning the instrument, made him lose interest in which he put the guitar away for 2 years. One day, when he was 11, his friend taught him how to read guitar tabs and where to find them online. This changed everything. The ability to choose the songs he wanted to learn, and the access to learn them sent Sean on a road to teaching himself. As for writing, Sean learned from listening to a ton of music, and from writing a ton of bad songs. Eventually, with enough practice, combined with his musical tastes, songwriting began to improve. Vocals came from singing constantly since age 15. Eventually Sean found a vocal coach which helped tremendously. Learning to sing properly without damaging the vocal chords, combined with efficient energy release, was a game changer. Sean recorded the vocal lessons, and practiced with the recording everyday for 2-3 years. These recordings we 45 minute vocal lessons which included vocal scales and techniques. Evan learned to play drums after his experience with the video game Rock Band. For his first few years playing, he had a drum teacher who came over once a week. Between the lessons, and his consistent practice, Evan’s drum skills grew and grew. Studying the greats John Bonham, Buddy Rich, and Dave Grohl, just to name a few, Evan studied and practiced along with his favorite artists. What was the first concert that you ever went to and who did you see perform? First concert Sean went to was Backstreet Boys in 1998. https://open.spotify.com/artist/4YvqbA62xFmB7U3Yzri1ZO?si=Q9LT1DmnQWO_94jRGNNm1Q How Was The Song Recorded (what was the process like, who was it recorded with, how was the track create)? Heavily influenced by Nine Inch Nails, Linkin Park, and The Vines, the song was initially written and produced by Sean at his home studio. Searching for inspiration, Sean listened to and studied his favourite artists to help inspire some ideas. Once the musical idea was formed, Sean recorded a demo using Ableton. The guitars were recorded with a Neural DSP Quad Cortex, the vocals recorded with an AT4040 mic, drums were samples, while the synths were programmed with Arturia Pigments and a ton of distortion. After finishing the track, very similar to the creative process of their first single, ‘Into The Otherside’, Sean presented it to AJ and Evan where they then got together and collaborated. The collaboration involved rearrangements, re-recordings, re-writes, and mixing that propelled the song into the next level of completion . After preproduction finished, we re-recorded the drums, guitars, and vocals at RHC Music studio in Toronto with audio engineer Ross Hayes Citrullo (The Sheepdogs, Monster Truck, Marianas Trench). Once we finished the final recordings, we took them back to AJ to include them into a final mix. The final mix was then sent off to Robin Schmidt (The 1975, Sam Fender, Liam Gallagher) for mastering. What Inspired You To Write / Create The Track? Searching for inspiration after their debut song, Sean listened to and studied various rock artists to help inspire more ideas. Once the musical idea was formed, the song led him into writing it about the toxic on and off relationship he was experiencing at the time with his ex. What Is The Message You Wish Listeners To Take Away From The Track? Above all, we wanted to write a song we felt was relatable. A song about lust and a toxic relationship is something we feel people will be able to connect with. It’s fun, a little dangerous, and exciting. We want it to fill people with energy, while also making them feel a little sexy.

#Music #HandsAgainstTheWall #HandsAgainstTheWallbyTheListros #HandsAgainstTheWallfromTheListros #HandsAgainstTheWallTheListros #TheListros #TheListrosdropsHandsAgainstTheWall #TheListrosHandsAgainstTheWall #TheListrosoutwithHandsAgainstTheWall #TheListrosreleasesHandsAgainstTheWall #TheListroswithHandsAgainstTheWall

[bulletsmustdie]

hello there.... welcome!

my name is BULLETS, i'm a 16 year old freak who likes music probably a bit too much for my own good. i go by any pronouns!! just preferably he/they. australian right here... and no. i do not ride kangaroos to school. no tone tags needed or used, if i really feel i should use them i will. thanks!

NOW!

what am i doing here on tumblr?

i am an artist. i draw things and sometimes animate things. this blog will also probably contain a lot random ass posts from me. like project designs and stuff, this'll be sort of like an art journal for me.

what kind of stuff do you draw?

i draw a lot of different things. im a huge bandom fan, i'm in tons of diffferent fandoms for bands, mainly my chemical romance. most of the art that i post on social platforms are rough sketches and 'memes'? if that makes sense. i do create official works and have done so for a while, they just aren't as frequent as i'd like them to be.

any warnings/other things we should know before following?

mostly just profanity warnings as in language, blood and gore might be present sometimes but not always. my art changes a lot, like a lot a lot, including my style and colouring patterns, so not everything i do is in concrete. thats why i dont usually make official pieces of work. i love experimenting with my work :)

cool! are asks/commissions/requests open?

