Back To Shrines ABOUT NIN+ME TRENT RECS GALLERY

Welcome to my NIN shrine! Like many others I too heard March of the Pigs at aged 12 and never moved on. (I can’t even claim the experience of seeing 90s Trent Reznor and thinking “wow I wish that was me” because it turns out that’s more common than you’d think) I don’t quite know what this section is going to look like yet but I’m excited to add to it.

Trent Reznor recorded his own demos during any spare time he got whilst working as a studio technician in 1986 and decided to name this project Nine Inch Nails “because it was catchy and could be abbreviated to NIN”. He sent demos of his first song Down in It (Halo 1 - each NIN release is assigned a Halo number) to various labels and ultimately got signed to TVT in 1989. Once he’d recorded NIN’s debut album Pretty Hate MachiNe (Halo 2) he assembled a band of Ron Musarra on drums and Chris Verenna on keyboards/programming so he could perform the songs live. After supporting on Skinny Puppy’s and The Jesus and Mary Chain’s respective tours NIN played the 1991 Lollapalooza tour with the band line up of Trent Reznor, Richard Patrick, Jeff Ward and James Wooley. This was the tour that got NIN recognition and also began the tradition of Trent destroying his instruments/fellow band mates/himself on stage.



By 1991 TVT records wanted Trent to release a synth pop album similar to Pretty Hate MachiNe. Trent found this extremely creatively restrictive so had begun a legal battle with the label try and get out of his contract. This led to him recording any new NIN material in secret in various studios across the US (including his own infamous Le Pig). The on stage aggression and the anger surrounding the TVT situation culminated into the much heavier BrokeN EP (Halo 5). Another label, Interscope, entered into a deal with TVT meaning that the EP could be released in 1992 without any creative input from the label. It would also be released under Nothing Records – a vanity label founded by Trent Reznor and his then manager John Malm. (Nothing would also release music by 12 Rounds - Atticus Ross' original band, Marilyn Manson, Pig, Pop Will Eat Itself and Meat Beat Manifesto)



Accompanying music videos were made for all but three songs on BrokeN, and only two were officially released. The videos collectively make up the BrokeN Movie which was never given an official due to its extremely graphic content. Despite this the EP was extremely well received, even earning NIN a grammy for the song Wish.

Trent had begun to work on his next full length album alongside recording Broken, he’d previously moved into his Le Pig studio (the former site of the Tate murders) so he could devote all of his time and energy into music. Nine Inch Nails’ second album, The Downward Spiral (Halo 8), would release in 1994 to critical acclaim. The album focuses on the ‘downward spiral’ and eventual suicide of the protagonist and Trent has been open about how the feelings and thoughts of the protagonist mirrored his own experience and feelings around that time. Music videos for the main singles March of the Pigs (Halo 7) and Closer (Halo 9 - as Closer To God) would be on heavy rotation on MTV (with the Closer video having parts censored)

NIN embarked on the Self Destruct tour in support of the album which saw them playing bigger and bigger venues and the performances getting more and more violent (often having to get new instruments for each tour date due to them all being destroyed the previous one) The Self Destruct tour included a now iconic performance at Woodstock '94 which the band played completely covered in mud. Trent commented multiple times throughout the show and in interviews after the fact that he could barely see at all due to the mud in his eyes. This performance drastically increased NIN’s mainstream success.







However, this mainstream success would ultimately be what furthered Trent’s own downward spiral. His anxiety disorder, alcohol addiction, drug addiction and depression worsened expediently due to media attention and the pressure to follow up The Downward Spiral.

After the conclusion of the Self Destruct tour Trent would disappear from the public eye and enter rehab for his issues with drugs and alcohol. Shortly after this he also went into counselling due to the death of his grandmother. Through this he would write the songs I’m Looking Forward to Joining You, Finally and The Day the World Went Away (Halo 13) that would ultimately become tracks on NIN’s third album The Fragile (Halo 14). The Fragile would release in 1999 after a long recording process, with two CDs and just under 1 hour 45 minutes of music its one of NIN’s longest releases. It would receive critical acclaim (Pitchfork would change their original 2/10 rating to 8.7/10 when reviewing the vinyl rerelease in 2017) although not to the level of The Downward Spiral .

