As previously reported, NIN’s Trent Reznor, Rage’s Tom Morello, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, the Roots, Rise Against, Billy Bragg, Jackson Browne, and other famous musicians have joined the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo and released a string of statements condemning the use of music for torture at Gitmo. Well, it looks like the debate is heating up a bit:

Debra Burlingame, director of Keep America Safe, a political organization co-founded by Liz Cheney that focuses “on issues like troop levels, missile defense, detainees, and interrogation,” called Reznor and company’s political stand “pathetic,” telling the Washington Times:

It’s almost laughable to think that heavy metal bands like Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine have a moral authority on national security issues.

They’re worried about torture of hard-core terrorists? This is really something I would expect to read in the Onion.

As we previously reported, many famous rock musicians and a songwriter for Sesame Street were outraged late last year when news broke that their music had been used to torture inmates at Guantanamo Bay. Whereas Drowning Pool’s Steve Benton said it was “an honor to think that perhaps [their] song could be used to quell another 9/11 attack or something like that,” Trent Reznor, Rage Against The Machine, and many more were understandably furious.

Now Reznor and Rage’s Tom Morello have joined the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo, along with R.E.M., Pearl Jam, the Roots, Rosanne Cash, Rise Against, Billy Bragg, and Jackson Browne, Huffington Post reports.

Trent Reznor married his fiancée of five months, Mariqueen Maandig, this past weekend. NIN collaborator Danny Lohner first broke the news on Twitter by posting a blurry picture of the couple dancing after tweeting earlier: “goths the world over will mourn this day- off to a wedding…” The scoop, however, goes to Pink is the New Blog’s Trent Vargas, who attended the wedding (invitations were inscribed with pseudo NIN lyrics, “Nothing can stop us now…”). The latter Trent even has the wedding photo.

Let’s face it: Trent Reznor “retired” the live incarnation of Nine Inch Nails because he’s getting (already is?) married, 44 years old, and having a kid. Sorry to burst the artistic hype bubble there, but that’s probably the way it is and Godspeed Mr. Self Destruct, I say. Besides, there’s plenty on the horizon, including video games, “another Ghosts record,” and a Gary Numan collaboration at least. As for that last project, Gary Numan joined Reznor & company for the London stop of their “Wave Goodbye” tour this summer and not only were reviews of the collaboration brilliant, but we now (thanks to the T. Rez) have unfuckingbelievable HD footage to prove it.

“Ahh… finally catching my breath after it all,” Reznor wrote just before this past weekend. “Thank you once again for the last wave of shows and your interest and support over the years. We’re beginning work on a variety of things NIN and not-NIN related that we’ll inform you of when the time is right. Check back from time to time and who knows what you’ll find.”

He then posted the following two videos, available here or embedded below, and I know it’s a total cliché, but it’s like you’re really on stage with the band:

Trent Reznor’s post Nine Inch Nails plans had been kept safely in the vault, but small bits of info have been dropping of late (by Reznor himself) and now we’re starting to get a picture of what’s to come: another Ghosts record is on the horizon, a Gary Numan collaboration is in the works, there’s a possible tv show, and now a video game could be on the way.

The video game idea has apparently been knocking around for a while, as Reznor revealed in an interview with Joystiq that he and Rob Sheridan had actually engaged in unsuccessful meetings with major gaming publishers, including Midway and Activision, a few years back. “And as first time people in a pitch meeting, it was kind of depressing,” he said. “Depressing to see that the people in control of those studios and publishers are much the same as the people sitting at record companies.”

Now that they are free from record labels and a touring schedule, Reznor and Sheridan are planning to put out their own “dumb and obvious” game without the backing of a major corporation.

That’s not to say Reznor doesn’t enjoy popular, corporate-backed video games. “I dabble around in them and I actually think those games are fun,” Reznor said of Rock Band and Guitar Hero. “As a gamer, it’s interesting, fun and surprisingly rewarding when you get it right. As a musician, who’s watching the record industry look at these games as a type of salvation… it’s laughable. That’s just desperate people in the record business thinking. ‘Man, we finally have a way to turn people onto music.’”