yes! commissions are open at the moment, aswell as asks. requests are a bit iffy but if i feel like it i will. so lets just say asks are half half. if you want my commission info, dm me! i'm happy to answer any questions about it. i can draw just about anything but nsfw and extreme gore.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

i've got tons and tons. so many its insane.

bands im into: my chemical romance, brand new, nine inch nails, foxing, car seat headrest, born without bones, madonna, joy division, she wants revenge, modern baseball, soul asylum, paramore, pierce the veil, slipknot, jeff buckley, the smiths, frank iero, linkin park, radiohead, foo fighters, heart attack man, leathermouth, weezer, basement, fall out boy, the hotelier, new order, no doubt, pink floyd, the caretaker (💀), sports., the used and sooooooo many more........

games:

lethal company, minecraft, undertale, silent hill, terraria, phasmophobia, fran bow, and just a lot of random games you can find on itch.io are usually super fire

other random interests:

i play guitar, bass, drums and i sing. i absolutely love to jam and if you wanted you could check out my spotify profile if you were more curious as to my music taste :

@ bassdaddy07 @ (my spotify) .

.

.

my dni list.

BASIC DNI STANDARDS!!!!! no weirdos. if your a weirdo get the FUCK out of here!!!

if i feel like youre creepy and weird, you're blocked. also just a quick clear up, i say like "youre done" and "yorue blocked" a lot as a joke, you'd be able to tell if i actually mean it tho. anyways.

thats about it!!! i think.... have a lovely day and once again....

WELCOME!!!

#intro #bulletsmustdie #introduction post #mcr #mcr artist

[weirdwriter69]

Ikemen Vampire suitors and of Montreal songs (based on vibes and/or lyrics) @kissmetwicekissmedeadly Everyone gets The Past Is a Grotesque Animal because Cybird loves trauma, and also a bonus, everyone gets Closer by Nine Inch Nails because they are all horny mf's. Note: The slashes are to divide the titles of the songs. (ex. Song 1 / Song 2) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Arthur - Blab Sabbath Lathe of Maiden / You Do Mutilate? / Plastic Wafer / St. Exquisite's Confessions Dazai - Touched Something's Hollow / my fair lady / Deliberate Self-harm haha (All depression vibes with a lol funny feeling) Sebastian - Nonpareil of Favor (especially the lyric "So I'm waking your ass up at 3 in the morning") / Your Magic is Working Shakespeare - Last Rites At The Jane Hotel (especially the lyric "I'm not the demon that I'm meant to be") / We Will Commit Wolf Murder / I Was Watching Your Eyes / Voltaic Crusher Jean - True Beauty Forever / Widowsucking / No Conclusion Napoleon - Bassem Sabry / Time Will Show the Wiser / Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games Leonardo - Expecting to Fly / The Hollow Room Mozart - Suffer for Fashion / Noir Blues to Tinnitus /Triphallus, To Punctuate! Theo - Marijuana's A Working Woman (mostly the lyric: "Maybe we should fight/It seems to make everything better") / Empyrean Abattoir (Bonus: Punch in the Face by That Handsome Devil to reflect Theo's rage against Shakespeare) Vincent - Triumph of Disintegration / Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse (Tried to find songs that shows his conflict feelings about how he has swallowed his emotions) / You've Got a Gift (because he is an angel) Isaac - Christmas Isn't Safe for Animals / She's A Rejector / Micro University Comte - chaos arpeggiating (mostly the line about not wanting to hurt the women he loves) / My Darling, I've Forgotten / It's Easy to Sleep When You're Dead / Miss Blonde, Your Papa Is Failing Charles - You've Had Me Everywhere / Soft Music / Partizan Terminus / If You Feel You Must Go, Don't Go Faust - Karlheinz Chop up Children / Get God's Attention by being Atheist / Rapture Rapes the Muses (Bonus: Hershey by Nine Inch Nails - as you can tell, I focused on Faust's conflict with religion) Vlad - So Chill Then / Stag to the Stable / I Can't Stop Your Memory / Erroneous Escape Into Erik Eckles / Death Is Not A Parallel Move ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please let me know what y'all think or if you have any questions about the reasonings for some of the song choices. There are tons of more songs that fit the suitors just from of Montreal's albums alone, and a lot of songs work for multiple suitors.

#ikemen vampire #cybird ikemen #ikemenvamp #ikevamp #ikemen vampire arthur #ikemen vampire theodorus #ikemen vampire comte #ikemen vampire shakespeare #of montreal #favorite songs

[lunarflare64]

what music do you recommend?

