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I like the idea of working in an album-sized chunk, you know, and I never looked at Nine Inch Nails as a project that would be a hit-driven, single-based kind of thing.

Nine Inch Nails is like building an army to go conquer. We build it, then we play, and we have to play so much to validate building it, financially. It leads to getting burn-out because a tour that would be fun if it lasted three weeks has to last 15 weeks.

As a producer, I'm trying to challenge myself to just make something that is of a professional quality - not necessarily pop music, but maybe in the sense that Nine Inch Nails is professional quality.

I started off as a rapper from Thunder Bay, Ontario, believe it or not. There was a little group of 10 or 12 of us that would get together and copy each other's cassettes. So I was a rapper first, and it was that music that got me into this great entertainment world and got me out of Thunder Bay.

There's always been an element of 'right time, right place' to Nine Inch Nails. When we stepped onstage at Woodstock '94, I could sense it. I get goosebumps thinking about it now. Like, 'I don't know how we did this, but somehow we've touched a nerve.'

It probably wasn't until Nine Inch Nails played the first Lollapalooza that I actually went to a festival.

Though I still have no semblance of a life outside of Nine Inch Nails at the moment, I realize my goals have gone from getting a record deal or selling another record to being a better person, more well-rounded, having friends, having a relationship with somebody.

In Nine Inch Nails, I've been the guy calling the shots since inception. I'd gotten used to that.

But the exposure we got by doing the stint with Nine Inch Nails brought us a lot of attention.

In 1980, I moved to Chicago, and I recorded demo tapes for my friends' bands, and in 1981, the first Big Black record - the first thing I did that was an actual record.