The rock band Nine Inch Nails was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020, three decades after its formation. Next week, the group’s founding drummer Chris Vrenna will join a panel discussion at the Michigan State University Museum.
Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Trent Reznor formed Nine Inch Nails in 1988. Vrenna was the group’s drummer for the group's landmark 1994 album “The Downward Spiral” which included the gut-wrenching “Hurt" and the disturbing “Closer."
Nowadays, Vrenna is an assistant professor of Performing Arts Technology at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, and much of his work in recent years has focused on composing video game soundtracks like for “Doom 3."
Video games were a huge pastime for Vrenna and Reznor in the early days of Nine Inch Nails.
“When we got our first tour bus,” Vrenna recalled, “when we were big enough to get a bus, we got two 486 PCs, which were the top of the hill at that time. We’d put one in the front lounge, one in the back lounge on the tables and run a LAN cable down the whole bus, just so we could play death matches as we’re driving around.”
Vrenna says game developers often approached musicians for their projects. It was a selling point to have a rock star attached to your game. In his case, that meant being invited to work on games with science fiction or horror themes.
Hiring well-known musicians has become less of a factor in recent years, considering how expensive it is to create modern games. Budgets can approach $100 million.
“With that kind of commitment, games have really gone more in the realm of motion pictures," he said. "So, that’s why you see today a lot of video games that are nothing but sequels."
Music technology is constantly evolving. From the earliest mono recording moving on to the left and right tracks of stereo, Vrenna says engineers now have endless software options which he covers with his U-M students.
“Pro Tools, for a long time, was 64 tracks. That was the ceiling. Then, it went to 128. Now, every single digital recording audio work station is unlimited. You can record tracks until your hard drive shuts down or the CPU runs out. That’s a problem, because now, nobody wants to make a decision.”
As for Nine Inch Nails going into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020, Vrenna has a big trophy, and his name will be on the wall there forever.
“All I ever wanted to do musically was to touch people, reach people on some level,” he said. “If I got one person to say ‘Man, your record got me through the worst breakup of my life’ or whatever, I’ve done my job.”
Along with Nine Inch Nails, Vrenna has worked with acts like Marilyn Manson, Smashing Pumpkins and Gnarls Barkley.
Through it all, he enjoys teaching and working on video game projects while also having a certain amount of anonymity, concluding with a laugh that no one has recognized him in two decades.
In 2013, Vrenna decided to leave performing behind in favor of teaching the next generation of musicians. Still, he confesses that he misses playing live.
On March 18, Chris Vrenna will join composer and techno innovator Carl Craig, game developer Ryan Thompson and Pablo Guiliani, a physicist at MSU’s Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, for a free public conversation about Music, Science and Video Games.
That’s at the MSU Museum starting at 5:30 p.m.
UPCOMING ARTS EVENTS
The Peppermint Creek Theatre company is staging “Fairview” by Jackie Sibbles Drury for eight performances starting Friday, March 13 at the Stage One Performing Arts Center in Lansing.
Hear the MSU Jazz Orchestras with legendary drummer Harvey Mason Sunday, March 15 at 3 p.m. in the Wharton Center’s Pasant Theatre.
With St. Patrick’s day coming up, look for Irish music around town. The Irish Pub in Lansing has the folk and Celtic music of Pinter Whitnik Saturday afternoon, Barley Priest on Monday afternoon and the Irish Dance group, Hubbardston Dance, St. Patrick’s Day evening on Tuesday.