That's a little difficult to answer. I like everything, but also I'm insanely picky, I hate music apps like Spotify because the algorithms can't understand me, and them getting it wrong makes me grumpy

But, inconsistent music taste aside, I do have more electronic stuff than anything else in my music hoard, and the one genre that has more hits than misses is electroswing, Jamie Berry for a lot of it, but plenty of other artists are in my collection too

I've been finding more and more artists I consistently like lately too, which has been nice. I like Billie Eilish a fair bit, as well as BoyWithUke, Alec Benjamin, T!LT, Mystery Skulls, Poor Man's Poison, Porcupine Tree, NEFFEX, Citizen Soldier, and NF, and FiASKO is the newest addition to the lot

The one artist I've liked the longest is actually SharaX, I've been a fan of hers since before she got into Undertale mixes. I remember waiting back in the day, during the prime of Undertale's popularity, wondering if SharaX would take a crack at the OST, and then the popularity started to die and I shrugged and moved on, and then BOOM, Undertale mixes for the next six years straight with no signs of stopping

I'm sorta in between songs right now, I have phases where a bunch of new songs are added to my hoard, and then phases where I'm not really vibing with anything specific, which can be a bummer, but I can list the songs from my last big phase! (I'd link them or a playlist but Tumblr has a limit on youtube links and I don't do public playlists. Don't like that shit. Hate it, in fact.)

(This'll be in order of when they were added so you can see when I started focusing on specific vibes at certain points)

Fan Behavior - Isaac Dunbar

GUY.exe - Superfruit

Can I Get A Witness - SonReal

Stunnin' - Curtis Waters

Sail Away - Lovelytheband

Things I Thought Were Mine - Alfie Templeman

Bones - Imagine Dragons

Don't Care Crown - Fox Stevenson

Boys - Lizzo

Sweet Tooth - Scott Helman

Girls In Bikinis - Poppy

Yoiyoi Kokon - Reol

Onion Boy - Isaac Dunbar

Gazpacho - Orange Culture (you know that one tiktok that goes around here occasionally, the one where the lead singer lost their voice and they had to improvise? And it was actually good even though it was just the guy talking about how he went and bought watermelon sour patch kids? Same dudes)

Demon Mode - Stileto

E GiRLS ARE RUiNiNG MY LiFE - Corpse (FiASKO REMiX)

THE MAiN CHARACTER (ULTiMATE) - FiASKO

DUBSTEP NEVER DiE - Blaqout X Whiskers (FiASKO REMiX)

HAUNTED - Laura Les (FiASKO REMiX)

SHiNSO (CRiCKETS GO) - FiASKO

HENTAi iN A CASKET (DEAD) - FiASKO

BUiLD A BiTCH - Bella Poarch (FIASKO REMiX)

DREAM ARCHiTECT - FiASKO

CLUBROCKiN (GET iT POPPiN) - FiASKO x RAGE-BOT

PHOTO iD - Remi Wolf (FiASKO REMiX)

STEREO GHOST (WHiSPER) - FiASKO

INSANE - FiASKO x TADROS x OMMIN

Haunt - FiASKO x Brandon Scott

ADHD - Silent Child (even if I have to correct the guy at the self deprecating parts because that's not my energy and I can't let it slide)

Sleepwalk - Forrest Day

Invaders Must Die - The Prodigy

Stand Up - The Prodigy

1,000,000 - Nine Inch Nails

Little Darkness - TuXe (Cult of the Lamb) (I wouldn't bother following this guy though, I ditched his channel because he sees no issue with playing and creating stuff for the Harry Potter game)

Yes I'm aware I could have bundled the FiASKO songs together, but you've gotta admit, seeing the list go ooooon like that is just fucking funny, you can SEE the way I lost my shit over them for a long period of time

#another thing i didnt have to do was copy the text quirk but i couldnt help it it was fun #even if it was a pain

[thepriceofbeingaroseisloneliness]

KAORU PERSONAL INTERVIEW SPECIAL HEADBANG VOL.27 TRANSLATION 2/2

The ideal figure that the guitarist who leads the band as a leader got while struggling, and the reason for his unstoppable pursuit. “Without ‘BLUE BLOOD’ I wouldn’t really be who I am now” “After all, I’ve always liked dark and hopeless stuff, that kind of things” “I’m the type of person who wants to be affected by cd jackets and lyrics” "Sometimes I can do it. A song with a very pop and bright atmosphere"

Notes before reading: This is the second part of the personal interview of Kaoru from the magazine Headbang Vol.27 released on 18th August 2020.  The interview is 11 pages long and this part covers the last 5 pages.  As Toshiya and Die’s interviews, 2nd part is focused on his roots as a guitarist.

