Nine Inch Nails at Aragon Ballroom
photo by James Richards IV

Trent Reznor talks David Bowie ++ virtual tribute lineup expands

What would have been David Bowie‘s 74th birthday, January 8th, is being celebrated with a tribute livestream, A Bowie Celebration: Just For One Day, featuring a huge lineup of artists including Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), Perry Farrell (Jane’s Addiction), Joe Elliot (Def Leppard), and more, as well as Bowie alumni including Mike Garson, Earl Slick, Sterling Campbell, Gerry Leonard, and longtime producer Tony Visconti. That lineup has expanded since we last posted, and new additions include Ground Control (the supergroup of Slipknot‘s Corey Taylor, Foo FightersTaylor Hawkins and Jane’s Addiction‘s Dave Navarro and Chris Chaney), YUNGBLUD, Boy George, Duran Duran, Peter Frampton, Ricky Gervais, Rick Wakeman (Yes), Gary Barlow (Take That), Andy Newmark and Greg Errico (Sly and the Family Stone), Anna Calvi, Ava Cherry, David Sanborn, Judith Hill, and more. See the lineup so far below.

Trent Reznor also recently revealed what his contribution to the livestream will be: a performance of two Bowie tracks with his How to Destroy Angels bandmate and wife, Mariqueen Maandig Reznor, NIN’s Atticus Ross and Mike Garson.

The stream begins at 9 PM EST on Friday (1/8), and will be available on demand for 24 hours. Tickets are on sale now.

Meanwhile, Trent recently talked some more about his relationship with Bowie, his collaborator and former tourmate, in an interview with Consequence of Sound. “It was the Scary Monsters album that I became aware of Bowie’s music,” Trent said. “None of my friends were super-big Bowie fans. But there was something about Scary Monsters. I think it was the Columbia Record Club. I didn’t mail the card back, so the record showed up. I had to spend $8.98 on the album. And in those days, you listened to what you got. I had 20 albums. I’m gonna listen to it whether I like it or not. But it really struck a nerve with whoever I was at that time, and this cold, alien … it really resonated. Then I started moving forwards and backwards in his catalog at that time. And then over the next few years, I had the pleasure of going through Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust and Station to Station. He just really started to become the best archetype for someone who has a fantastic voice and was kind of an actor pretending to be a rock star, in a way, which seemed to give him the ability to reinvent himself in ways that just felt like it would take a lot of courage to have had success at something and then throw it away and try something new.”

“I still think about that dude all the time, and I still listen to him constantly,” Trent continued. “And I’m grateful that our lives intersected, and I’m grateful for, whether he knew it or not, how much he helped me in those dark times before I chose to get my shit together. And I can hear his voice. He penetrated through the layers of bullshit that I’d built around myself. I’m grateful for that.”

Read the interview in full on Consequence of Sound.

A Bowie Celebration