During his early years Reznor (called Trent from a young age since Michael is his father's name) grew up in Mercer, Pennsylvania (mostly with his grandparents), although never finding it easy to fit in with other children. All he was interested in was music-especially vintage Kiss. This led to him going on to study both music and computer engineering at college, although at first all he gained as a result was a series of embarrassing band projects. Unpeterbed by this, he branched out on his own using his skills to record Pretty Hate Machine (1989) almost single handed.
The album was something completely new to the media. Was it rock, dance, or indie? The public made their own decisions, with the album selling 500,000 on the back of an appearance on the first Lollapalooza tour (the full band including now Filter main man Richard Patrick on guitar), as well as a brace of hits, Down In It and, more significantly, worldwide smash Head Like A Hole.
After the bleak, synthesiser washed soundscapes of Pretty..., follow-up mini album Broken(1992) went for a wholly different approach, fuelled by razor sharp guitars and rabid energy, it also gained and unlikely Grammy for the track Wish, followed by a remix album, Fixed (1993). By this time Reznor had also set up Nothing Records (based in an ex-morturary in New Orleans) and recruited a couple of new members to the fold, bassist Danny Lohner and keyboardist Charlie Clouser. Any other members (current line up completed by guitarist Robin Finck and drummer Jerome Dillon) are there for the short-term.
However, 1994 is where the big time was well and truly reached with the release of The Downward Spiral. Rather than having a single sound like previous efforts, the tracks ranged from gentle, sweeping songs, to crescendos of guitar based mayhem to industrialised bouts of despair, with a basis on sex and death. Not much of a surprise considering it was recorded at 10050 Ciello Drive-the house where the Manson Family gatecrashed Sharon Tate's party in memorable fashion. Another couple of hits emerged, Closer and March of the Pigs. By now MTV had to sit up and take notice, although th content of the videos had to be toned down (especially Closer-recently voted the 17th best video of all time). Their stock rose even more following their mud covered highlight performance at the Woodstock '94 debacle, paving the way for a world tour. Reznor elso picked up the gong for most influential musician of the 90's from Rolling Stone along the way.
Suddenly it all went quiet. The only material that surfaced was Further Down The Spiral, a remix album (The Art of Self Destruction Part One found it's way onto a Levi's ad), and bouts of Reznor producing the soundtracks to Natural Born Killers (providing the track Burn), David Lynch's Lost Highway (adding The Perfect Drug) and video game Quake, gifting us two new tracks along the way, as well as Marilyn Manson (all released on Nothing), there was little else to report from the Reznor camp, whilst Clouser had been working on numerous remixes, including a few for Rob Zombie.
What transpired was that Reznor was suffering writer's block, his grandmother (who he had a great attatchment to) had died, and he wanted a break from the industry, especially after former comrade Manson, as well as Courtney Love, stabbed him in the back after all he had done for him. Add to this the fact Reznor finally bowed to what many saw as inevitable and was diagnosed with severe depression.
But in late 1997 he began to work on a new album, although he ended up writing too much material, and had to enlist Bob Ezrin (producer of Reznor's all time favorite album, Pink Floyd's The Wall) to whittle it all down. The end result was The Fragile (1999). Based over two CDs, it is a collection of drama, despair and fevered invention, stopping off along the way to put Marilyn Manson in his place on the track Starfuckers Inc (although later ass-kissing-to-get-attention-to-sell-records developments turned the video against Fred Durst, which didn't go down too well...), along with a tribute to his late grandmother, I'm Looking Forward To Joining You, Finally.
The inspirations cited by Reznor include Psycho Candy (Jesus and Mary Chain) and My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything (their engineer, Alan Moulder, has worked with Reznor for years). Rather than the content of previous efforts, The Fragile deals with aging, numbness, disillusionment and uneasy self-acceptance, yet to Reznor's self admission, gives us hope. Not surprising it was voted Album of 1999 by Spin magazine.
All that we have to do now is wait another four years for the next one-although we do have Things Falling Apart, the obligitary remix album to tide us over, at least until we can bag releases from Tapeworm (Reznor, Lohner and Clouser, along with Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan, Helmet's Page Hamilton and Pantera's Phil Anselmo) or Bratwurst (Reznor and Atari Teenage Riot frontman Alec Empire). However, the creative talent that Reznor possesses will make the wait more than worth it-which won't take as long as the last one, according to Trent. In the meantime, the OST to Christblood, another Reznor creation, is in the works.
Official Site/ SmashedUpSanity/ Painful Convictions/ Above The Trees/ Even Deeper/ Nothing Records.