You can get the magazine at Amazon Japan or CDJapan. Read Toshiya’s interview here Read Die’s interview here

Feel free to correct me if you spot any mistake or any confusing. Links or credits to this post when the content is reposted or captured in other SNS is appreciated :) ----- Text by: Yohsuke Hayakawa (First part here) “Without “BLUE BLOOD” I wouldn’t really be who I am now” -Then, the topic of the talk changes from here.  I would like to ask you about the story behind the 20 albums that you selected regardless of era or reasons but, you chose 10 albums from Japan and 10 foreign albums.

K: Is that true? (laughs). It's a coincidence, but it was very difficult to narrow down when it came to choose again. So, I chose mainly the ones I listened to a lot before I started the band and when I started doing it. They are just albums that influenced me. -I have the impression that Japanese music was a kids who read WeROCK’s thing. K:  Hahaha. Yes (laughs). -First of all…. COLOR's mini album "FOOLS! GET LUCKY !!" (1989) is also included. I have to ask about why you picked this one. K: Well, I really love it (laughs). Even though it was "X in the east, COLOR in the west"*, I was really into it, so I went to see their live performance. I like their punkish songs and they have many fast songs. At that time, if a song wasn’t  fast, it was a “no” for me. I also liked ROSE ROSE. *(This makes reference to X Japan being from the Kanto region (East) and COLOR being from Kansai (West) as both band emerged around the same time.) -Then D'ERLANGER. DIR EN GREY participated in D'ERLANGER's tribute (announced in 2017 ‘D'ERLANGER TRIBUTE ALBUM  ~ Stairway to Heaven~ "). Was the album "LA VIE EN ROSE" (1989) a shock for you?

K: That’s right, “LA VIE EN ROSE” too but also CIPHER (G) himself. Well, I think it was at ”BURNN! JAPAN”, CIPHER appeared in a solo photo on one page in colour.

-Oh, it’s a shot in which you can see him standing with a flashy Les Paul guitar. It was before kyo (D’ERLANGER vocalist) became a member. K: That’s right.  I though “What on earth is this person?” After that, they were releasing a CD ("LA VIE EN ROSE") , so I made a I made a reservation right away.

-Also, a band you can't miss from those times is DEAD END. It never gets old because it’s respected across generations. K: I chose "Shambara" (1988), well, it's a masterpiece. Just listening to the opening song "EMBRYO BURNING" made me sick. When I first started listening to metal music, I was a bit reluctant but with DEAD END, the melody that MORRIE sung got me very quickly, I got into them without any resistance. I didn’t have the impression that DEAD END was so-called “metal”. Since I started playing in bands, I was overwhelmed by the seriousness of YOU’s guitar technique. - Next is ZI: KILL is "ROCKET" (1993). Initially, the dark positive punk style was strong but with that last album, their musicality expanded dramatically and there are even piano jazz songs. K: It’s an album that feels like something has been reached. I got into ZI:KILL since the early albums and after making their major debut, I got the impression that their albums got milder. However, when I listened to "ROCKET", it seemed like an insanely cool album. I still listen to it. -Including a horn in their arrangements was ground-breaking. K: Yes, at first I hated it! But somehow, I didn’t care about it at all. Still, TUSK (Vo) lyrics and the songs were addictive. It made a deep impression on me, that’s why I read ZI:KILL lyrics carefully as well.

-Do you care about the lyrics when it comes to Japanese artists? K: I check the booklets properly. After all, the lyrics reach my ears at the point in which the words make you feel something.

- And, needless to say, you also chose X's "BLUE BLOOD" (1989). At the Vol. 20 of this magazine, you chose it as a “metal album that changed your life”. So, as expected, if you choose an album from X japan, would be this one? K: Without this album, I wouldn't really be who I am now.

-You were influenced by everything, both the music and the guitar play….is that so? K: The guitar too, right? Well, it’s not at that level anymore.

-Ah, that’s not the level (laughs) K: I was just listening to it earnestly and thinking “amazing!”, it just something that I like, there is no particular reason (laughs).

“Western music  (I listened to) was also greatly influenced by HIDE. That’s why everything it’s related to HIDE (laughs)”

- On the other hand, Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi and Cocco are also included. K: I've always liked Nagabuchi. Like "Tonbo" (1988), there was a tv drama about that. *(”Tonbo” (Dragonfly) was also a tv drama  in which Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi played a member of a yakuza gang  who is trapped in a violent existence.)

- Oh, after that was "Shabontama" (1991). K: I also like the movie "Orgel" (1989), I was really into Nagabuchi at that time. The "Showa" (1989) album I chose this time is the album that got me hooked. The masterpiece "Gekiai" which is my favourite song was recorded around that time.

