Nine Inch Nails

Lollapalooza Lookback 1991: Nine Inch Nails Destroy Phoenix

03 Aug 2010 06:50:56 EDT

Trent Reznor took out his frustration on some equipment, and MTV News caught the whole thing.
By James Montgomery

With the 2010 edition of Lollapalooza set to kick off Friday, MTV News decided to dive deep into our archives and dig up the greatest/ weirdest/ scariest/ downright rocking-est moments in the fest's rather epic history. We're calling it "Lollapalooza Lookback," and we think it's a pretty fitting tribute to the granddaddy of American music festivals. We've already tackled Pearl Jam's 1992 set; now, we're off to 1991.

1991: Nine Inch Nails Trash Phoenix

For a guy who would go on to embrace technology, Trent Reznor really used to hate machines. In the early days of Nine Inch Nails, the equipment would rarely survive a set, though that was mainly due to Reznor unleashing his aggression on whatever happened to be nearby. But on July 18, 1991 — at the first Lollapalooza stop in Phoenix — things were different. On that day, the equipment betrayed him. And it paid the price.

It seems that bands had been battling a faulty power generator for most of the day (truly, Lolla had auspicious beginnings), which wreaked havoc on their sets. But for NIN, who relied heavily on electronics, it proved disastrous, as Reznor recalled to Keyboard magazine in 1994.

"We couldn't play because one of the power boxes had melted, and every time the low end of the PA would rumble, it would jiggle the cord and all power onstage would just shut off and turn back on. If you have a sampler, that means you're down for a minute. And if you have a tape deck, ahem, that means it stops. ... So this started happening, and: 'Hello, does anybody know what's going on?' A voice from backstage: 'No, but I think it's working now.' Turn to the crowd: 'OK, hey, we suck, so here's the next song.' And 10 seconds into it, every time he hit the kick drum, there it went. Turn back around: 'This is the biggest show we've ever played, does anyone know what the f--- is wrong?' Voice from backstage: 'We think we have it!' Turn to the crowd: 'OK, one more time,' and ... "

What did they do next? Well, they launched into "Sin," then, frustrated, trashed all their gear and hightailed it to the bus, of course. And we have footage of that fateful moment. It's the kind of thing that only happened back when Lolla was still learning on the fly, when disasters like this were just part of the fun. Watch the video and weep for the synthesizers.

Make sure to come back to MTVNews.com on Wednesday, when we reveal another Lollapalooza Lookback — this one featuring a man who had already deemed himself AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted and was getting ready to give us all a Lethal Injection. And stay tuned all weekend for MTV News' Lollapalooza 2010 coverage!

Are you going to Lollapalooza this year? Who are you most excited to see? Talk about it in the comments!

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Trent Reznor To Score Facebook Movie

02 Jul 2010 12:43:55 EDT

Nine Inch Nails frontman will collaborate on soundtrack to David Fincher's 'The Social Network.'
By Gil Kaufman

Although he claimed he was putting Nine Inch Nails in the deep-freeze, frontman Trent Reznor is not fading into the distance. The leader of the legendary industrial powerhouse has recorded the soundtrack to the upcoming David Fincher ("Fight Club") movie "The Social Network," which tells the story of how Facebook was created.

"I was planning on taking some time off after the continual waves of touring that ended last fall and spend this year experimenting around with what would become How to Destroy Angels and some new NIN," Reznor wrote on the Nine Inch Nails website, referring to HTDA, the band he started with his wife, Mariqueen Maandig. "Well, that plan didn't work out so well. David Fincher started inquiring about my interest in scoring his upcoming film, 'The Social Network.' Yeah, the movie about the founding of Facebook. I've always loved David's work but quite honestly I wondered what would draw him to tell that story."

Then Reznor, who has had an up-and-down/love-hate relationship with social-networking sites, said he read the script for the movie.

"When I actually read the script and realized what he was up to, I said goodbye to that free time I had planned," he explained. "Atticus Ross and I have been on a creative roll, so I asked him if he wanted to work on this with me and we signed on," Reznor said of composer/producer Ross, a frequent NIN collaborator. "Months later, I'm happy to tell you we're nearing the completion of this and I couldn't be happier with how it's turned out. The level of excellence that David operates on is inspiring and the entire process has been challenging and truly enjoyable."

He says the project, which could be one disc or two, will be ready in time for the film's October 1 opening. Reznor said he expects the album to be available several weeks before the movie's release, which, he noted, is "really f---ing good. And dark!"

