Photo by Rob Sheridan

In just over a month, we'll have a new LP from Nine Inch Nails-- Hesitation Marks, out September 3 through Columbia. In support of the record, they'll embark on a massive arena tour this fall-- their first since 2009-- preceded by several summer festivals. Reznor has now given an interview with The New York Times detailing what those shows will be like.

According to Reznor, the stage set-- with "smoke, strobe lights, video screens on wheels"-- was directly inspired by the 1983 Talking Heads tour documented in the film Stop Making Sense. Adrian Belew, who played in Talking Heads' band on that tour, was briefly a member of the current Nine Inch Nails' touring band, and appears on Hesitation Marks.

The new show begins with Reznor, alone, before his band slowly takes form around him on stage. The lights and visuals, which are choreographed, then begin. Roy Bennett, lighting/production designer for Nine Inch Nails, told The Times, "We've always tried to make people think and keep them on edge and keep them wondering what’s going on."

This elaborate set is being built for this summer's festival shows, and will be drastically changed for the fall arena tour. Reznor told The Times, "The fact that we’re doing all this only for these few shows, and then we have to do it over again, throwing all this out to do a completely new thing, with new things that won’t work, that feels a little insane."

Nine Inch Nails' first comeback appearance will be at Fuji Rock Festival in Japan tomorrow. As the NIN Hotline points out, their set will be streamed live on YouTube. It will start at 9:30 pm Japan time (8:30 a.m. eastern).

According to The Times' Jon Pareles, Hesitation Marks "sounds radically different" from Nine Inch Nails' most recent albums. Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac ended up playing on three songs. Reznor had 1994's The Downward Spiral in mind while writing, and called the album "sparse" and minimal." Reznor continued:

I don’t think it’s a gentle record. I do think it’s more subversive in how it gets you. It’s not about everything being at 11 and the pyrotechnics of sound and scare tactics, which I’ve definitely used in the past. But it doesn’t feel like the middle-aged, I’ve-given-up record either.

Watch the David Lynch-directed video for "Came Back Haunted":