[[Trent Reznor]] has expressed dissatisfaction with the song, saying in a VIVA 2 Magazine interview,
<blockquote>"At that time I was listening to a lot of Drum 'n' Bass and Jungle and stuff. And I think that's the most I've ever seen external influence come out in my own music. And it was a transition period, that's what I want to stress, it was time when I was feeling out what I wanted to do artistically and given the liberation of working within the context of a soundtrack, it's not like a major work. I always treated that as an area to be freer and try things. I'm glad it was in that context. There was never any consideration to include that on [''[[The Fragile (halo)|The Fragile]]'']. It really was an area where I was feeling out the landscape to see what I wanted to do."</blockquote>
===Song Credits===
NIN fan Trollmanen was able to ask ex-drummer [[Josh Freese]] about the rehearsal process for the song:
<blockquote>"The one question I asked him was about playing The Perfect Drug live, and how the rehearsal process went for that song and why it never worked out. The first thing he said, without hesitation was that the song itself isn't that difficult to play live on the drums. He said something about the programmed beats part was the only thing that was sort of complicated (it was a little hard to hear him at times, crappy connection), but that it worked live with him playing it. The drumming sounded good and everyone was happy with that. He said the problem with the song was the ending. The whole song was really rocking and pushing through, then you get to the ending and it just never seemed to work. He said they tried four or so different endings to the song. They tried it kinda mellow sounding, and that didn't work. They tried a really aggressive ending, and that didn't work either. They did a simple ending, same result. They just couldn't find an ending to the sound that seemed to do it justice. The thing was that the song sounded really good, but to get to the ending and just not sound good, it was kind of a let down. He said [Trent Reznor] just seemed uninterested with it after a while and they just gave up on it."</blockquote>
Fellow NIN fan Whiskers had previously asked the same when he had lunch with the drummer. [http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?30,234801,665605#msg-665605 link]