by Jason Arnopp

excerpt from the Trent Reznor article

He notes that his work on 'Lost Highway' was less intensive. "The sheer volume of 'NBK' involved sorting through thousands of megabytes of songs," he recalls. "For 'Lost Highway' that wasn't so appropriate, because the movie has a different feel to it. Within the limits of what David Lynch would allow, I tried to make it representative of the film. That whole 'Mortal Kombat' idea of 'let's just throw every bullshit thing you can in there' doesn't appeal to me."

'Lost Highway' is hypnotically surreal and disturbing. Does Reznor have any clue what it's about? "Does anybody?" he darkly chuckles. "I don't know. But David Lynch and David Cronenberg are my favourite film-makers, along with Ken Russell. Lynch is charming and puts you at ease. But the level I worked with him was the highest pressure period I've ever worked in."

"He talked really loudly, like the guy in 'Twin Peaks' who's hard of hearing," laughs Reznor. "He'd say, 'I've got a chase scene, and I'm picturing insects swarming around'. Then he'd scribble on pieces of paper and say, 'This is what I want it to sound like'.

"I went up to his house in LA a couple of times. One of the houses he owns is in 'Lost Highway'. He said, 'Let me show you this', and walked up the side of a hill. He showed me a trail of ants crawling over a piece of rotting meat on a canvas, and told me that was his latest project. That might make him sound like a pretentious cock, but he's not at all. He's like your uncle. I found myself looking at him, going, 'Jesus Christ, David Lynch!'. I've probably seen 'Blue Velvet' about 50 times, y'know?! It was like, 'He's talking to me! He created Frank Booth!'."