-You liked Nagabuchi’s drama series. K: Yes, they are rather dark series. I don’t know much about the brighter/cheerful ones.

-The ones like "Family Game" (1983)? K: That's right. Those are not the ones that I prefer. After all, I’ve always liked dark and hopeless stuff, that kind of things. -(Laughs) However, the radical portrayal of Nagabuchi’s drama shocked your heart as a young boy. Probably such a drama couldn’t be made in this era. K: Yes, you can’t. There isn’t even a rebroadcast of these ones.

-Certainly.  Also, I remember that Cocco was around in the scene at the same time than HIDE (g). K: Yes. When I listened to her album, it didn’t feel like I was listening to a Japanese cd. I felt like it was a western heavy band, so I got into it with that kind of image.

-I feel that foreign music, the alternative vibe is overall stronger, but do you like that? K: After all, HIDE’s influence in foreign music (I listened to) is huge. At that time, I was buying various magazines and looking for some more, I checked the names that appeared in HIDE’s articles and I’ve been listening to the ones I liked all the time.

- I have the impression that HIDE had a great influence on you listening to bands like Jane's Addiction at that time. What about Vanessa Paradis and Japan ( English new wave band)? K: That was also due to the influence of HIDE. That’s why almost everything is related to HIDE (laughs). Also, this album of hers (released in 1992, “Vanessa Paradis”) was produced by Lenny Kravitz, who liked to go to her lives.  She's still good, but I especially like her early days, I'm attracted to that voice.

“I’m the type of person who wants to be affected by cd jackets and lyrics”

- So that's it. The only work related to HIDE that you chose was with X Japan but, what about his solo works? K: Well, of course I like his solo, but in my case, I like HIDE in X Japan the most.

-Other than that, I can tell that you like strong sounds, heavy riffs and industrial. K: That’s right. As I was always seeking fierce things, I came to like strong riffs such as Pantera and Ministry.

-What about the so-called European German metal? K: Especially at that time, it wasn’t my cup of tea (laughs) - Then, some of the foreign music you chose…. "Psalm 69: The Way To Succeed And The Way To Suck Eggs" (1992) by Ministry. This album was already mentioned in this magazine before as an important metal album for you. K:  At that time, there was a foreign-related CD shop called WAVE at  Umeda Loft in Osaka. I think that I found it there and listened to it. I was like “what the hell?”, so I bought it right away. I listened to it at home again. That night I went to a acquaintance’s house and I said “Listen to this!”, and I forced him to listen (laughs). -I can tell your excitement (laughs) K: Then I listened to all the other albums. Above all, I like this one the most.  -And you also mentioned Nine Inch Nails. K: The first thing I heard from them was a single or something. At that time, I thought, "Wow, that's amazing," but when I listened to the songs on that album, I felt like I was listening to something I had never heard before. It's dark, but it sounds very aggressive. But it’s not like european music dark feeling.At that time, I wasn't sure if  they were a band or not (laughs).  -You wondered if it was a one-person band. K: That’s right. I was like “Is the same person doing everything?”, “Is he playing drums too?”. Everything was a mystery. Information was not available as soon as it does now, so I was wondering “Who is this person?”. I also wondered if the cd jacket had something to grasp, like it was a cd jacket that I didn’t really understand. Like the logo. It was all mysterious and addictive. I myself am the type who wants to be influenced/affected by cd jackets and lyrics, so I look at every corner. Everything up to the back of the wrapping. Then, when I looked at the back, I thought, "Isn't there anything attached?" (Laughs).  -(Laughs)There are many things that are totally attractive, including elaborate art books.  K: Yes. Especially for Nine Inch Nails, I went looking for some place that sell T-shirts of them.  "Sometimes I can do it. A song with a very pop and bright atmosphere"  -Among these works, isn't there any in particular that has an easy-to-understand influence on the songs that you make with DIR EN GREY? K: Well, I don't know that .  - Some of the works you chose this time have a strong melody…. For example, on a 2017 tour focused in “MACABRE" (2000), you played “Taijou no ao” for the first time in a while. I mentioned in this magazine before that "If you change the arrangement of a song to your current style, you can still play it ", but is there a desire to make a song with that kind of melody now? K: I don’t have a particular desire to do it. I think that it feels like something from that time, it’s an image that doesn’t make me feel excited now.  -By the way, do you usually listen to music with melodies like that? K: I do, I do.  Rather, I’ve been listening to pop music all the time lately.  I am not listening noisy bands at all.  -Noisy ones (laughs). K: Hahaha. -However, it's a little hard to think that you are going to make songs like that. K: Yeah, it doesn't happen very often sometimes, but there are times when I can do it. A song with a very pop and bright atmosphere. So, when I tried to start to work on songs, one turns out like “this is what I have done”. But maybe then I think that it’s a little different from what I do with DIR EN GREY, so I have to mess with it, fix it or just store it. - Eh! Do you make that kind of songs? I would like to hear a song like that from you now. That’s why the melody of “Taijou no Ao” that I mentioned as an example is not only pop but also suffocating. Faintly scented lyrics. I wonder if that it’s your true self. K: That's right.The first thing that influenced me was  the New Wave*. Pet Shop Boys and so, I liked that kinds of thing. That’s why there is a bit of that “kind of atmosphere” sometimes. It's not just pop. *(New wave is a broad music genre that encompasses numerous pop-oriented styles from the late 1970s and the 1980s) -There is also a sorrowful side. K: So, if I had to pick one, Europe is better in that than America. Well, when it comes to the songs I make, I’d like to make them more interesting, but I don’t feel like doing something that is off the point/wrong.  -I have to ask you about the melody part now. K: If you have any concerns, I will answer them…  - What if there is something clear for you like, “this song has this kind of image”? K: After that, Kyo has several ways to sing so I will combine them in my own way and propose new melodies. Like “I think in this way would be cool”.   -Oh, that’s how you do it. In any case, now I'm looking forward to the day when I can listen to a new song again. Will the album be completed in 2021? K: That's right.  -By the way, Kaoru-san's hard disk has already material for the new album…. K: Well, there's something for the album……there is, but it’s still not the whole thing at all (laughs).

