Nine Inch Nails: Points of Departure

By Joe Robinson--  No band is an island. The best songwriters tend to be sponge-like soaker-uppers of music, film, fine art, literature and other forms of culture, be they popular or obscure, and these influences often find their way into the music, helping listeners branch out and develop new interests.
With Points of Departure, we use our favorite groups as springboards for broader cultural investigations and highlight some of the cool things you might get into via your record collection. This week: Nine Inch Nails.

Trent Reznor has always insisted that when he moved to the posh Benedict Canyon section of Los Angeles to record his 1994 sophomore album, 'The Downward Spiral,' he had no idea he'd moved his studio into the house that was the scene of the notorious 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and friends at the hands of Charles Manson's so-called “family” members. But that didn't stop his morbid fascination with Manson once he found out.

Reznor named the studio “PIG” — a reference to the word Tate's killers scrawled with her blood on the house's front door — and made further reference with song titles 'Piggy' and 'March of the Pigs,' introducing Manson's gruesome insanity to a whole new generation. 

“I'm not personally infatuated with serial killers [and] by no means do I wish to glamorize them,” said Reznor, who also recorded Marilyn Manson's debut album at PIG. “From living in that house I've met every person in the world you can imagine who's obsessed with that whole thing and it's given me more of a perspective on it.” 

http://diffuser.fm/nine-inch-nails-points-of-departure/