The Music Tells the Story at Reznor and Ross’ Future Ruins Festival

On November 8th of this year, Future Ruins will take place at the LA Equestrian Center, a suitably strange venue hiding in plain sight in the middle of Los Angeles. The space will be filled with a group of composers who are among the most important in the world of music, but who, for the most part, have rarely been seen performing for people in real life. Or, as Reznor puts it: “We want to allow those artists who are often in the shadows or on the soundstage to come out and feel the adrenaline rush and wave of inspiration from playing in front of a live audience. It's about giving people who are, literally, the best in the world at taking audiences on an emotional ride via music, the opportunity to tell new stories in an interesting live setting.”

Reznor and his longtime musical partner, Atticus Ross, have been composing for more than fifteen years. They’ve created music for everything from “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” to “Watchmen” to “Soul” to “Challengers.” The pair will perform at Future Ruins, but they aren’t the headliners. There are no headliners in the traditional sense. Every artist is a headliner, each with their own specially curated moment. “The bill will be thoughtful in terms of the running order,” says Reznor. For Reznor and Ross, who are in the middle of finishing the Tron score, and who will start a tour as Nine Inch Nails in June, the idea of bringing their own film compositions to life comes with a certain amount of exhilarating trepidation.

That sense of stomach turning excitement about a new project is how Reznor got into scoring in the first place, when he and Ross began working with David Fincher on “The Social Network.” He remembers the feeling of total newness, sitting in a studio and realizing it was his job to put sound to a shot of Jesse Eisenberg’s sandaled feet going up a set of leaf-covered steps at Harvard University. Instead of thinking about writing music for this sliver of a moment, things unlocked when Reznor began imagining “what it feels like when you're in pursuit of something you passionately believe in and you inadvertently fuck the people around you over.” He realized, scoring “is like writing a song, but the lyrics are the picture on the screen.”

Reznor sat down to talk through the birth of Future Ruins, his aspirations for the festival, and the degree of healthy anxiety he’s experiencing having put together a bill full of people who are his “heroes.”

Lizzy Goodman: Tell me a bit about how this idea developed.

Trent Reznor: I like the idea of festivals. I've had good times at festivals. I have the romantic memory of being in a place with a bunch of other people where it feels summery and fun, but I think that's rose-colored glasses compared to the usual experience. As someone who enjoys anything from escape rooms to theme parks – the curated experience of what it feels like in certain environments or restaurants or nightclubs – the challenge of creating a day's worth of entertainment for somebody is something that has been on my mind for a while.

We’re inspired by how it feels when we go on tour as Nine Inch Nails and the gift of being in front of people. It’s different than thoughtfully sitting around in your own environment working on something indefinitely, where the only interaction you have with an audience is when you go see it in a theater with other people. That’s rewarding, but it's several steps away from being in front of a crowd and singing the wrong note – you get immediate feedback. Watching the experiment of booking Hans Zimmer or Danny Elfman on a mainstream festival, with an audience that's not there to see that sort of thing – seeing that music translated in a way that felt interesting – it got me thinking, would it be feasible to put on a festival that’s all composers?

LG: It’s an exciting prospect because it’s never been done before. But also … it’s never been done before! Once you decide, we want to try to pull this off, how do you take what you believe is a good idea and actually make it real?

TR: The recipe became, let’s take the energy and feel of a modern music festival and book composers on a stacked lineup with three overlapping stages. So you've got to make a choice: do I want to see this or that. We’re trying to make it a day that's fun. The goal is to present this music in a way that's digestible and exciting for the super hardcore fan and also for the toe-dipper who wants to experience something different.

LG: The festival will be held at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, which I’ve never heard of, but which, it turns out, is just over the hill from Griffith Park. Why did this feel like the right spot?

TR: When we were thinking about Future Ruins, we wanted a place that hadn't been used to death. We were shown the Equestrian Center, and I didn't even know what it was. It's this weird, cool spot. When you’re there, you feel like, I would like to hang out here. No fast food billboards, no parking lots… the heavy lifting was done in terms of the environment because the location is cool, and no one seems to know about it.

LG: What’s the setup going to be like?

TR: There are three stages that can all accommodate the same amount of people. There's not a main stage. We're aiming for it to exceed your expectations.

LG: Talk me through the lineup. How did you put together this collection of artists?

TR: We put together something that we felt represented everything from mainstream to more genre-based score work, with an eye towards understanding this is the first year and we want to help educate the audience. It's one thing to make that list and it's another thing to then reach out to people and oh, that person's on tour, this person's not performing…Of the first 15 or 16 we reached out to, 12 were yes, right off the bat. That was a lot higher than we thought it would be. And then everybody was like, hey, that's a good idea and that response felt genuine, so that validation was nice to have.

LG: What was your pitch to artists? How are you presenting this?

TR: Our pitch to artists has been, collaborate with us on how we can make this show something that is truly its own thing. You're going to be in front of an audience full of people who love music and film and are up for an interesting experience that is being presented in a way that feels provocative and unusual. That’s the goal. We've put real effort into collaboration on the infrastructure side of it.

LG: Facilitating.

TR: Exactly, because my hope would be that artist X can come in on this and it ends up being fun and inspiring and something they’d want to do next year, and that people who aren’t involved this year would see it as an opportunity to do something cool at the next one.

In terms of solving the riddle of what justifies making a festival in 2025; I think it's having something unique to say, having a point of view that's not just the same acts in a different, scrambled up order. Here's an underrepresented section of artists, let's shine a light on them, put them above the line instead of below the line. Let’s turn people onto this music. Let’s make their job as prestigious and sexy as it deserves to be and maybe inspire others to become composers.

LG: Performance is its own thing, right? What's that element been like in terms of helping people figure out how to actually do this? And has that been a point of insecurity, excitement, or maybe both for your artists?

TR: Mark Mothersbaugh is a perfect example. He has done so many incredible scores. We started talking and he says, well, I'm in the middle of a Devo tour and a Pixar film and what would I even do? And I’m thinking…You could go out and just blow people's minds with hit after hit of everything you’ve done with an orchestra behind or you could do the theme from one of the Wes Anderson scores and people would lose their minds.

LG: You and Atticus have never played your scores live?

TR: No.

LG: So in that sense, you're in the same boat as everybody else.

TR: Yeah, I just got a note from Cristóbal and was so inspired by what he is planning to do.

LG: Cristóbal Tapia de Veer’s performance is going to be incredible.

TR: Being able to see him play whatever he comes up with, which I know is going to be awesome, I mean, I would leave the house for that.

LG: You’ve said that you like to listen to scores out of context, like while driving or going for a hike. What are your favorites? What are the pieces of music that speak to why Future Ruins is a good idea?

TR: I’m flattered to see John Carpenter on the bill. I saw “Halloween” in the theater and it totally messed me up. That music does such a great job of making it feel like nothing is going to be okay.

LG: You’re wearing two hats, here: performer and also curator. What’s your curatorial philosophy?

TR: We’re aiming for that feeling that I find is rare in life, where you go: hey, that was even cooler than I thought it was going to be. That was actually really inspiring.

LG: You’re designing an entire sensory experience.

TR: I just spent two hours talking to the guy who does the sound for the “Tron” ride. I've been on that ride countless times in Orlando, and when you turn a corner suddenly you start to hear music that you couldn't hear two steps back. As soon as you hear it, it starts to overtake what you heard behind you, and it is in the same key. No one considers that level of thoughtfulness. But the result is, why do I feel like I can't wait to get to this part? It’s because you've been curated for… you've been scored for while you're waiting in line.