Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral is their most iconic album and peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart, but during a new interview with GQ Trent Reznor admitted that he thought the label would be angry when he turned it in.
“I felt the record was so uncompromising," he explained. "It was an album that I needed to make but it wasn’t reactive to ‘F**k you, forgive me but I’ll show you.’ I remember I turned it in and I said, ‘Sorry. You shouldn’t have let me do what I was going to do.'”
The Downward Spiral turned 30 last month. Reznor commemorated the milestone with a message on social media. "Spending too much time looking backwards feels dangerous to me, but this day on the calendar caught my attention. Has it really been that long, old friend?" he wrote.
"I just spent an hour listening to this time capsule of what 28 year old me had to say, and it still excites me and breaks my heart," Reznor admitted. "Be kind to yourselves. Hope to see you soon."
Though the NIN frontman told fans he hopes to see them soon, it probably won't be on tour. Last summer, he divulged that he's not interested in touring anymore. “I don’t want to be away from my kids,” he said at the time. “I don’t want to miss their lives to go do a thing that I’m grateful to be able to do, and I’m appreciative that you’re here to see it, but I’ve done it a lot, you know?”