2009.02.DD - Time Off - Slipping Past The Ghosts (Robin)

SLIPPING PAST THE GHOSTS

AFTER SEVERAL YEARS MOONLIGHTING IN GUNS N’ ROSES, ROBIN FINCK WAS LURED BACK TO NINE INCH NAILS BY TRENT REZNOR FOR THE SESSIONS WHICH PRODUCED 2008 ALBUM THE SLIP. HIS PASSION FOR THE NEW MATERIAL IS CLEAR AS HE TALKS TO NIC TOUPEE ABOUT THE NEW LIVE LINE-UP SET TO HIT AUSTRALIA FOR SOUNDWAVE.

Guitarist Robin Finck has notched up more than a few broken strings and flung guitar picks over his fifteen years in stadium rock, doing time in Guns N’ Roses (working on the only recently released Chinese Democracy album) bookended by stints playing for Trent Reznor in Nine Inch Nails. Finck has played on what fans often argue have been the best NIN tours to date - the Further Down The Spiral tour and The Fragility tour - and he has joined NIN again for the 2008 Lights In The Sky North American shows and the subsequent 2009 South American and Australasian performances.

His re-entry into the NIN fold preceded a more general band shake-up which saw the departure of much respected long-time NIN drummer Josh Freese and recent collaborator Alessandro Cortini and the addition of drummer Ilan Rubin and bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen, wiping the slate pretty much clean for Reznor to rebuild the NIN show from scratch.

So after wielding the axe of hard rock for the Gunners for the past handful of years, how did Finck find himself called back into the NIN fray?

“I received a call out of the blue one day!” he recollects. “Trent reached out to me before the onset of this new tour, saying he was putting a new group together other than the one he had been touring with. Actually it started in an email and then a telephone conversation and eventually we had an organic conversation about what was going to happen - he shared with me the plans he had with NIN and asked if I would like to be a part of it, and I agreed to join the band again.”

Given that this is the third time around for Finck, playing some of the older material again is bound to bring back some memories.

“Playing guitar gives me an opportunity to check out of my day and into some other headspace - I can really let go and step into the full expression of who I am through these songs,” Finck reveals. “Some of the songs from the first couple of NIN records are old guitars to m, they’ll never go away and they feel to me now like they did when they were first released. Whatever may be going on in my life now, I really appreciate an opportunity to step out of time and into these songs. I’m very emotionally attached to them. I do still relate to them personally – I’m a huge fan of Trent’s music.”

Rumours of Josh Freese’s departure had been circulating for months before he finally left the group, and it seems Finck was approached about rejoining Reznor and co long before the recent reinvention of the live incarnation of the band went down.
“[The initial] conversation happened not quite a year ago,” Finck says. “He had just finished Ghosts, I believe, and was going to be touring, including South America and beyond. At that stage he had a batch of songs that became The Slip and invited me to play in the studio for a few days on those songs. That was a real charge for me and I ended up playing with him not just on the album but also on this tour. We’ve played a lot of dates in the past few months and I’m looking forward to getting home and having break for a couple of weeks! Then we start up again the next week, playing as a four piece group for the first time with our new drummer Ilan.”

Given the fantastic reviews of the Lights In The Sky tour of the USA, it’s interesting that Reznor has chosen to change the line-up substantially again before the touring continues. Does this mean huge changes to the recent set list or the band’s sound for the Australian dates?

“I’m really excited about the changes” says Robin enthusiastically, and goes on to confirm that the songs will undergo some refinement. “We’re really intending to break down this body of material we’re working with one by one and build the songs back up again to suit the new line-up. We’ll have the four of us in a room together and will experiment with the tracks, and I think a lot of songs are going to sound certainly different to what they’ve been in the past – we’re looking at different production elements as well. It’s really ‘changing of the guard’ in a lot of ways for the NIN live show, and I think we’re going to be looking at a really fresh and inspired production.”

Although fans have followed the footage of the spectacular Lights In The Sky tour online and are hoping for something similarly visually impressive, Finck confirms that the whole concept of Lights In The Sky is now a closed chapter in NIN history, and what Australian audiences will see is something new.

“The Lights In The Sky tour came to a close in LA in mid-December and we are leaving that production behind and stepping into a new dynamic - especially with us going from a five-piece to a four-piece with a new drummer,” Finck explains. “We’re embracing this dynamic shift and going to turn it into something different. To be honest, we’ve been talking a whole lot back and forth about a lot of things and what we might do, but until we get into a room and start stepping into these songs it’s hard to say what will happen. I think there’s going to be a very organic process of what drives us and works, we’re going to cover the songs we know have worked in the past and see how they feel, we’re going to approach many songs that didn’t appear for the Lights In The Sky tour. There’s a massive body of songs to choose from and I think we’re all excited about some songs or another.”

“Especially when we come to Australia, we’ll be playing many outdoor stages and big venues with presumably larger audiences than arenas provide. We’ve been talking about shifting up the relationship even spatially on the stage and as far as the production elements go there’s a team of people working on that and I haven’t seen the designs yet.”
Although NIN is primarily seen as the brainchild of Trent Reznor with his live outfit in supporting roles, it’s somewhat surprising to learn that Finck and his cohorts have as much input in bringing the songs kicking and screaming into the live arena as their formidable band leader.

“Trent’s very open to input and ideas,” Finck reveals, “and when we show up to rehearse, we all show up and every bit of us individually shows up. We really enjoy applying ourselves 100 percent to these songs and we’ve each got a task to do; part of Trent’s task, apart from singing and playing of course, is leading and directing the rehearsal and he’s good at doing that. It’s fun - actually it’s sometimes a riot - and we certainly have a laugh but, like anything and anyone, there’s off moments and off days.”

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