Well, I had a feeling that Nine Inch Nails’ recently loose-lipped front man Trent Reznor wouldn’t just quit Twitter without a public explanation and sure enough, we’ve got one. Reznor checked in recently with fans at his favorite rant destination: the official NIN.com forum.

“Around the time news broke of my engagement, a faction of troublemakers showed up whose sole intent was to disrupt, harass, insult and incite,” Reznor wrote of his falling out of love with Twitter’s novel way of keeping in touch with the NIN fan base. He goes on to say that blocking Twitter @haters doesn’t really do the trick, as it still leaves them a forum for contaminating the benevolent portion of NIN followers. What’s more, his inquiries on the matter to the Twitter staff were only met with rebuffs, such as “yeah, um, we’re thinking about doing something about that - people are complaining.”

The straw that broke the Prince of Darkness’ back, however, was when one person, that Reznor calls “a lonely, obsessed, delusional, bitter ‘fan’ who recently posted how the celebrity she’d most like to date is ME,” tweeted insensitive comments at the sister of Eric De La Cruz, a man who recently passed away after Reznor raised almost one million dollars in the hopes of saving his life.

“It depresses me to think my art and life’s work can attract this kind of scum,” Reznor said, adding later, “If that was your intention you trolling, cowardly pigs - you’ve succeeded.” [Insert “March of the Pigs” joke here]

Love him or hate him, Reznor’s an interesting guy and it is depressing that some anonymous person took advantage of his recent good will. Going forward, I hope Twitter can attract more @TrentReznors and less of these kind of folks, but I wouldn’t put money on it.

Out of all the bands covering Gary Numan of late (Dead Weather’s cut of “Are Friends Electric?” etc.), Numan told Music Radar recently that Nine Inch Nails’ version of “Metal” is among his favorites. Now that NIN’s Trent Reznor says the group is on its final concert tour, Numan took the opportunity to let his favorite admirers be his backing band.

Drowned In Sound’s Sean Adams posted a nice review of NIN’s Wednesday night show at London’s O2 Arena, where Reznor brought Numan up on stage to take the lead vocals for “Metal” and “Cars.” Check out a good quality video of the latter performance below:

If Trent Reznor drops your name in an interview, it usually isn’t a good thing. In recent memory, Reznor has gone out of his way to bash Interscope, Timbaland, Chris Cornell, Rivers Cuomo, Prince, and his former friend Marilyn Manson. Nobody’s safe from the wrath of Reznor’s loose lips, you see, and now he’s added two more foes to his interview hit list: Gene Simmons and record executives.

“I’d never want to be Gene Simmons, an old man who puts on makeup to entertain kids, like a clown going to work,” Reznor told the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Pocholo Concepcion on his reasons for retiring NIN’s live career. Simmons has actually come up before (“I would hope that I never become Gene Simmons…”), as Reznor likes to use him as an example of the way not to age as a rock star.

Reznor saved his worst venom, however, for record label executives, calling major labels a “Mafia-type run business” and positioning himself as a Robin Hood-esque character for struggling bands. He said the bands of the future should find a business model “where the artist is more fairly represented and has a say and is compensated, and you’re not paying for jets for record label CEOs… They’re in their last moments of death and I’m happy to see them go ’cause they’re all thieves and liars.”

Reznor doesn’t want to be rock’s Prince of Darkness anymore, but the new title Prince of Thieves might actually work.

We posted a while back about Nine Inch Nails’s Trent Reznor’s efforts to help Eric De La Cruz, a Nevada man who is uninsured and desperately in need of a heart transplant (background here). Reznor sent out a call, and fans answered in droves, raising nearly $900,000 toward De La Cruz’s medical expenses.

In response to his efforts, Reznor has been presented with “proclamations from the US House of Representatives (three Congressmen in total), the US Senate, the NYS Governor, the NYS Senate, the NYS Comptroller and the Suffolk County Legislature,” according to an email sent to theninhotline.com from fan Mike Caplice.

Caplice’s email continues: “These proclamations were in honor of the generous work done by Trent and the entire NIN Community to help #Eric. You can see a picture of the presentation as well as pictures of the procs/citations themselves at my twitpic account.

“I wanted the entire NIN community to see that their efforts have been recognized by all levels of government. I’m an 18-year fan of the band who has two parents with cancer, and have seen just how flawed the US Healthcare system is. I thought this was a really special moment for all of us who have seen the band and the community evolve over the years into a really positive and powerful force.”

Click here for a video of Caplice surprising Reznor with the proclamations at a New York NIN concert, and click here for updates on De La Cruz’s progress.

Up until now, the only elaboration Trent Reznor had given us on his dis against Chris Cornell’s Timbaland-produced album Scream was in the form of the hilarious April Fool’s Day joke album Strobe Light. In the faux press release, Reznor parodied Cornell’s attempt to incorporate popular dance music and electronic beats with his 90s grunge roots, while also calling out Cornell for selling out by listing radio-friendly performers, like Fergie, Alicia Keys, and Justin Timberlake, as collaborators on the mock album. In a lengthy podcast interview on Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot’s Sound Opinions, Reznor has given us a much more specific, and revealing, explanation for his indignation against Cornell:

In the case of Cornell, I don’t know Chris. I do know what label he’s on now and I do know who’s whispering in his ear. And heavily on the With Teeth album, I turned that record in and I would get back “Hey you know, you might wanna… maybe we need to put some beats on this record.”

