2013 saw Trent Reznor write a new Nine Inch Nails album, Hesitation Marks, tour heavily in support of the album with a stage show that is complete and utter eye-candy, and make an announcement for a new music streaming service called Beats Music which he has been working on with Dr. Dre. Yesterday, Reznor released a free 77-minute live concert film from the recent tour (which will be part of a live Blu-Ray DVD set for release in the Spring of 2014), and took to the internet to answer some questions from fans, via Reddit.

Reznor revealed that Nine Inch Nails will definitely tour in 2014 with a different lineup than the current Tension 2013 Tour one, discussed – among other things – Beats Music, what his favorite synth to use is (a Prophet 12), the different aspects of production looked good on paper but wouldn’t translate to the actual stage, his favorite NIN album is The Fragile, attempts for he and James Franco to work together, his work with How To Destroy Angels, and some other funny banter with fans. Here are some excerpts from the session:

On stage production –

Rob and I have learned over the years that looking at renderings and imagining how things will look in real life always winds up quite different when you get to production rehearsals and see what you’ve built. Those few weeks of sitting in a warehouse is where everything comes together (hopefully). The end result of the Tension tour is very different than what we’d imagined, for a number of reasons, some of which are explained in the Vevo behind-the-scenes clip. For example, one of the many technical hurdles we didn’t expect: When we set up the two front semi-transparent LED screens we had custom made for this tour, we discovered that in front of each other their structure created a moire effect, weird black lines over any video content. We had to work around it (Disappointed is the only song that uses all three screens layered in front of each other, the sparse white lines minimized the moire effect).

On The Fragile being a predominant album to choose from for the current tour:

With the expanded lineup of Pino and the backup singers, I started reworking some older material at rehearsals and The Fragile became the most fertile place to pull from, for whatever reason (which is currently my favorite NIN album).

On his work with Beats Music, and appeasing both artist and fan:

I’ve spent the last 2+ years (along with Rob) designing this platform and genuinely look forward to presenting it to the world. Our goal was to create something we would genuinely be excited to use ourselves that focuses on the joy of discovering great music, ease of use, and was built from the ground up as something that becomes an asset to the musician as well. There’s much you’ll hear me say on this in the near future.

His attempts to work with James Franco:

James was set to direct an Amex Unstaged with us that we unfortunately had to cancel because we couldn’t get production together in time. I met with him several times and we had the start of a great idea. I am very disappointed this didn’t come together and hope we can do something in the future.

Thoughts on touring:

Here are some thoughts on touring: When we commit to a touring cycle, it usually is at least a year long, and can start to feel stale after X amount of time. What I’m doing this cycle is making each leg of the tour have its own identity. The festival run we did over the summer was very different from the Tension tour we just finished. We’re currently rehearsing with a new incarnation of the band for what’s ahead. This keeps things fresh from a musician’s perspective, but also keeps things interesting for fans in an era where every show ends up on YouTube. The setlist and presentation moving forward will be very different from what we just did. That’s part of the incentive behind releasing the Tension footage now. That was one very specific look at Nine Inch Nails in the Fall of 2013, that I wanted the whole world to be able to see (just like you can see the festival footage on YouTube, which was its own thing). Yes, we are planning to return to North America in 2014…

Read the entire Reddit AMA session here.

[via Consequence of Sound]