Trent Reznor has made it clear he sees the funny side to his first-ever win at the Country Music Association Awards.
The Nine Inch Nails frontman received the accolade for Musical Event of the Year, along with collaborator Atticus Ross and YoungKio, for Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus’s hit “Old Town Road“.
This is due to the track featuring a short banjo composition that was sampled from NIN’s 2008 song “34 Ghosts IV”.
Reznor celebrated the award by sharing Photoshopped images of himself and Ross in country get-ups, adding the caption: “New world, new times. Thank you CMA Awards.”
Discussing the sample in October with Rolling Stone, Reznor said being sampled as an artist could at first be awkward because “it’s something that intimately came from you in some way”.
“You feel a little bit violated, you know?" he continued. ”And then you get over that and you realise it’s become something else and the [2002] Johnny Cash [cover of ‘Hurt’] is incredible. It’s very flattering.”
Reznor said Lil Nas X’s record-breaking song was “undeniably hooky” and that “it’s been stuck in my head enough”.
His last brush with country music came when Johnny Cash covered the Nine Inch Nails song “Hurt” in 2002.