#dir en grey #kaoru #translation #Headbang Vol 27 #interview

[omegaplus]

# 3,674

Marilyn Manson: Smells Like Children (1995) Sexual assault and toxicity are ‘no dice’. We’ve had close friends and allies who were illegal-ed on different levels, and toxicity is what we experience personally and daily on Long Island. We never condone any of it. There’s never a positive outcome when anyone is on its’ receiving end.

There’s no more writing off what Brian Warner / Marilyn Manson has done. With 25 years-plus of controversy mostly involving several exes, former bandmates and collaborators testifying against his atrocious behavior, it’ll be a near-impossible sell to walk away unscathed. Evan Rachel Wood, Rose McGowan, Dita Von Teese, Trent Reznor, Madonna Wayne Gacy, Wes Borland, and many others have their accounts matching up how ruthless, heartless, and demented he was towards everyone who ever supported him. So far, it’s cost him his record deal with Loma Vista, and his music career is crumbling before his very eyes.

Bad news come from all colors, denominations, alignments, and affiliations. Hear the names of R. Kelly, Phil Spector, or Michael Jackson and surely the boomerang of controversy always returns to rear its philosophical and social issues. Time and time again, your favorite big names’ behaviors cause us to question if and how we can separate the art from the artist. We question if and how far cancel culture can be applied, how much we’ll tolerate or write-off their actions or viewpoints, and if we can wrangle listening, watching, or reading our vital artists again without scrutiny.

It’s been forever since I listened to Smells Like Children. It stands as the only Manson release I got into because it was the first truly out-there album I’ve ever experienced. It’s the definition of ‘shits and giggles’. Fans took notice because of how nightmarish the Dean Karr-directed “Sweet Dreams” video (‘95) was, a cover of The Eurythmics synth-pop hit. With Trent Reznor and the Nine Inch Nails camp’s seal of approval and production, Smells Like Children broke Marilyn Manson out to the mainstream and he / the band solidified their place in metal with 1996’s Antichrist Superstar.

As I returned to it, it’s no surprise how his themes ran parallel to not only his bad parts of his personality but also his conduct. “Sweet Dreams” was Dave Stewart’s and Annie Lennox’ observance of motivation, personal gain and treatment. Warner chose that track not just on the lyrics but he’s played that fame game to a tee. More lyrics all across the board told of his deviant mind (“white trash get down on your knees / time for cake and sodomy” and “who said date rape isn’t kind?”) on “Everlasting Cocksucker”, or the opening lines on “Diary Of A Dope Fiend” that hints of vengeance against an ex-girlfriend. And those weren’t the only flags that turned from yellow to red if not for his actions.

