Reznor Self-Producing New Nine Inch Nails Album

By Jonathan Cohen

NEW YORK (Billboard) - A day after it was revealed that Dave Grohl had contributed drum tracks to the new Nine Inch Nails record, group mastermind Trent Reznor said Wednesday he is self-producing the set, tentatively titled "Bleed Through."

Why, do you ask?," Reznor writes on NIN's official Web site (http://www.nin.com). "Well, I feel very inspired right now and I want this record to be what's in my head, for better or worse."

Grohl laid down drums on 15 tracks last week at a California studio. "Working with him has been one of the most inspiring and exciting experiences I've had in the studio," Reznor said. "The tracks he's played on have come alive in a 'better-than-I'd-even-hoped-for" type way."

Reznor said he is playing the rest of the music himself, although Alan Moulder has been brought into the project as a "sounding board / co-producer / mixer," and Atticus Ross is serving as a programer and "right-hand man."

"Bleed Through" is now being eyed for an early 2005 release via Interscope, with an extensive world tour planned to support it. Two other NIN-related items will precede it in the fall: the DVD debut of the 1997 home video "Closure" bolstered with additional content, and a deluxe, double-disc edition of the 1994 album "The Downward Spiral," remixed in 5.1 surround sound.

Nine Inch Nails' last studio album, "The Fragile," produced by Reznor and Moulder, debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 and has sold more than 875,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Reuters/Billboard