For more on how Reznor would beat Coldplay at a game of Rock Band “if it descended into physical violence” and how playing Wii Tennis is like “one of those moments when you hear a great song or watch a great movie and get chills,” go thataway.

There’s just something about that pesky Radiohead pay-what-you-want scheme that gets under Trent Reznor’s skin. I think it’s the fact that he basically tried it with Saul Williams’ The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, and it failed to work for a lesser-known artist. Either way, he dissed the Radiohead model once, then posted a rant about it on his site, and now it’s come up in yet another interview.

“At the end of the day, when you saw what [Radiohead] did in terms of them signing with a record label and selling a record, it felt like a step backward, and it felt like it was just more of a stunt than any kind of real formula for people to survive in the same era,” Reznor told the A.V. Club.

“The thing that I learned from Radiohead is, I don’t want to ask you what you think it’s worth. ‘Hey, I just worked a year on this thing.’ ‘Well, that’s worth 10 cents.’ ‘Hey, fuck you!’”

As we all know by now, Trent Reznor “waved goodbye” to the live incarnation of Nine Inch Nails last week, putting the moniker on an indefinite concert hiatus after an epic final run of shows. In a last interview, just moments before taking the stage at LA’s Wiltern Theater for the final NIN gig, Reznor spoke to Pink is the New Blog’s Trent Vanegas about his favorite memories from touring and teased a few upcoming projects.

Reznor’s self-released string of EPs Ghosts I-IV was a huge success a few years back, earning him Radiohead comparisons for its free component and lots of cash from its tiered pricing scheme. So it’s no surprise that he’ll be giving that type of project another go. “I am sure there’ll be another Ghosts record before too long,” Reznor said, adding cryptically, “I’m working on some other things with some other people that may become a new band.” Many of our commenters seem to think Reznor’s “new band” may include fiancée Mariqueen Maandig, who left her band West Indian Girl last month.

Also, Reznor took a funny stab at the ‘07 Reading Fest lineup, in which NIN openers Fall Out Boy, The Used, Lostprophets, Funeral for a Friend, and Billy Talent didn’t provide his idea of a good festival appearance. “If we’re playing Reading Festival in the UK,” Reznor recalled, “and we’re after 8 pop punk bands that I hate, the audience is all a bunch of people I don’t like, [who] probably don’t like me, we’ll gear the set to either antagonize or win them over.”

I guess Trent wasn’t kidding when he told NME just before that show, “I doubt you will see me on the side of the stage for Fall Out Boy.”

We’ve all heard by now that Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor is busy retiring NIN’s live incarnation with a “Wave Goodbye” tour and, according to rumors, starting a family with the former frontwoman to West Indian Girl, fiancée Mariqueen Maandig. Also, he loves to hate on Chris Cornell’s Scream album via April Fool’s Day, interviews, and Twitter. Well, Trent still has time to drop a few rants on the Internet, though his management has now forbidden questions on “the state of the industry.”

“I really have no personal issue with Chris [Cornell] at all,” Reznor told Eye Weekly’s Liisa Ladouceur. “We were on [Interscope]. And I have had Jimmy Iovine, the president of that label, come up to me on every record from With Teeth onwards saying I should do some sort of urban thing — it was Timbaland for a while, then it was Pharrell for a while — because ‘that’s how you sell records.’ The idea seemed so preposterous and insulting.”

Reznor goes on to insist that his gripes with Cornell’s album have nothing to do with working with hip-hop producers, as he says making a record with Dr. Dre “would be kind of cool,” but the impetus behind Cornell’s foray into dance/rock was, according to Trent, to pander for radio play.

Though his manager was probably biting his nails in the wings, pondering cutting off the lights, Reznor offered one unprompted comment on the previously off-limits music industry topic: “If I have one major fight in the world of the music business, it’s trying to keep art first and commerce second.”

Fair enough, Trent. You’re doing just fine at both thus far. Now just steer clear of Virgin America and it’ll be okay.