Listen to “Fuck Frankie”, about a former tour manager immortalized for embezzling $20,000 from the band. It’s a passage of torture and submission that’s peppered his image and being. In fact, the two promo- only tracks accidentally released by his former label Interscope, “Abuse I & II”, also told signs of Marilyn Manson’s real-life fetishes of debauchery. A fan account of her molesting her seven year-old cousin was so shocking that they omitted it from the original release. “I Put A Spell On You”, a cover of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ original, is given the Manson treatment that provides more of a possessive, captive, and sinister spin. The closing track, “Rock ‘N’ Roll N*****”, covering Patti Smith, self-designates him as not only an outsider (misusing the n-word) but shows society’s demonizing and disposal of idols and people in general.

Now fast-forward to the right now. With Warner pushing back on his latest claims against him, he won’t own up to the “Kiddie Grinder” lyric “I hate what I have become” any time soon.

Everyone knows he’s been both a wind-up merchant and a magnate for controversy. It’s one thing to have his personal viewpoints; ones against religion and pointing out the contradicting, hypocritical nature of society that sadly gave the American media ammunition to falsely pin him for The Columbine shootings. To have misdeeds of sexual misconduct, abuse, mistreatment, and torture if they’re true? He’ll put that on himself.

Now, life didn’t imitate art, it reflects it. If it’s believed to be, then that’s artistic integrity being himself in a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ proposition if it’s the case. Hearing this release in its’ atrocious, bizarre, outlandish sonic form wouldn’t have a huge question mark without any accusations involved, but his behavior has caught up to him. Warner had continued to match the grotesque and ugliness of his output. His former flames, scorned bandmates, disassociates, and other fans with first-hand accounts of his mistreatment would carry more weight than anything else. Set up the dominoes of negativity and rumors, then have someone like Wood knock them all down so that their eventual collapse makes sense. (And let’s not forget, they did collapse on Jeordie White / Twiggy Ramirez, who was let go by Warner himself based on a rape accusation.)

Regardless of what happens to Warner / Manson, fans will still listen to the music. No person, label, or music outlet can ever completely erase the actions or works of anyone specific. Regardless of how many cancellations or ripped contracts there are, their works are more obtainable than ever to anyone who wants them, even if their names momentum slows down or completely stops. There’s no gangbusters to eye or decide on everyone’s listening habits. Morrissey, Genesis P. Orridge, PWR BTTM, and Boyd Rice have done and said some outlandish things that have tarnished or destroyed their legacies, yet people will still enjoy them. Great. At this point, for whoever we’re reading, viewing, or hearing, we’d be remiss if at times we didn’t show their red cards or strikes. It’s still possible that the works our favorites have created will stay with us and be held tightly; because we’re so used to them before we realize how notorious their actions are. The life actions they commit unto others, obviously, is another ballgame in itself. Now, to each your own.

Ask yourself how much carte-blanche you and / or the industry will give to artists for their misdeeds? Who gets to decide whose careers get taken down or let off the hook and why? What’s allowable and what’s not? Why do slips of the tongue or mere words cost people’s entire careers instantly while others who have done much worse still have theirs? It’s a contradictory, privileged beast we’re figuring out right now.

#omega #music #mixtapes #reviews #playlists #Marilyn Manson #industrial #metal #horror #goth #NIN #Nine Inch Nails #Trent Reznor #WTF #wow #personal

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Three awesome post-GoT series I would commission if I owned any of the Big three Streaming platforms.

Yo! Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+, you have a problem: there are nerds like me who want to give you even more of our time and money, but you’re not making the stuff you should be.  Following the hugely disappointing end of “Game of Thrones”  there are a huge number of sci-f and fantasy nerds who are currently not getting our fix of epic adventure, and rather than commission a whole bunch of cool series that are just begging to be made to cash in on this, you’re all just sort of doing your own things. And that’s Cool, I’m loving the Netflix Witcher series and Disney’s Loki, and looking forward to the Amazon Middle Earth series with a mix of hope and trepidation (please be good), there are, however, a whole mass of cool book series that are just begging for release in an episodic fashion, and what’s more, I can think of which series plays to which streaming platforms strengths. And unlike Game of Thrones, there are series where running out of source material to adapt shouldn’t be a problem.

So, three sci-fi or fantasy series that play to the strengths of the big three Streaming services, as suggested by me, a big ol’ nerd. One: Amazon Prime. Strengths: successfully adapting darker comic-book or Urban fantasy works Like Preacher, the Boys, Good Omens and American Gods and making a profit. Weakness: has never successfully pulled of a big Grimdark fantasy series, despite having all the talent to do so because they’re working on the Middle earth series, which doesn’t seem a good fit for their brand image as the place you come for for comically dark works, and all their adaptations are too much of a slow burn, which necessitates padding the source material (look at how little happens in any episode of Preacher or the Boy vs the insanely fast pace of the comics). Solution: Malazan, book of the fallen. A deep, insanely dark, insanely Epic story that would actually lend itself to a slow burn and the grim-dark over the top violence of other Amazon shows, and fill the “Tit’s and monsters” gap left by GoT in many of our hearts. And unlike Tolkien, I have faith that the studio that cast Sweary Karl Urban as Billy Butcher could actually pull this off with the correct tone and feel. This would have the Witcher fans from Netflix defecting in droves, and could also pull in some new viewers who might enjoy the anthropology and political intrigue of this complex, multifaceted world.