To promote the album NIN embarked on the Fragility tour (split into two legs: Fragility 1.0 and Fragility 2.0) it was on this tour that Trent would overdose on heroin after mistaking it for cocaine, leading to the cancellation of some shows and another NIN hiatus as he entered rehab for a second time in 2001.

After completing rehab and spending time out of the spotlight (and a lot of time in the gym) Trent wasn’t sure if he’d still be able to write music whilst clean and sober. He began working on simple demos that would eventually become the fourth Nine Inch Nails album [WITH_TEETH] (Halo 19). Released in 2005 this album would be almost the opposite to The Fragile: shorter, with songs that can stand alone from one another instead of having an entire overarching narrative. [WITH_TEETH] would also be the first NIN CD to come without a booklet (one would later be added in the 2019 vinyl release) The main single, The Hand That Feeds (Halo 18), would go on to become one of NIN’s most successful songs after Closer. It was scheduled to be performed live at that years MTV awards but NIN cancelled after MTV wouldn’t allow them to have a large backdrop of then President Bush. Trent would post on nin.com: “We were set to perform "The Hand That Feeds" with an unmolested, straightforward image of George W. Bush as the backdrop. Apparently, the image of our President is as offensive to MTV as it is to me.”

The Live: [WITH_TEETH] tour would have its first leg be mostly smaller club venues as Trent was unsure what the reception to the “new NIN” live atmosphere (less destruction, more tambourine) would be. All the club dates instantly sold out so the rest of the tour was booked into arenas. Whilst on tour Trent would begin writing more songs in makeshift studios on the tour bus and in his hotel rooms. When the tour ended he would rent a house in the woods to begin putting these demos into a new album.


In November of 2006 a NIN tour would be announced then that coming January, Trent would announce that the next album would be called Year Zero (Halo 24). The tour began in early February with no further word on the new album and no new songs being performed. On February 12th someone noticed that certain letters on the back of the new tour shirts were highlighted and they spelled out “I AM TRYING TO BELIEVE”. This would begin what would be known as the Year Zero Experience and later, as the Year Zero ARG. There was a new album, but in order to get to it there was a whole dystopian world to uncover and traverse both online and off: websites, covert meet ups, mysterious phone numbers, banned media, USB drives hidden in toilet stalls, the list goes on [I have written about various parts of the ARG here and here, but if you want to see a full breakdown this is here best place to go] On April 1st the full album was “leaked” after a bootleg recording of a listening party from a month prior that someone recorded on their phone was uploaded online. A couple of days later the promotional disc was ripped and uploaded online and later that same day made available to stream for free on nin.com. Its widely suspected that the album was leaked by Trent himself, similar to when the the BrokeN movie surfaced on piracy sites.

On March 2nd 2008 a message appeared on nin.com:

On the link in the above you could download the very unexpected new NIN album, Ghosts I-IV (Halo 26), for $5, on various torrent sites you could download Ghosts I (the first nine tracks) for free, an accompanying message reading: This torrent is an official upload from Nine Inch Nails… Ghosts I is the first part of the 36 track collection Ghosts I-IV Undoubtedly, you'll be able to find the complete collection on the same torrent network you found this file, but if you're interested in the release, we encourage you to check it out at ghosts.nin.com, where the complete Ghosts I-IV is available directly from us in a variety of DRM-free digital formats, including FLAC lossless, for only $5.

Ghosts I-IVwas the result of a 10 week musical experiment done by Trent with the assistance of Atticus Ross, Alan Moulder, Alessandro Cortini, Adrian Belew and Brian Viglione. An entirely instrumental album accompanied by beautiful artwork by Phillip Graybill and longtime NIN collaborator Rob Sheridan. Described by Trent as “a soundtrack for daydreams” as during recording they would imagine a scenario then imagine what music would accompany it. This album was NIN’s first independent release and as it was done without any label restrictions it was able to be released in multiple formats as well as the above downloads; CDs, vinyl, CD and DVD multipacks and an ultra deluxe edition containing all the other formats and signed giclee prints.

Despite its $300 price tag, all 2500 copies of the ultra deluxe limited edition sold out within a day of going on sale and the large amount of traffic to nin.com crashed the servers leading to the site having to go down for maintenance. Trent posted the following in response:

NIN’s eighth album, The Slip (Halo 27), was released completely free on nin.com on May 5th 2008. The 10 track album was written, recorded, mixed, mastered and had its art design completed in less than two months. Trent stated he viewed the album as “more of a sketch than an artwork,” due to its extremely fast production time. Similar to Ghosts I-IV , each song on The Slip, has its own artwork that represents it and every download came with a PDF of the artwork.

Later that year a CD version of the album was released, limited to 250,000 copies [I have no. 64,581] Each came with a DVD of NIN performing during rehearsals, a physical booklet and a set of 3 stickers. A vinyl version would also be released, but this version wasn’t numbered.

In support of The Slip and Ghosts I-IV Nine Inch Nails would embark on the Lights in the Sky Tour, at the time the most technologically groundbreaking tour NIN had ever done. Across the stage there was giant interactive transparent screens that were raised and lowered throughout the set. During “Only” the band would be shrouded in static with only Trent able to physically break through it, and for “Echoplex” there would be a giant touch screen drum machine that would be played by drummer Josh Freese (this would occasionally - unintenionally - glitch and malfuction)

In December Trent announced on nin.com that the Lights in the Sky era had come to a close, and another wave of tour dates would be announced for 2009. These dates would ultimately make up the Wave Goodbye tour after Trent announced in February of that year that NIN would cease to be a live entity once this tour ended (A/N: at the time I misunderstood and thought NIN was ending completely and crashed out) The Wave Goodbye tour had a much more scaled back production than The Lights in the Sky so there was longer setlists with greater variation, including songs that were rarely played prior such as Not So Pretty Now and Home.

Part of this tour would include Janes Addiction (known as the NIN/JA tour) and included a lot of festival dates across Australia, New Zaland and Asia. Free tickets and backstage passes were given to those who visited randomised links posted on ninja2009.com at specific times. At the final show of the tour, Trent said that he would be stepping away from music for a while and that he was getting married to his girlfriend Mariqueen Maandig. NIN live gear that had been used up until that point was sold on eBay (both fully working items and what remained of things that had gotten on the wrong side of Trent)

During his time away from music Trent was contacted by director David Fincher about potentially making the score for his upcoming film as he’d been using NIN’s music as a placeholder during production. Having never scored a film before and trying to make good on his promise to take some time off, Trent initially turned him down. A few weeks later he “said goodbye to his free time” and signed on to the project together with Atticus Ross. This would ultimately become the score for the 2010 Facebook biopic, The Social Network, as well as the first “Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross” soundtrack (Null 01 – TRAR soundtracks have a Null numbering system) The film would release to critical acclaim and the soundtrack itself won multiple awards including an Oscar for best original score. This beginis the pattern of Trent alternating between working on NIN and working on film scores, a pattern he says he enjoys because it keeps things interesting.

In 2013, Trent said that he “hadn’t been entirely honest about what he’d been up to” and announced tour dates and a new album – Hesitation Marks (Halo 28). Working on film scores with Atticus Ross and putting out an album with How to Destroy Angels (a band he formed with Atticus and Mariqueen) had revitalised his interest in working on new Nine Inch Nails material. The first single, Came Back Haunted (no halo number) was released on June 6th with an accompanying music video that was directed by David Lynch. Came Back Haunted had a much more electronic sound than The Slip, comprising of mostly layered synth parts and an electronic bassline. Fans noted the single artwork was by Russel Mills, the artist responsible for previous NIN artwork on March of the Pigs, The Downward Spiral, Further Down the Spiral (Halo 10) and Closure (Halo 12).

This was intentional as Trent had been thinking about the person he was when he wrote The Downward Spiral and the most mentally stable person he is now. The term “hesitation marks” is the name for the wounds/scars that are left when someone has attempted suicide by slitting their wrists, reflecting the fact that Trent did not ultimately kill himself when he was at his lowest. When discussing this in interviews Trent said, “I feel very aware that it's 20 years later, and I'm still that guy. I know that guy, and I feel for him. I don't resent him”.

When the album finally released in September, each format (CD, vinyl, digital and deluxe) had its own unique artwork. Also, if you ordered the album directly from nin.com you were able to download the “Audiophile Mastered Version” for free alongside whatever you initially purchased. NIN have always mastered their music to sound the best for its format i.e the cassette master is different from the CD master and so on as those formats have different limitations. However, the audiophile mastered version is slightly different in that the differences in the mix would only be noticeable if you have high end audio equipment or an understanding of audio mastering. In a statement, Trent emphasised that this version is no better than the standard version, it’s just an alternate take on the mastering.

In support of Hesitation Marks NIN embarked on the Tension tour – the most elaborate NIN live show to date, featuring the largest line up to date totalling 8 members with the addition of backing singers Lisa Fischer and Sharlotte Gibson and bassist Pino Palladino. Certain shows of this tour were professionally shot intended for release as a DVD/Blu ray in the Spring of 2014 (becoming yet another NIN thing that is eternally “coming soon”, although some footage is available on the NIN Youtube channel)

In 2016 a post appeared on nin.com announcing both the upcoming release of a new EP, Not The Actual Events (Halo 29), and the unceremonious addition of Atticus Ross as an official member of Nine Inch Nails. He said in an interview at the time that Trent had been offering to make him an official member for years but the prospect was too scary as he gets incredibly nervous playing live. He finally accepted because Trent no longer wanted to tour since becoming a father four times over (NIN would embark on the Cold, Black and Infinite tour in 2018)

Not The Actual Events was released in the usual formats but if purchased through nin.com you were also given the option to buy an additional item that was just called “physical component for you to deal with”. When fans started receiving their orders this turned out to be a small black parcel that had a warning sticker on the back stating that by opening it you wave your rights to sue The Null Corporation (Trent Reznor’s record label that only deals with his music) Once opened black powder would cover your hands (and my kitchen countertop - thanks guys) and you’d get various photos, documents and lyrics.

The music itself was still electronic like Hesitation Marks but also included heavily distorted guitars and bass like the NIN works of the 90s. The track She’s Gone Away was written for David Lynch for the upcoming Twin Peaks: The Return (which I have written about here) since the EP only filed the A side of a record, the B side of the vinyl release features songs from The Downward Spiral; Reptile, The Downward Spiral and Hurt played in reverse. Trent described the EP as “an internal fantasy of what if I lit a match to my life and burned the whole fucking thing down? All of this is an illusion and I really should be dead lying in a ditch somewhere; it’s not a pleasant thing but it’s something I needed to process.”

In June 2016 it was announced that Not The Actual Events was the first in a trilogy, with the other instalments being released 8 months apart. Add Violence (Halo 31) was released in July 2017 as the second EP, an accompanying physical component was also made available, this time in the form of a schematic for a fictional machine panel.

Both the songs themselves and the schematic imply that the reality we live in is a completely simulated one so everything may ultimately be meaningless - it would explain why everything in the world feels so off. The songs start out fairly clean and break down and become more unstable as the EP goes on until the final few minutes of The Background World are pure noise.

