According to recent statements, Rob Sheridan has not been working with Nine Inch Nails or How to destroy angels_ since the end of 2014. Instead, he has turned his focus on his own new projects. For some time now, his short bio on Twitter has read “formerly of NIN/HTDA” – referring to Nine Inch Nails and How to destroy angeles_. When we reached out on Twitter asking him to give some additional information on the subject, he responded with a pair of tweets. He first stated, “I haven’t been working with them since the end of 2014. Pursuing my own projects these days.”
He then followed it up with more information about what exactly these new projects are, as well as a link to an interview he did with Warp. While he wasn’t extremely specific about these new projects, he did give a general sense of what he is up to lately.
These tweets make it clear that the future of How to destroy angels_ is still unclear, or at least unknown to Sheridan. According to NINwiki, the visual director position for Nine Inch Nails has been filled by John Crawford.
Sheridan has not been involved with Nine Inch Nails’ recent spate of activity. He has not been involved in the work on their two recent EP releases (with third on the way), ADD VIOLENCE and Not The Actual Events, with the latter being released with the option for an elaborate physical component. Despite both of the new EPs not featuring the art direction of Sheridan, they both feature Atticus Ross as permanent member of the band.
Sheridan was first hired by Trent Reznor himself in 1999 when he was still a student at Pratt Institute in New York. Reznor was impressed by a Nine Inch Nails fan page that was created by the young artist (called “Above the Trees”) and made him the band’s main art director. He was responsible for much of the band’s visual aesthetic, including designing album covers, shooting their shows, their website design and helping with the look for the band’s videos. And of course, he was a major player in the band’s famous Year Zero alternate reality game, which ran for a few months in 2007. He was also nominated for a Grammy for “Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package” in 2008 for his work on the limited edition boxed set of Ghosts I-IV.
He eventually went on to be a part of How to destroy angels_ (Reznor’s band with his wife Mariqueen Maandig), and while his role with that group was more visual than sonic, he did provide synthesizers and vocals to the live shows. Around that time he also joined the touring band for Nine Inch Nails, playing synthesizers, vocals and unsurprisingly, adding visual effects. He was a member of the touring band around the same time as noise artist Alessandro Cortini, Atticus Ross and Maandig.
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