 Two: Disney+. Strengths: near infinite money and ambition, the production team behind The Mandalorian and the MCU, great Hollywood clout to draw in big name stars, but willing to cast talented unknowns, the best mix of live action and CG in the business. Weaknesses: It’s Disney, so they can never go full grim-dark: they can imply or infer dark acts, but need to keep what’s shown on screen PG13 to fit their brand, which rules out a lot of modern fantasy. And they have no true fantasy serries in their stable.

Solution: Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn, and other Cosmere works.  A rare example of an excellent current fantasy and sci-fi writer who isn’t grimdark as heck, and manages to convey dark and adult themes by implication and hints rather than outright showing them, this is pretty much the only big fantasy series out there that is aimed at and enjoyed by adults but remains consistently PG13. It’s also so epic and super-hero-ish in this various magic systems, that I can’t see anyone other than the team behind the MCU pulling off a live-action version of this that doesn’t suck. In addition to this, the logical starting point for this, Mistborn, is by far the safest and most marketable, coming the closest of any of his works to a standard young-adult plot with Vin as an easily sell-able character to studio brass, being to all intents and purposes Katniss Everdeen with super-powers, which could get a big studio invested  and convinced this is a good idea before we get to all the “lets kill and replace god” stuff. If Mistborn was successful, other Cosmere works could follow, and I could see something like the Stormlight Archives working really well with the MCU effects team behind it, so long as they don’t white-wash it: No one on Roshar is white other than in Shinovar, and half of the cultures are based on either Polynesian or far eastern traditions, so cast Hawaiian, Māori, native American and east-Asian actors, and it could be both a great series, and also the most diverse Disney has ever done. You want a new, easily marketable but epic scale franchise, Disney? It’s right here.

Also for the love of god, do Wax and Wayne. I just need this, okay?

 Three: Netflix. Strengths: good at tapping into the prevailing nostalgia of Millennials and producing works that speak to them on a relatively small budget (see Stanger Things) and good at grabbing the rights to adapt good but slightly obscure works cheaply. Good working relationship with a ton of Japanese Anime rightsholders. Weaknesses: By far the smallest budget of any of the big three. Tends to produce awful live-action adaptations of beloved works (to the point that the Witcher was a pleasant surprise), but has good relationships with lots of animation studios.

Solution: Animorphs, but do what they always should have done and animate it. It boggles my mind that anyone would every try to pull this off in live action, as the transformations, which are the heart of the series, would be so hard to pull off well (look at the 90’s series). And yet, I’m aware they’re making a film, but dear god, why, when K A Applegate said form the get go that this series of books were written specifically as if they were a 90’s Saturday morning cartoon. This was always meant to be adapted as a series, not a long form film. So, don’t try to modernise it, or relate to “The kids” don’t whitewash the cast, don’t edit out the gore and body-horror, but lean into the 90’s and early 2000’s angst of it, and go balls to the walls insane with the concept. What music do you have playing for this scene? Is it Every day is exactly the same by Nine Inch Nails, and if not, why not? Do the transformation sequence genuinely scare you? No?  Then you’re doing it wrong.  Is that a happy ending? Get that the hell out of there. Go for the original time period and concept, and go hard, and if you do it now, you’ll just hit that sweet spot as the rolling 30 year nostalgia cycle moves out of the 80’s and into the 90’s. And as an apology to all the bad live-action Anime you produced, Netflix, get a Japanese studio to animate this: the Animorphs books were popular in Japan, with wonderful hand drawn illustrations throughout. Get Studio Orange on this: Beastars proved they can do flowing, fast-moving combat well, and make animal and other non-human characters look good, and what’s more they’d probably be up for it: Animorphs is basically a western Shōnen,  so the market for an Anime of it would exist in Japan.

 So there we go, the three series I would commission if I ruled the world of streaming sites. As ever, tell me why I’m wrong below, and have a great day!

#animorphs #brandon sanderson #mistborn #malazan #netflix #studio orange #disney plus #disney #MCU #cosmere #k a applegate #steven erikson #sci fi #fantisy #streaming sites #amazon plus