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Trent Reznor on US presidential race: “It’s absurd that this is even happening”

By | Published on Monday 17 October 2016

Trent Reznor

Trent Reznor has commented on the continuing farce that is the US presidential election, in an interview about his soundtrack for new climate change documentary ‘Before The Flood’.

“It is surreal”, he says of Donald Trump’s rise, speaking to The Daily Beast. “I’ll admit that I was entertained during the Republican debates and the whole process of whittling them down. It’s kind of fun to see a grenade go off and see these guys – I hate every one of them – be eliminated and humiliated. But it stopped being funny months ago. It’s sad to see the discourse be dragged this low. It’s absurd that this is even happening”.

“Hopefully Trump will flame out any minute now”, he continues. “But the effect of him – or he himself – is not going to go away, and there’s going to be an awful lot of very energized followers. We all know they’re not going to say, ‘Well, let’s support Hillary because she’s the president now’. She’s walking into a terrible situation”.

On his decision to take on the ‘Before The Flood’ soundtrack, despite having “a pretty full schedule to start with”, he says: “What attracted me to this when it came up, because we had a pretty full schedule to start with, but the idea of taking one of the most recognisable celebrities on the planet who cares deeply about this and presenting a digestible overview of this, and putting it out in a fashion where there’s a low barrier of entry to see it – it’s being broadcast everywhere and available on all platforms – and the fact that they were always trying to get this out before the election, if I can contribute in some small way to make this a little bit louder then it’s my duty to do that”.

Directed by Fisher Stevens, ‘Before The Flood’ follows Leonardo DiCaprio in examining how climate change is affecting the planet. The European premiere was held at the London Film Festival on Saturday.



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