Nine inch nails lyrics and Nine inch nails guitar tabs, Nine inch nails pictures and biography

GUILT plus alienation plus restlessness equals pain and artistic
expression — that equation has resulted in memorable rock music
for more than a few performers, and it is definitely the M.O. of
one-man pop auteur Trent Reznor. Under the moniker Nine Inch Nails,
Reznor has mined his own angst for some of the most grim and
gripping pop of the nineties. Born Michael Trent Reznor in Mercer,
Pennsylvania, he began studying piano when he was five years old.
His parents divorced that same year, and Reznor was raised by his
maternal grandparents. Along with piano, he also learned to play
saxophone and tuba, and, like so many other fledgling musicians,
he sublimated his outsider neurosis in a band, Option 30.
After studying computer engineering at Allegheny College, Reznor
moved to Cleveland, where he played in a succession of groups,
including Problems, which achieved small-time fame by performing
True Love Ways in the 1987 Michael J. Fox-Joan Jett film
Light of Day. But Reznor was looking for something more adventurous
than Problems' meat-and-potatoes hard rock, and by the summer of
1988 he had formed Nine Inch Nails to explore strains of dance
music, and the burgeoning industrial and techno scenes. Reznor did
nearly all of the writing, performing, and producing himself;
besides drummer Chris Vrenna, Reznor brought in other musicians
only when needed or to tour. NIN's first effort, Industrial Nation,
ignited a buzz that earned Reznor gigs supporting Skinny Puppy,
the Jesus & Mary Chain, and Peter Murphy. But it was 1990's Pretty
Hate Machine and its hit Head Like a Hole, that gave Nine Inch Nails
its commercial foothold; with an evocative blend of industrial sonics,
pop conventions, heavy-metal aggression, and dance-club rhythms,
the album stayed on the Billboard charts for more than two years.
NIN was also the top T-shirt-seller on the first Lollapalooza tour
in 1991. The next Nine Inch Nails release was held up in a legal
battle with the band's record label at the time, TVT. Nevertheless,
Reznor and manager John Malm formed their own label, Nothing Records,
during 1992, and began signing bands, including Pop Will Eat Itself,
Prick, and, most notably, Marilyn Manson. NIN did release an EP,
Broken, during the fall of 1992, which earned Reznor his first Grammy,
as Wish won the award for Best Metal Performance. Reznor, TVT,
and Interscope
(which had signed a deal to distribute the Nothing label)
eventually came to an agreement that allowed Reznor and Nothing to move
on while TVT retained a financial interest in future NIN albums.
The spring 1994 release of NIN's second album, The Downward Spiral,
marked Reznor's ascension from the underground into the pop mainstream.
The album, recorded in the Los Angeles house where Charles Manson's
minions murdered actress Sharon Tate, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard
charts.
(Reznor and Tori Amos also recorded her song Past the Mission
during the same sessions.) Reznor wound up on the cover of Rolling Stone
and on Playgirl's list of rock's ten sexiest stars. David Letterman
invoked the group's name almost every night for a week after its
mud-splattered, festival-stealing appearance at Woodstock '94. Pretty
happy times for a guy whose pop mantra is I focus on the pain/ The
only thing that's real. Although we've become a fairly big band,
it's been done outside the channels of the mainstream media, Reznor
said. I really feel like I've done things on my own terms.
Reznor followed The Downward Spiral by producing the imaginative
soundtrack for Oliver Stone's controversial film Natural Born Killers,
weaving songs
(including the NIN tracks Something I Can Never Have
and Burn ) and dialogue from the film into a seamless, flowing,
and disturbing sound pastiche. Around the same time, Reznor also had
a brief affair with Hole frontwoman and Kurt Cobain's widow Courtney
Love. In 1995, Nine Inch Nails released the re-mix album Further Down
the Spiral and toured with David Bowie, one of Reznor's chief influences.
In 1996, the NIN song Happiness in Slavery
(the live version from the
Woodstock '94 album) won NIN another Grammy for Best Metal Performance.
At year's end, Reznor was working on the next Nine Inch Nails album as
well three new songs for the soundtrack to David Lynch's film Lost
Highway. Reznor and Lynch shared the cover of Rolling Stone in February
of 1997.