Nine Inch Nails duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are launching a new festival celebrating and showcasing film soundtrack scores, with John Carpenter and Danny Elfman among "a stacked lineup of visionaries doing something you might not see again"

Nine Inch Nails duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have announced their plans for a new music festival dedicated to showcasing some of the film world's most acclaimed soundtrack composers.

Booked into the Los Angeles Equestrian Center for November 8, the bill for the inaugural Future Ruins festival will see Reznor and Ross, John Carpenter, Danny Elfman, Joker composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, Italian progressive rock legends Goblin, British TV and film composers Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow (Portishead) and more performing across three stages, many of those on the line-up performing their scores live for the very first time.

“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,” Trent Reznor says in a statement.

“There’s no headliner. There’s no hierarchy. This is a stacked lineup of visionaries doing something you might not see again.”

In the press statement announcing the one-day event, the organisers add, “Each artist is encouraged to take big swings and reimagine their work for a live audience. Ranging from electronic sets and live bands to orchestral performances, fans have the chance to experience live debuts from composers who rarely appear onstage.”

Tickets go on sale on May 21 at 12PM Pacific Time, here.

The NIN duo are among the most respected, and decorated, film soundtrack composers of the modern era, having won two Oscars (Best Original Score for 2010's The Social Network and 2020's Soul), in addition to a host of Baftas, Grammys, Golden Globe Awards and Emmy Awards for their impressive catalogue.

In a 2024 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Reznor stated, “Scoring has provided a way for me to feel vital, to feel challenged.”

“Over the last 10 years or so, I’ve been a bit disillusioned by popular music,” he admitted. “As I get older, some things feel less relatable to me. The business sucks. The way people consume music is not as inspiring as it used to be, it’s marginalized in a lot of ways. Scoring has provided a way for me to feel vital, to feel challenged.”

Reznor went on to confess that he initially considered the idea of scoring film “terrifying”, but says that working with director David Fincher on The Social Network taught him and Ross important lessons.

“We could still be us,” says Reznor, “and we could still apply the same things we would do writing a song, just shifting around how we look at it - where the script and the vision of the director and the scene and setting are the lyrics, and we could take our arrangement skills and the same things that we tap into emotionally in Nine Inch Nails into another setting. But it took a minute for us to understand that, a few months of waking up at 4 in the morning and sweating about, What did we get ourselves into?”

Reznor also stated that having worked on seven film scores since the last NIN album emerged, he has been inspired to return to making music for his band.

“We’re taking the inspiration we’ve garnered and funneling it into a Nine Inch Nails project, which we’re working on now,” he said. “We’re ready to be back in the driver’s seat.”

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A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.