{"id":491638,"date":"2019-10-25T12:27:18","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T18:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=903889"},"modified":"2019-10-25T12:27:18","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T18:27:18","slug":"trent-reznor-breaks-silence-on-undeniably-hooky-old-town-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/trent-reznor-breaks-silence-on-undeniably-hooky-old-town-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Trent Reznor Breaks Silence on \u2018Undeniably Hooky\u2019 \u2018Old Town Road\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Trent Reznor<\/a> first heard \u201cOld Town Road,\u201d he was surprised. The song used a short section of banjo from \u201c34 Ghosts IV,\u201d<\/a> a track off Nine Inch Nails\u2019 mostly instrumental 2008 album Ghosts I\u2013IV<\/em>, that Lil Nas X<\/a> and producer YoungKio had souped up with trap beats and an unforgettable chorus. Hearing his music out of context, Reznor\u2019s gut reaction was less critical than visceral.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first when you hear your stuff turned into something else, it always feels awkward because it\u2019s something that intimately came from you in some way,\u201d he tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. He likens it to being taken aback at hearing the way Johnny Cash turned his sparsely, gothic Downward Spiral<\/em> track \u201cHurt,\u201d which references drug use, into an acoustic country love song. \u201cYou feel a little bit violated, you know?\u201d he laughs. \u201cAnd then you get over that and you realize it\u2019s become something else and the Johnny Cash thing is incredible. It\u2019s very flattering.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe music from Ghosts<\/em> that turned into \u2018Old Town Road\u2019 certainly didn\u2019t come from as intimate a place as the song \u2018Hurt\u2019 did, but it\u2019s still something that I remember what I was thinking about when we did it and then you hear it turned into this other thing, it feels strange at first,\u201d he continues. \u201cBut I thought he did a good job with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The song, which features Reznor and his Nine Inch Nails collaborator Atticus Ross as cowriters, has since become the longest-running Number One record in Billboard\u2019s chart history. Reznor was speaking with Rolling Stone<\/em> for an upcoming interview about his and Ross\u2019 score for HBO\u2019s Watchmen.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe way it was presented to me originally is I got a call from my management saying, \u2018We got a call from a panicked manager saying they had used the sample of something off Ghosts<\/em>,’\u201d Reznor recalls. \u201c\u2018They should have cleared it, but it didn\u2019t get cleared. It\u2019s picking up some steam on the viral Spotify charts. What do you think about that?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Look, I\u2019m fine with it. I get how stuff goes. They\u2019re not saying they didn\u2019t sample it. Just work it out but don\u2019t be a roadblock to this.\u2019 I hadn\u2019t heard it yet. Then a few weeks later, I was like, \u2018Holy shit.’\u201d<\/p>\n