Texas Senator Ted Cruz is denying that he drank all of Nine Inch Nails’ beer, despite frontman Trent Reznor’s claims to the contrary, Spin is reporting.
Politicians often have to deny things in their careers; indiscretions with the opposite sex, shady business deals, that sort of thing. But until now, none has had to deny drinking all of the beer at a 90’s-era heavy metal band’s concert.
The kerfuffle got started at a Nine Inch Nails concert in Texas. As the New York Daily News reported on Thursday, the rock band was performing in Irving, Texas, on Tuesday. During his banter with the crowd, frontman Trent Reznor brought up Ted Cruz, who represents Texas in the Senate. Reznor claimed that Cruz had been angling for tickets, and maybe even a backstage pass, to a recent show, but that he (Reznor) wasn’t having it.
“He was bugging to get on the guest list, and I told him to f**k off.”
He then suggested that the Republican Senator might be in the crowd due to his purported interest in seeing the band, and then asked the crowd to raise their hands if they voted for Cruz. The interior lights even came on so Reznor could see for himself.
“Raise your hand, you guys. Nothing to be ashamed of. Just checking.”
Reznor then claimed that at a previous Nine Inch Nails concert Cruz had somehow managed to get on the guest list and backstage, and he proceeded to finish off all of the band’s beer.
“He… drank all the beer, and was just a pain in the a** to be around.”
The entire thing was captured on video and then posted to Reddit; you can see the video here .
Ted Cruz responds to Trent Reznor: “Nine Inch Nails is not my music taste” https://t.co/9yVCq5AIQx pic.twitter.com/xU8o0LjgON
— CONSEQUENCE (@consequence) November 30, 2018
Ted Cruz, in a tweet, denied that any such thing had ever happened.
“To all the gullible reporters who are ‘reporting’ that I asked to be on the guest list at a Nine Inch Nails concert: uh, no, NIN is not my music taste. He was clearly joking. And for the record, I also didn’t ‘drink all his beer’ the last time…but I would have!”
Spin writer Maggie Serota parsed Cruz’s words a bit and noticed that the last sentence could be open to interpretation. Specifically, she said that his words “the last time” suggest that there have been one or more times when Cruz was actually at a NIN concert and had access to their beer.
“Did he attend the concert a few years ago and not drink all of the beer? Or did he not drink all of the beer because he wasn’t at the concert?”
As for his actual taste in music, Cruz famously told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in 2015 that he used to be a fan of classic rock, but that the rock music industry didn’t respond to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to his liking, and he switched to country music.
