Reznor puts tune in fans’ hands

Trent REZNOR works in mysterious ways. He may be the brooding architect behind the epic, intricate soundscapes of Nine Inch Nails, but now he’s allowing outsiders an unusual view into NIN’s hit “The Hand That Feeds,” with a free download of the new single’s multiple tracks, allowing fans to remix, rearrange and reinterpret the song at will.

The download is available from the band’s website (www.nin.com/current), delivering the song’s 17 separate elements -- from skittish guitars and electronics to Reznor’s breathless backing vocals -- into the hands of anyone with a Macintosh computer loaded with the GarageBand program.

The original version of the song is already a modern-rock radio hit and is the first sign of NIN’s first album in more than five years, the song-centric “With Teeth,” set for release on Tuesday.

Artists have occasionally made songs available for mash-ups and fan experiments, but rarely separated into their aural component parts. The NIN download could be a significant step for online music and communication between major artists and fans, and the results are already gathering on the Net, with more than 200 fan remixes and mash-ups available this week on www.thtffanremixes.cjb.net.

Anxious fans and amateur sound scientists have uploaded a wide variety of revisions to the site, with self-explanatory titles like “Deep House Mix,” “The Banjo That Feeds” and “The Hand That Funks.”

And at least one “unofficial Apple weblog” (tuaw.com) is filled with fan excitement, with such postings as: “So very, very, hot. You gotta respect TR’s pure intellectual curiosity” and “A fan base is stronger when they feel a sense of connection with their idols.”

That kind of reaction, Reznor says, is exactly what he hoped for: unexpected interpretations from unexpected corners.

“It’s fun to play with and has yielded some amazing results,” Reznor explained in an e-mail exchange with The Times. “People seemed surprised that I’d give the multi-track away. Why not?”

The idea of sharing the multiple tracks of a song with fans has interested Reznor since NIN’s previous album, 1999’s “The Fragile.” But the technology available then was neither fan-friendly nor affordable.

Today, Apple’s GarageBand program, which works much like the more sophisticated ProTools used by major recording artists, already comes loaded onto most new Macintoch computers.

“I was sitting in hotel rooms waiting to do press and started messing around with GarageBand on my PowerBook,” Reznor said. “I hadn’t really done anything with that software before and it suddenly dawned on me how powerful it was -- and -- [that] everybody with a Mac- intosh already has it sitting on their computer.

“GarageBand seemed to be a way I could give the entire multi-track master out in an easy-to-mess-around-with format again aimed at the average fan.

“I did some experimenting and within a couple of days in my spare time had the song ready to go. I thought it was really fun to play with and then had to come up with a way to convince the powers that be that it was a good idea.”

That’s just the beginning: Reznor plans to release the band’s next single, “Only,” the same way.

Reznor seems unconcerned so far with the larger implications for intellectual property, beyond a note attached to the download declaring that nothing from the tracks can be resold.

“This wasn’t done to create some new industry or business model to make money,” Reznor insists. “It just seemed like a cool thing to do.”

Small faces

* Natalie Merchant, Juliana Hatfield, Philip Glass and the String Cheese Incident are among more than a dozen musicians contributing songs to “Too Many Years,” a new compilation CD created to raise money and awareness of Clear Path International, an organization working with land-mine and bomb accident victims in former war zones in Southeast Asia. The CD, also featuring music from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Yonder Mountain String Band and Dark Star Orchestra, is available at www.cpi.org and is being released in conjunction with the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war....

* Queens of the Stone Age has reunited on the road with the band’s riff-rock brethren the Eagles of Death Metal, with scheduled Southern California tour stops at the San Diego House of Blues May 19 and the Ventura Theater on May 30....

* The unlikely resurrection of Billy Idol continues this summer with his appearance on select dates of the 2005 Warped Tour, including a July 6 stop at the Pomona Fairplex.