I’m not making this up. “What do you mean ‘beats’?”

“Well this urban thing is really taking off. You’ll get it in the club. You know, what if we had Dre or somebody…”

And the part of me that wants to be the open-minded artist says, “I’ll consider that.” I even went so far as Timbaland doing a, trying to do a, remix at Interscope’s dime of “Hand That Feeds” which was laughably terrible. And when I turned in Year Zero, which I thought had the coolest beats I’ve ever come up with and I hear “Yeah, we need some cool beats,” it’s like, “you know what, suck me.”

And I’m sure there was someone whispering in Cornell’s [ear] and he can put that off as some kind of socio-cultural experiment, but what it was was a money grab and when you do that you’re saying to other people that look up to you, it’s okay to do that and it’s not okay to do that. It isn’t.

Not quite as harsh as his slam against Prince and Rivers Cuomo, but damn, this guy’s an open book these days.

Well it took almost two years, but Radiohead’s “pay-what-you-want” for In Rainbows scheme is now having a bit of a backlash. Actually, it looks more like Jared Leto is jumping on board one part of Kim Gordon’s “Radiohead Model” diss from last week when she pointed out that a record label eventually released In Rainbows, making it not technically a self-released “community-oriented” effort. Anyway, here’s what Leto told Spinner:

“I’d be curious to see more examples because didn’t Radiohead eventually put their record out? Trent [Reznor] seems to be the only guy that’s stuck to his guns and stayed tried and true. He’s a god among men.”

And then some more kissing up to Reznor: “It’s really interesting to see such a creative person express himself in business terms, to see how would he do things… I’d love to talk to him about what he’s learned.”

We really shouldn’t be taking advice on the music industry from Jordan Catalano, but it’s interesting that some of Radiohead’s critics are latching on to the “self-released” aspect of their scheme. Isn’t the rest of Kim Gordon’s argument, that letting fans of a huge band determine music’s monetary value can make other musicians look bad, a much more interesting/worthwhile debate?

Trent Reznor posted a plea today on nin.com for one of the latest victims of the U.S.’s current health care system. Eric De La Cruz has been rejected twice from the heart transplant list because he’s on Nevada Medicaid and there are no transplant centers in the state – he cannot obtain private insurance or Medicare because he has a preexisting condition.

For donations of varying size, Reznor is offering time with Nine Inch Nails at their shows while on tour with Jane’s Addiction: “We’ll invite you to come hang out with us before the NIN/JA show of your choice. You and a guest can watch soundcheck, eat dinner backstage with us, take pics / get autographs and watch the show from the side of the stage if you’d like.”

Reznor confirms that 100% of the money contributed will be allocated directly to Eric’s fund.

For more information, visit weloveeric.com, and to make a contribution on Trent’s official donation page, click here.

**Update: Since this went up only 3 days ago, Trent has raised $645,990 for Eric. Also, Tony Hawk is donating 100 signed skateboards to the cause and Tom Morello has joined the soundcheck/meet and greet.

(Thanks for the tip, Jarrett!)

Trent Reznor might have half a million Twitter followers, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get his attention. You best be sending positive vibes his way, though, or he might expose your name, location, and potential criminal record. That’s exactly what Reznor did to a user with the Twitter handle AngieZherself the other day after she relentlessly mocked his fiancée Mariqueen Maandig.

After posting a link to Maandig’s Playboy photo shoot, the Reznor basher posted: “@trent_reznor I hope you get a good prenup because that skank is going to take all your money!! ;P,” followed by, “@mariqueen Way to go! Use that bf to promote yourself ;) He apparently likes his ego inflated :D”

Well if Trent can take on Prince and Rivers Cuomo, surely he could deal with an anonymous (or was she?) Twitter detractor. “Perfect example of the kind of complete parasitic delusional asshole that makes you regret fame: @AngieZherself,” Reznor replied. Then Trent went to the secret Nine Inch Nails CTU (Counter Twitter Unit) and owned the Tweet fight: “And you’re not anonymous dear, you are Angela L. Zajac from Worcester with a criminal record,” he added.

Possibly for fear of facing the ire of an angry NIN fan mob, Ms. Zajac deleted her Twitter account (google-cached here) and took to her blog for some wit of the staircase ranting.

Posting her name and location was one thing, but finding a criminal record too? That NIN iPhone app must be pretty damn powerful.

Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor did a lengthy interview with Digg’s Kevin Rose recently, answering the top questions submitted by users. The talk was interesting, but many NIN fans felt misrepresented, so they took to the message boards with their complaints. Reznor responded by offering NIN.com and Echoingthesound.org users their own Digg-style interview and this time around he wasn’t holding back:

“I’m not Prince or Rivers Cuomo who brags about having hundreds of great songs,” Reznor said. “And to that I would say, Prince, if you have a hundred great songs or a thousand, how about picking a few and putting them on your record that you’ve put out because your last several have sucked. Same for you, Rivers. I say that constructively, you know.”

Wow. Between his active Twitter, post-engagement red carpet appearance, and these revealing interviews, it looks like the once-reclusive Reznor isn’t shying away from public life anymore. You can download the complete one hour webcast here (Thanks for the tip, Jarrett!).