nin, from the left; Robin Finck, Trent Reznor, Charlie Clouser, Danny Lohner and Jerome Dillon

nine inch nails have for a long time been my favorite band. All the way back since 1996-1997. Started by, and run by Trent Reznor alone, nin debuted in 1989 with their record Pretty Hate Machine. It was a record that had elements of the 80's, like rap and drum machines, but it also had this new industrial sound, which was mostly inspired by Skinny Puppy. The record didn't sell to well, but it placed nin on the map. Since Trent Reznor made all the music himself (playing keyboard, guitar etc.), he had to make a band to go touring with. The band consisted of Trent himself, Jeff Ward, Chris Vrenna, Richard Patrick and James Woolley . As you can see, none of them are in nin today (except Trent of course), which goes to show who the mastermind behind nin truly is. They toured with Guns 'n Roses, because Axl Rose was a nin fan, but people weren't ready for nin yet (much to both Axl and Trent's surprise), and they often got thrown stuff at while performing live. (PHM is currently certified as a multiplatinum release. It has sold at least 2 million copies)

It wasn't until 3 years later in 1992, that nin started to show what they were good for with the EP Broken, and the hit-song, Wish. Selling over 1million copies in it's first year, Broken was only the beginning. Two years later in 1994, nin released The Downward Spiral, dominating the industrial sound scene with over 4 million copies sold.

After the release of TDS, Trent then produced the soundtrack for Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, contributing 3 tracks from nin. He then went on a two year tour across the world, dubbing the the tour; The Selfdestruct Tour, taken from the first track on TDS, Mr. Self Destruct. Taping and filming every show. The result was a documentary called Closure, containing one tape with the documentary, and another with all nin videos made up untill that date. The release was supposed to be a live act, not a documentary. However, the audio and video quality of the shows, made it an impossibility for Trent to ever give out the video as a live act. Luckily they had a lot of pre and post show footage, which resulted in the documentary. The documentary contained a few live performances as well. Moving on, Trent also made the score for the computer game Quake in 1996, and he produced the soundtrack for David Lynch's Movie Lost Highway in 1997. Contributing 3 tracks, one as nin and two as Trent Reznor. Why is still unknown.

Moving on, Trent worked on his double album, The Fragile, for 5 years. From 1994 to it's release in 1999. It was a tough one for Trent. Starting over several times, and the death of his grandmother, who infact raised him, caused the long wait. Released in september '99, the double album sold over 1 million copies only two months after it's release, and it currently has sold 2 million copies. Although the sales were good, the record label was not happy with the sales. Limiting Trent to releasing only 2 singles and 3 music videos off the album. The videos were; We're in this together, Into the void and Starfuckers, Inc. The latter video reunited the lost friendship with Trent's protégé, Marilyn Manson.

During Marilyns Mansons early years, from 1993 to 1996, Trent produced all his albums, including, A portrait of an American family, Smells like children and the album that got Marilyn Manson known throughout the world, Antichrist Superstar. Trent even contributed on several songs himself, writing the music, playing instruments etc. But their friendship was broken off on a difference of opinion on, allegedly, Marilyns Manson's role in the world of music. These are all rumours, so the truth may be of a different issue all together. They remained indifferent from late 1996 to 2000. When Starfuckers, Inc. was released. Marilyn Manson called up Trent and said that it was about time they became friends again, and said he had this idea of the Starfuckers, Inc. video. And that was it. Manson directed the video and stared in it himself along with Trent, and they were friends again.

After the release of The Fragile, nin toured for about one year. The tour was designated Fragility 1.0 and Fragiliy 2.0. Fragility 1.0 took place in some select places in the US, Europe and Australia during the fall of '99. The Fragility 2.0 tour took place all over Europe and the US, from spring '00 to fall '00. It was while touring on the latter tour, that Trent got the idea of his just released Live DVD/VHS/CD, And all that could have been. He found himself very proud if nin, and their live performance. And he realized that when the tour would end, he would have no documentation of it. So instead of following the failure of The Selfdestruct Tour's live recordings, and hiring a company to do all the filming, he bought 8-9 mini-DV camereas, and handed them out to some of the tour crew, and mounted some of the cameras around each arena where they toured. But it took over 1 year of editing and another half year of makeing the packeing for the release, as well as recording some decontructed nin songs for the bonus CD still, that was only to be included with the And all that could have been Deluxe CD package. But they are also selling just the still CD on www.nin.com. As of now, only US and Canadian customers are able to purchase it, but it will be available to the rest of the world shortly. And all that could have been was released on the 22. january of 2002. So that brings us up to date I guess.

That covers the basic "history" of nine inch nails I think. Probably forgot some things, and some parts are probably slightly incorrect. But as far as I know, it's all correct. There are some other interesting facts too. But I'll save those for later.

-Lyrics for; and all that could have been