While Reznor has contributed songs to soundtracks before, including David Lynch's "Lost Highway," this is the first time he's committed to recording an entire soundtrack. "The Social Network" tracks the rise of Facebook, from its inception in 2004 on the Harvard University campus, and stars Jessie Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake and Rashida Jones.

Are you excited to be getting Nine Inch Nails music in the form of Reznor's upcoming soundtrack? And when you think of Facebook, do you think NIN? Tell us what you think in the comments!

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April Fools! The Best Hoaxes In Music History

01 Apr 2010 08:05:00 EDT

From Paul McCartney's 'death' to Nine Inch Nails' Timbaland-produced album, these pranks had music fans fooled.
By James Montgomery

If, by chance, you happen to read something Thursday (April 1) about Led Zeppelin reuniting or Jim Morrison coming out of hiding, don't believe it. As you're probably aware, it's April Fools' Day, and these kinds of things have a way of happening. Why, on this very day last year, Kid Rock announced he had acquired the naming rights to the Detroit Tigers' stadium, and Coldplay declared they were recording their next album in zero gravity.

Of course, none of it ended up being true, and both acts added their names to the ever-growing list of some of music's greatest tricksters. It seems that bands have been at this kind of thing for decades now, so we figured that now was as good a time as any to shed light on some of music's greatest hoaxes. From faked deaths to promised resurrections, alter egos to mysterious side projects, there was plenty to choose from. Musicians have as good a sense of humor as you or I.

Here's our list of the best hoaxes in music history:

Paul Is Dead

Perhaps the greatest rock hoax of all time started in September 1969, around the time the Beatles released their seminal Abbey Road album. That's when one particularly gullible fan published an article in a college newspaper speculating that not only had Paul McCartney died in a grisly 1966 automobile crash, but that the Beatles were covering the accident up, even going as far as hiring a Macca look-alike (named Billy Shears) to take his place. The hoax only picked up speed from there, thanks in no small part to the Beatles themselves, who, though they never admitted to it, seemed to delight in keeping the "Paul Is Dead" myth alive, peppering songs and album artwork with opaque references to McCartney's crash and placing mysterious "messages" deep in songs. Of course, those messages could only be heard when said songs were played backward, only lending credence to the belief that it was the copious amounts of drugs being consumed in the '60s that kept the rumor mill grinding.

The Masked Marauders

Really, this is a two-part hoax. The whole thing began in 1969, when Rolling Stone editor Greil Marcus penned a review of a fictional double-bootleg album, supposedly recorded by Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, John Lennon and McCartney (who may or may not have been dead at the time). The goal of the piece was to poke fun at the recent trend of so-called "supergroups," but the hoax began to take on a life of its own, and the magazine was inundated with so many letters that Marcus and reviewer Bruce Miroff decided to actually record the album, recruiting a Berkeley, California, skiffle band to play on it and tricking Warner Bros. into ponying up a $15,000 advance. The self-titled Marauders album — featuring covers and goofy originals like "Cow Pie" and "I Can't Get No Nookie" — went on to sell more than 100,000 copies and ticked off just as many fans when the entire thing was revealed to be a giant joke.

Klaatu

In 1976, rumors began swirling that the Beatles had reunited and recorded a new album under the guise of "Klaatu" (the name of the protagonist in the 1951 sci-fi classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Some rather overzealous journalists and disc jockeys were more than likely responsible for starting the whole thing, and Capitol Records — which released the album — didn't exactly go out of their way to dispel the whispers either (since the album sold an additional 20,000 copies in a matter of weeks). In actuality, Klaatu were a prog-rock act from Canada who recorded until 1981 then reunited in 2005.

Lexicon of Grunge: Breaking the Code

The title of a sidebar in a 1992 New York Times article about the Seattle grunge scene, which claimed to offer the reader a guide to slang terms being used by rockers in the Pacific Northwest ("swingin' on the flippity-flop," "cob nobbler," "lamestain," etc.). In actuality, the list was a hoax, created by a Sub Pop sales representative named Megan Jasper, who, after being pestered by a Times reporter, made the jargon up on the spot. Oh, and hey, MTV News actually spoke to Jasper in 2008, though it was about the 20th anniversary of Sub Pop and not the Grunge Lexicon — which probably explains why she didn't call us lamestains.

