While the San Diego live-music scene has gone silent, at least one of its members raised his profile over the weekend.
Ilan Rubin, longtime drummer for Nine Inch Nails, was inducted into the HOF over the weekend in a virtual ceremony. At just 32 years old, Rubin becomes the youngest person ever inducted, according to published reports, besting a then-38-year-old Stevie Wonder, who got the nod in '89. All seven past and present members of NIN were inducted.
The Bonita-raised drummer and multi-instrumentalist Rubin has played for Nine Inch Nails, Angels and Airwaves (a project with another famous S.D. musician, Tom DeLonge), Paramore and NOFX, just to list a few. He also has his own project, the New Regime, which once headlined a live event hosted by NBC 7's music platform, SoundDiego.
With that kind of resume, you'd expect him to have collected quite the assortment of awards, but something was missing until Saturday, when Rubin added the rock hall's statuette to his mantle after the 35th Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
It’s been a good year for Nine Inch Nails — their induction comes two months after band leader Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross won their first Emmy for their musical contributions to the hit HBO series “Watchmen.” Reznor and Ross are also Oscar and Grammy winners.
Rick Rubin, Miley Cyrus, Jimmy Iovine, David Fincher, Mark Ronson and others spoke passionately about Nine Inch Nails’ influence on them and others.
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“What a disoriented, strange year we find ourselves in," Reznor said remotely during the virtual ceremony. "As I’ve been wrapping my head around Nine Inch Nails being welcomed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I think I was most looking forward to the ceremony itself, where hopefully the whole camp, past and present, was going to get together and have a moment, and we’re all stuck in our little boxes here in our screens. But even now music’s always been the thing that keeps me going.”
Also inducted Saturday were Depeche Mode, the Doobie Brothers, Whitney Houston, The Notorious B.I.G., T-Rex, and Ahmet Ertegun Award honorees Jon Landau and Irving Azoff.
Rubin was a guest this past June on the SoundDiego podcast. You can listen to the pod here.
