Rocker Richie Kotzen Reveals Why Nine Inch Nails Job Fell Through

Guitarist Richie Kotzen recently shared the surprising story of how he almost joined Nine Inch Nails, but his past with the band Poison got in the way.

In an interview with Hot Metal, Kotzen explained that he got a tryout opportunity through his connection with bassist Jeordie White. “I was friendly with the bass player from Marilyn Manson [Jeordie White] who was playing in Nine Inch Nails.”

Best guy
“He said to me, ‘Listen, you’ve got to come down. We’re having a hard time finding a guitar player.’ So I went down to Third Encore and I spent the day. Trent told me, ‘You’re by far the best guy that we’ve tried. I would love to have you in the band. I’m gonna have my manager reach out to you.’ And I left that day thinking, ‘Wow, okay, I’m gonna join another band.”

After the successful audition, Kotzen never heard back from the band, as Metal Injection writes. When he finally asked White what happened, he got a surprising answer.

“He said, basically, [Reznor] said he didn’t wanna open up Rolling Stone magazine said see ‘Nine Inch Nails gets former Poison guitar player Richie Kotzen’. He didn’t want the association with a hair metal band in that camp.”

Fanbase
Kotzen wasn’t upset about the decision and even understood Reznor’s concerns. “And, you know, aesthetically, when you think about the fanbase and you think about how people would read into something, I can kind of could see that; I could see the point. So I jokingly said, ‘Hey, I’ll do it under an alias,’ ’cause I wasn’t doing anything at the time and I think he’s, you know, a genius and I would have loved to have worked with him.”

These days, Kotzen is keeping busy with his new band Smith/Kotzen, a collaboration with Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith.