Nine inch nails

Nine inch nails
Nine Inch Nails at Lollapalooza 1991
General information
origin	Cleveland , United States
Genre (s)	Alternative rock , ambient , electronica , industrial rock
founding	1988
Website	nin.com
Current occupation
Vocals , keyboards , guitar , bass , saxophone , music programming	Trent Reznor
Keyboard , synthesizer , music programming	Atticus Ross (since 2016)
Former Live Members
guitar	Richard Patrick (1989-1993)
Guitar, keyboard	Aaron North (2005-2007)
Bass , guitar, keyboard	Danny Lohner (1993-2003)
bass	Jeordie White (2005-2007)
bass	Justin Meldal-Johnson (2008-2009)
Bass, guitar	Josh Eustis (2013)
bass	Pino Palladino (2013)
Drums	Ron Musarra (1988)
Drums, keyboard	Chris Vrenna (1988–1990, 1992–1997)
Drums	Jeff Ward (1990-1991)
Drums	Jerome Dillon (1999-2005)
Drums	Alex Carapetis (2005)
Drums	Josh Freese (2005-2008)
Keyboard	Gary Talpas (1989)
Keyboard	Nick Rushe (1990)
Keyboard	David Haymes (1990)
Keyboard	Lee Mars (1990-1991)
Keyboard	James Woolley (1991-1994)
Keyboard, theremin , synthesizer	Charlie Clouser (1994-2000)
Current live cast
guitar	Robin Finck (1994–2000, since 2008)
Synthesizer, guitar, bass	Alessandro Cortini (2004–2008, since 2013)
Drums	Ilan Rubin (since 2009)

Nine Inch Nails (English for "nine inch nails" , abbreviated NIИ) was founded in 1988 in Cleveland , Ohio , by Trent Reznor - not as a conventional band , but as a music project that exclusively serves the realization of his musical ideas.

In the studio, other musicians and sound engineers are only required as assistants, since Reznor plays most of the instruments himself. Other musicians support him on concert stages, which means that Nine Inch Nails can only be viewed as a band in the live environment. Musically, Nine Inch Nails moves between rock and electronic music .

history

Nine Inch Nails in May 2005

Naming

Before founding Nine Inch Nails at the age of 23, Trent Reznor played in a number of locally known bands in which he never felt free enough to implement his own musical ideas to a satisfactory extent. How Trent Reznor came up with the name Nine Inch Nails, he explains with a wink in the following quote:

“I don't know if you've ever tried to think of band names, but usually you think you have a great one and you look at it the next day and it's stupid. I had about 200 of those. nine inch nails lasted the two-week test, looked great in print, and could be abbreviated easily. It really doesn't have any literal meaning. It seemed kind of frightening.
[In his best he-man voice]
Tough and manly!
It's a curse trying to come up with band names. "

“I don't know if you've ever tried to come up with a name for a band, but usually you think you've found a great one and the next day you look at it and it's silly. I've had about 200 of them. 'Nine Inch Nails' passed the two-week test, looked great in print, and was easy to abbreviate. It has no real meaning. He looked kind of terrifying.
[In his manliest voice]
Hard and manly!
It's bloody hard to come up with band names. "

The first publications

The first album Pretty Hate Machine was musically still very strongly influenced by the New Wave of the 80s and the emerging synth sounds , was released on October 20, 1989 and has so far achieved three platinum status in the USA. The three singles Head like a Hole , Down in It and Sin were released. The music channel MTV played Head like a Hole frequently, which increased the band's popularity. The video for Sin was not approved by Reznor's record company at the time and only officially premiered years later on the Nine Inch Nails music video compilation Closure .

The second major release of Nine Inch Nails was in 1992. Broken is an EP with six titles and two hidden songs ( Physical , an Adam-and-the-Ants cover, and Suck ). The song Wish won a Grammy in the Best Metal Performance category . In the same year as Broken, Fixed was released, a remix EP, on which Reznor and fellow musicians completely remixed the tracks from the previous EP.

The Downward Spiral & The Fragile

In 1994 the band released the concept album The Downward Spiral , which has achieved four-fold platinum status in the US to date. The first single on the album was March of the Pigs . The album saw several spikes in popularity. The second single, Closer , in particular, was commercially successful and stayed in the US singles charts for 22 weeks. The last song on the album, Hurt , was covered very successfully by Johnny Cash in 2002 . A year later, the remix equivalent appeared with Further Down the Spiral .

During the five years between the albums The Downward Spiral and the follow-up album The Fragile , Trent Reznor struggled with depression, social anxiety and writer's block . In addition, he suffered from the death of his grandmother. In the Fragile Era (circa 1999–2002), Reznor's cocaine and alcohol addiction became known. After rehab he got clean. Three singles were released, namely The Day the World Went Away in the US and Europe, We're in This Together in Europe and Japan and Into the Void in Australia. In 2000 the remix EP Things Falling Apart was released . In 2002 the live CD / DVD / VHS And All That Could Have Been followed .

With Teeth & Year Zero

The next studio album, With Teeth , was released in spring 2005 and immediately rose to number 1 on the American Billboard charts . The Hand That Feeds , Only and Every Day Is Exactly the Same were released as singles in Europe . Former Nirvana drummer and founder of the Foo Fighters , Dave Grohl , appears as a guest drummer on some pieces. On February 23, 2007, Beside You in Time, a live album from the 2006 US winter tour, was released in high definition and 5.1 sound on DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc .

The following studio album, Year Zero , was released in mid-April 2007, but was already offered as a stream on April 4, 2007 for auditioning on the official website of Nine Inch Nails. It is a concept album that describes the world in the year 2022 (referred to as year 0000 in the "year zero" concept):

What many suspected a viral marketing concept was already part of the Year Zero experience , according to Reznor . The complex album concept is not limited to the content of the CD, but is extended to the Internet, with several websites describing the future that Reznor has in mind from different perspectives.

On November 20, 2007, the remix album for Year Zero was released in the USA under the title Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D .

Ghosts I – IV & The Slip

On February 16, 2008, Trent Reznor posted a news article on his website entitled "2 Weeks". Two weeks later, on March 2, 2008, a completely new studio double album entitled Ghosts I-IV , which contains a total of 36 tracks, was released under a Creative Commons license.

The double album was produced in just ten weeks of studio work and contains only instrumental pieces. Similar distribution channels were used as with the album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! by Saul Williams , which was produced by Trent Reznor. You can choose between a free download version, which only contains the first 9 tracks, and the complete album, optionally in MP3 , FLAC or Apple Lossless format.

In April 2008, Nine Inch Nails published various photos on Flickr , u. a. Photos of Josh Freese and Robin Finck in a recording studio. On April 22nd, several US radio stations began playing a new nine-inch nails song called Discipline , the same day the song was also released as free download as MP3 and all multitrack files. On May 5, 2008, The Slip was finally released for free download under the Creative Commons license .

Time out

On February 16, 2009, Trent Reznor announced on the band's website that they would probably take a break after a world tour. Reznor stated that he had been thinking for some time about making NIN disappear from the scene for "some time". The last tour was very exhausting, both physically and technically. Before that, however, there was a tour with the alternative rock band Jane's Addiction .

In 2010 Reznor composed the score for the film The Social Network by David Fincher together with Atticus Ross . For the soundtrack, he and Ross received numerous awards (including an Oscar ). At the end of 2011, the end of the break was in sight when Reznor announced in an interview that he would resume work with Nine Inch Nails in 2012. This did not happen yet because Trent Reznor was busy with his other band How to Destroy Angels . He ended the break with the Twenty Thirteen Tour, with which he was touring from July 26, 2013 to August 30, 2014.

Hesitation Marks

On September 3, 2013, the new album Hesitation Marks was released. The first single, Came Back Haunted , directed by David Lynch in the video, has been released earlier.

In cooperation with Russel Mills, an art book for the album Hesitation Marks was published on December 16, 2015 .

EP trilogy

In 2016 and 2017 two more EPs, Not the Actual Events and Add Violence, were released . The band went on a festival tour, where they also played at Rock Werchter and Open Air St. Gallen . Their only concert in Germany took place as part of the Citadel Music Festival in the Spandau Citadel .

In June 2018, the conclusion of the EP trilogy with the name Bad Witch will be released as Halo 32 .

Ghosts V-VI

On March 26, 2020, Nine Inch Nails released two new albums for free on their website, which like the original Ghosts I-IV album contain exclusively instrumental pieces. Ghosts V: Together represents hope and optimism in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic , according to Reznor , while Ghosts VI: Locusts addresses Reznors and Ross' fears.

On the website they said:

“As the news seems to turn ever more grim by the hour, we've found ourselves vacillating wildly between feeling like there may be hope at times to utter despair - often changing minute to minute. Although each of us define ourselves as antisocial-types who prefer being on our own, this situation has really made us appreciate the power and need for CONNECTION. "

“As the news seems to get darker by the hour, we waver wildly between the feeling that there is sometimes hope and despair, often changing from minute to minute. Although each of us defines ourselves as an antisocial type who prefers to be alone, this situation has really made us appreciate the power and the need for CONNECTION. "

- Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

reception

The media, not Trent Reznor, mostly assign his style of music to industrial rock , with Nine Inch Nails' tonal spectrum being much wider. The group was viewed critically by some comparable bands and role models such as Skinny Puppy or KMFDM ; cEvin Key finds The Downward Spiral rather unimportant and clashes with Reznor's “OGREismen” [sic!]. Front Line Assembly's Bill Leeb also accused Reznor of theft:

“Look at Nine Inch Nails. I think he stole some ideas from us and Skinny Puppy. He looks like Ogre on stage. He stole entire concepts and put them together. "

- Maik Euscher : Interview with Front Line Assembly, 1995

The zenith of Nine Inch Nails' industrial rock era was The Downward Spiral , after which these influences were withdrawn. The music on the double album The Fragile , released at the end of the 1990s, is rather a mixture of alternative rock and electronica music, which was booming at the time ; only a few of the 23 songs still correspond to industrial rock.

