the ’Zine

Ten Weird Moments in Nine Inch Nails History

February 29, 2008 by Brett Milano

If you're a Reznor/NiN fan, we assume you already know about the epic albums and the band's wide influence in darkening the mainstream. But here are some moments in their history that you may have missed. Don't forget that the NiN DLC pack became available this week, and we're told that "Perfect Drug" includes one of the most weird-out drum parts in RB history

1987: Trent Renzor makes his film debut in the Joan Jett/ Michael J. Fox vehicle "Light of Day". No kidding: Look carefully at the battle of the band sequences, and he's playing keyboards in one of the groups Joan's band competes against.

1989: Reznor meets Freddie Mercury, sort of: On Nine Inch Nails' first tour, the non-original song in the set is Queen's "Get Down, Make Love."

1991: With its extreme sadomasochistic images, NiN's "Happiness is Slavery " is noted as one of the most tough-to-watch music videos ever made, complete with a guy getting mauled in a meat grinder (the star was Bob Flanagan, whose weird life was documented in the cult film "Sick"). According to Billboard magazine, Trent sends one of the first copies of the video to his mom.

1994: A Nine Inch Nails/Hole tour ends badly when Courtney Love says some unkind things about Renzor's manhood onstage. Despite many rumors, Reznor's denied that he and Love ever had a romantic relationship.

1996: Reznor creates some music to kill by, for the early video game Quake.

1997: Time Magazine calls Reznor one of the 25 most influential people in America. The mag calls him the "anti-Bon Jovi" and says he writes love songs that the Marquis de Sade would have liked.

1998: Reznor moves into a mansion in the Garden District of New Orleans, not far from the house of vampire chronicler Anne Rice. On December 7th he hosts a Christmas party for members of the local preservation society, one of whom reports that his four-poster bed had two Beanie Babies on it.

1999: NiN guitarist/keyboardist Robin Finck sustains a head injury on the third night of the Fragile tour. Nobody saw whether it was a mic, a guitar or something else that hit him, but they did notice the blood streaming down his face. He played the rest of the set with an icebag and took six stitches afterward.

2000: After taking public potshots at each other for a few years, Reznor and Marilyn Manson are friends again. They reunite onstage at Madison Square Garden and perform two songs together.

2002: Johnny Cash covers NiN's "Hurt," making the song even more depressing than it already was. When Reznor saw the video he said, "By the end I was really on the verge of tears. There was this moist clearing of our throats and then we said, 'Uh, okay. Let's get some coffee."

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