50 Fun Facts About Nine Inch Nails

Which country music legend covered the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt in 2002 for the last album of his lifetime?

Johnny Cash made the song so completely his own that Trent Reznor said it no longer felt like his. NME named the video the best of all time in 2011.

Nine Inch Nails recorded The Downward Spiral in a Los Angeles house where which actress was murdered in 1969?

Sharon Tate and four others were killed there by members of a notorious cult. Trent Reznor rented the house in 1992 and built a studio inside, and it was demolished two years later.

At which rain-soaked festival did Nine Inch Nails wrestle in the mud just before walking on stage to play?

Woodstock '94 gave Nine Inch Nails their widest audience, with pay-per-view reaching up to 24 million homes. Trent Reznor still called the set terrible because of technical problems.

Which record-breaking 2019 number-one single samples the Nine Inch Nails instrumental 34 Ghosts IV?

Old Town Road earned Trent Reznor a Country Music Association award as a producer. Beatmaker YoungKio found the Nine Inch Nails track in his YouTube suggestions and sold the finished beat for $30.

Which Pixar film earned Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails his second Academy Award for Best Original Score?

Soul was the first animated film Trent Reznor ever scored. He shared the Oscar with co-composer Jon Batiste, having won his first a decade earlier.

Which agency investigated the Nine Inch Nails video Down in It after its balloon camera landed in a cornfield?

The FBI wondered whether the footage of Trent Reznor lying apparently dead was a real snuff film. A farmer had handed in the camera after it broke loose during the shoot.

In which Ohio city did Trent Reznor form Nine Inch Nails in 1988 while working at a recording studio?

Cleveland is where Reznor worked as an assistant engineer and janitor at Right Track Studio, recording the demos that became his first album.

Nine Inch Nails scored which 1996 first-person shooter, whose nail ammo boxes carry the band's logo?

Quake came about because Trent Reznor was a devoted Doom player and id Software's designers were Nine Inch Nails fans. Reznor also voiced the game's hero.

Which punk icon, sampled on the single Closer, inducted Nine Inch Nails into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Iggy Pop did the honours in 2020. The beat of Closer is built on a heavily altered sample from his 1977 song Nightclubbing.

Which English rock legend co-headlined a 1995 North American tour with Nine Inch Nails as the opening act?

David Bowie later cast Trent Reznor as his stalker in the video for I'm Afraid of Americans. Reznor has said that touring with him inspired him to stay sober.

Which 1989 Nine Inch Nails debut album became one of the first independent releases to go platinum?

Pretty Hate Machine was written, arranged and performed by Trent Reznor. It grew from demos he taped for free between bookings at the studio where he worked as a janitor.

Which English musician became the only official member of Nine Inch Nails other than Trent Reznor in 2016?

Atticus Ross began with Nine Inch Nails in 2005 as a programmer and producer. He and Reznor also score films together and have won Oscars for it.

Which director made the Nine Inch Nails video for Closer, which MTV heavily censored as too graphic?

Mark Romanek shot the video on slightly out-of-date film stock. Cards reading Scene Missing stood in for the footage that was cut for broadcast.

Which former Nirvana member played on much of the 2005 Nine Inch Nails album With Teeth?

Dave Grohl later directed the documentary Sound City, for which he, Trent Reznor and Josh Homme wrote and performed the song Mantra.

Which 1999 Nine Inch Nails double album debuted at number one, then fell to number 16 a week later?

The Fragile arrived five years after The Downward Spiral. Its fall set a record at the time for the biggest drop from number one.

Which rock frontman was a Trent Reznor protege whose 1994 debut album Reznor produced for his own label?

Marilyn Manson also opened for Nine Inch Nails on tour, and Reznor worked on his 1996 breakthrough Antichrist Superstar. The friendship soured soon afterwards.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails formed which group with his wife, the singer Mariqueen Maandig?

How to Destroy Angels is named after a 1984 EP by the English experimental group Coil. Reznor and Maandig married in 2009.

Nine Inch Nails wrote The Perfect Drug for the soundtrack of which 1997 David Lynch film?

Lost Highway had its whole soundtrack album produced by Trent Reznor. The song was released as a single from that album, not from a Nine Inch Nails record.

Trent Reznor produced the soundtrack for which Oliver Stone film from a hotel room on tour?

Natural Born Killers had its soundtrack assembled on a portable Pro Tools rig. Reznor pitched it as a collage of sound, with edits and film dialogue between the songs.

Which Nine Inch Nails album was promoted with an alternate reality game whose clues began on tour merchandise?

Year Zero imagined an Orwellian United States in 2022. The game's makers, 42 Entertainment, won two Webby Awards for the campaign.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails won his first Academy Award for composing the score of which 2010 drama?

The Social Network also won him a Golden Globe. Reznor worried at first that the film had a John Hughes feel, until early musical experiments changed his mind.

Which film director made the computer-generated Nine Inch Nails video for Only, using his own hand and laptop?

David Fincher filled an executive's desk with pin art and a Newton's cradle that move to the music. Five years later he brought Trent Reznor into film scoring.

Which Nine Inch Nails song from the Broken EP won the 1993 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance?

Wish also topped Kerrang's 2020 ranking of the greatest Nine Inch Nails songs. A second song from the same EP won the same Grammy in 1996 for a live version.

Which independent label released the first Nine Inch Nails album before a feud sent Trent Reznor to Interscope?

TVT Records began in a New York apartment with an album of television theme songs. The Nine Inch Nails debut became its triple platinum seller.

Which 2008 Nine Inch Nails album did Trent Reznor give away as a free download to thank fans for their support?

The Slip was offered in several DRM-free formats, some better than CD quality. A limited physical edition followed two months later.

Nine Inch Nails released the 2008 album Ghosts I–IV under which licence that lets fans share it?

Creative Commons music had never been nominated for a Grammy until this album earned two nominations. Its 36 untitled tracks were sold in packages priced up to $300.

Nine Inch Nails releases are numbered in sequence using which word, making the single Closer number nine?

Halo numbers are given to albums, singles and remix sets alike. Trent Reznor's later label nodded to the system by giving its own releases Null numbers.

The Nine Inch Nails logo was inspired by the typography on an album cover by which New York band?

Talking Heads used Tibor Kalman's typography on Remain in Light. Trent Reznor drew the logo with Gary Talpas, who designed the band's packaging until 1997.

Nine Inch Nails played the song She's Gone Away on screen in the 2017 revival of which TV series?

Twin Peaks creator David Lynch turned down the first song the band offered because he wanted something more menacing. The replacement was finished a day later.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails grew up in the small town of Mercer in which US state?

Pennsylvania is where Reznor was born and where he lived with his maternal grandparents from the age of six, after his parents divorced.

Which 2025 science fiction sequel has the first film score credited to Nine Inch Nails as a band?

Tron: Ares broke with the franchise's habit of orchestral scores. Nine Inch Nails used no orchestra at all, unlike Wendy Carlos and Daft Punk before them.

Trent Reznor was voted Best in Drama at high school after playing which role in Jesus Christ Superstar?

Judas was one of two leads he played on the school stage. The other was the fast-talking Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man.

Nine Inch Nails quit the 2005 MTV Movie Awards after MTV objected to a backdrop image of which politician?

George W. Bush was the sitting president, and Trent Reznor wanted his image behind the band while they played the single The Hand That Feeds.

Trent Reznor helped launch a music streaming service in 2015 for which tech giant?

Apple kept him on from Beats, where he had been chief creative officer. He later left, saying the job felt at odds with the artist in him.

A remix of the Nine Inch Nails song Closer plays over the opening titles of which 1995 crime thriller?

Seven was meant to open with a more upbeat theme by its composer Howard Shore. The remix, made by Coil and Danny Hyde, replaced it.

Which pop singer's 2021 album If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power was produced by Trent Reznor and his bandmate?

Halsey called the record a concept album about the joys and horrors of pregnancy and childbirth. Its heavy industrial sound was a break from the singer's earlier pop.

Which hard rock band did Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck officially belong to from 1997 to 2008?

Guns N' Roses signed him to replace Slash, and he worked on the long-delayed album Chinese Democracy between his stints with Nine Inch Nails.

Richard Patrick, a touring guitarist for Nine Inch Nails from 1989 to 1993, left to front which rock band?

Filter was formed before Patrick had even left Nine Inch Nails. Its debut album Short Bus arrived in 1995 and included the hit Hey Man Nice Shot.

Former Nine Inch Nails keyboardist Charlie Clouser went on to compose the scores for which horror film franchise?

Saw's composer worked with Trent Reznor from 1994 to 2000. He also wrote the theme music for the television series American Horror Story.

Trent Reznor played which instrument, one he learned in high school, on the 2018 Nine Inch Nails album Bad Witch?

Saxophone was one of his school band instruments, along with the tuba. Bad Witch closed a trilogy of releases that had begun with two EPs.

Which pop star sang a rewritten Nine Inch Nails song, Head Like a Hole, as Ashley O in Black Mirror?

Miley Cyrus performed it as an upbeat pop tune called On a Roll. The original has also been covered by Devo, AFI, Buckcherry and Korn.

Which video site pulled the notorious Nine Inch Nails film Broken almost as soon as the band posted it in 2013?

Vimeo deleted it again when it came back in 2014. The graphic film was never officially released and had spread for years on bootleg VHS tapes.

Trent Reznor and future Nine Inch Nails member Chris Vrenna both played in which 1980s synth-pop band?

Exotic Birds was started in 1982 by three percussion students. Reznor joined on keyboards in 1986 and brought Vrenna into the line-up that December.

Which co-producer of Pink Floyd's The Wall was hired to sequence the 1999 Nine Inch Nails double album?

Bob Ezrin was consulted on the running order of its twenty-plus songs. The liner notes credit him with providing final continuity and flow.

Adrian Belew, a guest guitarist on four Nine Inch Nails albums, fronted which progressive rock band from 1981?

King Crimson kept him as guitarist and frontman until 2009. Trent Reznor first called on him in 1994 and went on inviting him back for nineteen years.

Which instrument is entirely absent from the Nine Inch Nails single The Day the World Went Away, a US top 20 hit?

Drums are nowhere on the track, yet it reached number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became the band's first Top 40 hit there.

An ancestor of Trent Reznor founded the Reznor Company in the nineteenth century to make which kind of product?

Heaters made the family name known long before music did. George Reznor's firm grew into a manufacturer of heating and air conditioning equipment.

Which 1994 Nine Inch Nails lead single alternates bars of 7/8 and 8/8 time to create a lurching rhythm?

March of the Pigs has a stripped-down video in which Trent Reznor shoves his bandmates around while stagehands step into shot to reset the gear he knocks over.

Which DJ opened every show of the Nine Inch Nails Peel It Back Tour and joined the band on stage?

Boys Noize joined the band each night for remixes on a second, smaller stage. He had already made a remix album of one of Trent Reznor's film scores.

Trent Reznor won a Primetime Emmy for scoring which HBO series that premiered in 2019?

Watchmen came about partly because Reznor was a fan of Lindelof's earlier work, so he offered his services rather than waiting to be asked.