The final piece of the trilogy was released in June 2018. Bad Witch (Halo 32) was declared an album rather than an EP by NIN, the pessimistic conclusion they had come to was that we don’t actually live in a simulation, that’s not a scapegoat we can use. At our core us humans were just an accident and we will ultimately exterminate ourselves since we aren’t actually the enlightened creatures we thought we were. Most of the songs on Bad Witch contain some saxophone parts, the first time Trent had played the instrument since playing it on stage with David Bowie on the Dissonance Tour in 1995. Trent has stated this was heavily influenced by David Bowies final album, Blackstar, which had released in 2016 – two days before Bowie’s death. Atticus also said that the vocals on God Break Down The Door was also inspired by Bowies vocal style.

Technically, Bad Witch also came with a physical component, in the form of “The Physical World Ticket Presale” for the US leg of the Cold, Black and Infinite tour. If you wanted a ticket you had to go to a physical NIN box office (set up at various venues across the country) and queue to by a physical ticket like you would pre internet. . This was an attempt to combat ticket scalpers and also “had the potential to be enjoyable (not guaranteed) as NIN has always been about bringing people together, living life to the fullest and good times (not entirely true)"

Fans waited in line for anything up to 24 hours in all kinds of weather conditions across the US, they received their tickets and had the opportunity to buy merch that was exclusive to the presale location.

The tour itself was extremely stripped down compared to Wave Goodbye and Tension, Trent had stated he no longer wanted to be involved in the “arms race” of creating more and more technologically advanced concert experience. The stage design was light trusses, fog machines and strands of tape covering the instruments (similar to the Head Like a Hole (Halo 3) music video, the Hate tour and the Self Destruct Tour) On the opening date the BrokeN EP was played in its entirety, marking the first performance of Happiness in Slavery since 1995. Since the stage set up was so simple there was a large variety of setlist variation, including the live debut of The Perfect Drug (Halo 11) The final show of the tour contained three How To Destroy Angels covers; BBB, Welcome Oblivion and Ice Age.

In 2020 additional tour dates were cancelled due to the Covid pandemic. During lockdown two Ghosts albums were released by NIN: Ghosts V: Together (Halo 33) and Ghosts VI: Locusts(Halo 34). Both were digital only and completely free (although fans have made bootleg vinyl and CDs of both) In November 2020 NIN were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame. Along with members Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, current and former live members were also inducted: Alessandro Cortini, Robin Finck, Danny Lohner, Ilan Rubin and Chris Vrenna. Trent stated that he also wanted Richard Patrick and Charlie Clouser to be inducted but was only allowed so many people. The induction ceremony was done via livestream and zoom, later in 2022 an in-person Q&A would be done in the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame which also included Richard and Charlie. The NIN performance the following night would feature the current and former members performing together for the final 6 sings of the set.

“You’re going to get what you deserve 10.10.2025” was tweeted by the official Walt Disney Studios twitter account on August 10th 2024. Nine Inch Nails were doing the soundtrack for the third Tron film, Tron: Ares, leading to speculation on if this would be a halo or a null (the answer would be both – Halo 36 and Null 22) Details of a NIN tour were leaked early 2025 and subsequently confirmed by the band who also stated they didn’t want to say anything further for now due to the then ongoing California wildfires. The Peel It Back tour would begin in Dublin on the 15th June 2025 and continue on through to March 2026. The stage set up was completely different from any previous NIN tours, a main stage and a smaller cube shaped second stage in the middle of the standing area. The opening DJ set by Boys Noize would end and the curtain around the cube would fall to reveal Trent sat alone at the piano (I have written about the show I attended here) The band members would walk back and forth between the stages through the crowd, with Boys Noize joining Trent and Atticus on the cube stage to perform EDM remixes of various NIN songs including Closer, The Warning, Vessel and eventually the new single As Alive As You Need Me To Be (Halo 35/Null 21) from troN: ares. These would become known as the “Nine Inch Noize” remixes.