Originally Posted by
Leviathant
Hahaha. I remember this. Story time!
What happened was some band was backstage, overheard some things, interpreted it as bitching, and went online to say that APC was unhappy with their touring situation. SLS News went with the story, and caught absolute hell for it. Imagine the kind of email Trent writes to you when he sees you spreading the idea that bands on your tour aren't getting the support they need. It was kind of devastating for the guy running the site - he called me in kind of a panic about it, and I tried to give him positive reassurances, but he made himself a shit sandwich and took a big bite out of it.
So NIN rolls through our neck of the woods - Columbia, MD. (SLS was run out of Virginia). It was actually one of the nights I didn't announce that I'd be at the show - some of you may remember that I'd try to organize get-togethers at shows via the Hotline. I'm walking around with my buddy Jason, and I got one of those Fragility ticket holder laminates, and Evan (the guy who ran SLS) spots me. "Where'd you get that? Are you going backstage too? I got a call from Susan (who ran PR), she's flying in for the show." Super weird. I think at some point I ran into Keith or Rob, and they gave Jason and I stickies, so after the show, we're hanging out 'backstage' in the lounge area waiting for traffic to die down. Susan swoops in, Evan in tow, sees me, and assures me I'll get to talk to Trent too. At this point, I'd met the guy a couple of times, it's not that big a deal, it's more kind of weird that this whole thing is being set up like it is. Universal/Interscope management is, to put it mildly, melodramatic as hell, and maybe think Evan and I are more important than we really are with our fan sites.
Anyway, some time passes, she emerges from the door and asks me to come back to wherever this room is that Trent's talking to Evan in. He explains the whole situation with APC and how it's actually fine, and this other group of people were just trying to fake some gravity by showing off that they were backstage at a NIN show. Evan, meanwhile, is telling Trent that he's heard the (as of yet unreleased) Tweaker album, and that he thinks Trent would really like it, and should give it a listen. Then a dude comes in with a huge pile of merch and gives it to Evan. Trent says, are you going to do something like that for Matt? I waved it off - "I'm not here for free merch dude, it's all good." (I probably should have kept my mouth shut).
Wasn't that fun?