Crossover Craziness: NIN and the Dresden Dolls

One of the first things I learned about the new Nine Inch Nails record, Ghosts I-IV, was that Dresden Dolls drummer Brian Viglione had recorded drums for a couple of tracks. I am a huge fan of the Dolls, and I still think that they were the best opening act that I’ve ever seen at a NIN show, so this was most welcome news. The Boston Herald’s Michael Marotta posted a brief article on Brian’s involvement on the Herald’s Website today. It’s not particularly illuminating, but it’s nice to see the hometown heroes getting a bit of attention.

The Dresden Dolls’s newsletter provided a bit more insight, and a board member at Echoing the Sound has been kind enough to transcribe it. Here’s a snippet:

Here’s a little re-cap of that weekend:

Day 1: Trent said, “I thought a fun art project for today would be to have you put some things together to play on and we could improv some stuff tonight. I don’t really have room for a big drum kit and all the mics here, but, let your imagination go and we’ll help you piece together what you need. When you get something together, we’ll record tonight. Go nuts, see you in a few hours.”

So I put this together from stuff around his house, Home Depot, and the grocery store.

It sounded cool as hell.

Brian can be heard on two tracks of Ghosts I-IV, and they’re two of the better ones, in my humble opinion (and that’s saying something on an album where, to my ear, there aren’t any glaring weak spots). I love crossovers, man, whether they’re in comics, films, or even in music. Yay for Brian for landing this gig, and yay for Trent for giving the New Hampshire boy a chance.

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