In 2015, Rolling Stone's Nine Inch Nails project was voted 94th of the 100 Greatest Musicians of All Time .

In 2020, Nine Inch Nails were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame .

Discography

→ Main article : Nine Inch Nails / Discography  and list of songs by Nine Inch Nails

Studio albums

• Pretty Hate Machine (1989)
• The Downward Spiral (1994)
• The Fragile (1999)
• With Teeth (2005)
• Year Zero (2007)
• Ghosts I-IV (2008)
• The Slip (2008)
• Hesitation Marks (2013)
• Bad Witch (2018)
• Ghosts V: Together (2020)
• Ghosts VI: Locusts (2020)

EPs

• Broken (1992)
• Not the Actual Events (2016)
• Add Violence (2017)

Remix albums

• Fixed EP (1992)
• Further Down the Spiral (1995)
• Things Falling Apart (2000)
• Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D (2007)

Cast for live performances

First live shows in 1988

• Chris Vrenna - keyboard
• Ron Mussara - drums

"Hate 1990"

• Richard Patrick - guitar
• Nick Rushe - Keyboard (Jan – March 1990)
• David Haymes - Keyboard (March – April 1990)
• Lee Mars - keyboard (May 1990-Feb 1991)
• James Woolley - Keyboard (rest of the tour)
• Chris Vrenna - drums (at the beginning of the tour)
• Jeff Ward - drums (rest of tour)

"Self Destruct Tour" - 1994–1995

• Robin Finck - guitar
• Danny Lohner - bass, guitar, keyboard
• Chris Vrenna - drums
• James Woolley - synthesizer (1994)
• Charlie Clouser - Synthesizer (1995)

"Fragility 1.0 & 2.0 Tour" - 1999–2000

• Charlie Clouser - synthesizer
• Jerome Dillon - drums ( NearLY )
• Robin Finck - guitar
• Danny Lohner - bass, guitar, synthesizer

"Live With Teeth" - 2005-2006

• Alessandro Cortini - keyboard
• Aaron North (ex-The Icarus Line) - guitar
• Jeordie White ( Marilyn Manson , A Perfect Circle ) - bass
• Jerome Dillon - drums ( NearLY )
• Alex Carapetis - drums (October 7th - December 1st, 2005; Jerome Dillon)
• Josh Freese - drums (October 4th, 5th, since December 6th, 2005)

Performance 2007

• Alessandro Cortini - keyboard
• Aaron North (ex-The Icarus Line) - guitar
• Jeordie White - bass
• Josh Freese - drums

Lights In The Sky Over North America 2008 / South America 2008

• Alessandro Cortini - keyboard
• Robin Finck - guitar
• Justin Meldal-Johnson - bass
• Josh Freese - drums

Wave Goodbye 2009

• Robin Finck - guitar
• Justin Meldal-Johnson - bass and keyboards
• Ilan Rubin - drums and keyboards

Web links

Commons : Nine Inch Nails  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Official website (English)
• NIN at Universal
• Nine Inch Nails in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Nine Inch Nails at Allmusic (English)
• Nine Inch Nails at SoundCloud
• Channel Nine Inch Nails on YouTube (English)
• Nineinchnails Wiki (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ (English) Excerpt from: The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, 2001 ( Memento from April 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Sascha Krüger: Visions: The Sound of Sehnsucht (retrospective). NIN Archives, May 2005, accessed July 19, 2010 . 
3. ^ Q&A: Trent Reznor. (No longer available online.) Rolling Stone on Nov. 3, 2005, archived from the original on June 18, 2008 ; accessed on July 19, 2010 (English). 
4. ↑ heise online: Nine Inch Nails release new album for free on the internet .
5. ↑ Trent Reznor on the band's break , accessed February 17, 2009
6. ^ The-Pit.de: Put on hold by the boss , accessed on February 17, 2009.
7. ↑ http://www.laut.de/Nine-Inch-Nails/Reznor-kuendigt-neues-Album-an/13-12-2011 .
8. ↑ Trent Reznor on the upcoming album , accessed July 1, 2013
9. ^ Nine Inch Nails and Artist Russell Mills Team Up for 'Cargo in the Blood' Book. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 22, 2015 ; accessed on December 21, 2015 . 
10. ↑ Martin Burger at Visions : Nine Inch Nails announce new EP "Bad Witch" ; accessed on May 12, 2018
11. ↑ Jonas Helmerichs: Two new albums: Nine Inch Nails provide the soundtrack for the Corona crisis. Retrieved on March 26, 2020 (German). 
12. ↑ https://www.nin.com/
13. ↑ Interview with Front Line Assembly . In: New Life Soundmagazine . No. 10/95 , October 1995, pp. 32 .
14. ↑ Rollingstone.de: The 100 greatest musicians of all time: The essays. 100th to 91st place
15. ↑ Nine Inch Nails | Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Retrieved April 20, 2020 .