Tupac Shakur Is Still Alive

Less of a hoax than an urban myth, rumors that Shakur — who was gunned down in Las Vegas in September 1996 — still walks among us have quieted in recent years, though there are still those out there who believe. Most point to the volumes of music his estate has churned out since his death and clues in 'Pac's lyrics that seem to suggest that he faked his death and is currently hiding right beneath our noses (perhaps even partying hard on Bourbon Street). Oh, and then there's Drake, who seems content to keep the rumors alive by dissing Tupac in song.

Humpty Hump

The epically schnozzed, ultra-libidinous alter ego of rapper Shock G, Hump ran roughshod over Digital Underground's classic "The Humpty Dance" and basically eclipsed his creator's entire existence. G didn't seem to mind, though, playing up the angle that he and Humpty were actually two different people — he would often perform as himself, disappear, then re-emerge in Humpty's trademark Groucho glasses. He even created a bio for the character, who fronted a fictional band called Smooth Eddie and the Humpers, was injured in a tragic deep-fryer accident and was forced to wear a fake nose to hide his scars. The guys in the Wu-Tang Clan have yet to show this level of commitment to their various aliases, btw.

Jack and Meg White Are Brother and Sister

While they were still kicking around in Detroit, White Stripes mastermind Jack White cooked up a backstory in which he and drummer Meg White were actually brother and sister. In reality, the two were actually ex-spouses, something that was revealed when the band broke and journalists uncovered their marriage certificate. White would eventually come clean about the hoax, saying that he created the sibling angle as a way to get fans to focus on the music.

Nine Inch Nails' Strobelight

One of the most brilliant — and mean-spirited — hoaxes in recent years was perpetrated by Trent Reznor, who, on April Fools' Day 2009, launched a site promoting Strobelight, an album he had supposedly recorded with Timbaland. The joke, of course, was that Timbaland had recently worked with former (now current) Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell on his Scream album — an effort Reznor had previously slammed on Twitter by writing, "You know that feeling you get when somebody embarrasses themselves so badly YOU feel uncomfortable? Heard Chris Cornell's record? Jesus" — and this was Rez's way of poking fun at the entire project. Of course, song titles like "Everybody's Doing It" (featuring Chris Martin, Jay-Z and Bono) and "P---ygrinder" (featuring Sheryl Crow) were pretty funny too.

Did we leave anything out? Let us know your favorite musical hoax in the comments below!

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Who's Behind 'Iamamiwhoami' Viral Clips? Not Christina Aguilera ...

26 Jan 2010 12:23:00 EST

Lady Gaga, Goldfrapp, MGMT, Trent Reznor suspected as source of mysterious YouTube clips.
By James Montgomery

It all started in December, with a 55-second video clip that featured plenty of trees, spindly, spooky appendages, and one particularly grisly live birth (or at least we think it's a live birth). Then, in early January, there was a second clip ... a dendrophiliac's wet dream, loaded with images of a mud-smeared woman licking a tree and some strangely sexualized sap. And owls, plenty of owls. And then, on Sunday, a third, this one a slo-mo underwater dream sequence, with a whole lot of confection, a murky fetus and exactly one singing whale shark.

Then there are the numbers that accompany the videos — mysterious sequences of digits that may be spelling out some coded message, or revealing a release date (or may just be numbers) — and the music, a soundtrack of chiming, slightly ominous electronic bloops and bleeps. Confused? Intrigued? Welcome to the club.

It's the ongoing saga of "Iamamiwhoami," the latest in a series of maddeningly compelling viral campaigns to seize the attention of Internet obsessives. Named for the YouTube user who began uploading the clips, the campaign has slowly become a full-blown frenzy, and the speculation has begun to run rampant about just who is behind it all.

Fans have thrown names like Lady Gaga and Goldfrapp into the ring. Resident weirdos like Bjork and the Knife have been suspected. MGMT, too. Some think Trent Reznor — who has some experience with things like this — is the mastermind. Still others believe that it's all leading up to the release of Aphex Twin's next project. But through it all, one name kept popping up with bizarre regularity: Christina Aguilera.

See, Aguilera does have a new album coming soon, an ambitious and reportedly futuristic outing she's calling Bionic. She has been known to adopt an alter-ego or two (remember Xtina?). And the repeated use of fetal imagery in the videos does lend credence to her claims that the birth of her son Max was an inspiration for the record. So, while the clips would represent a rather, uh, ambitious re-imagining of herself, it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that she was somehow involved in the campaign.

Only, it is. Because while we don't know much about the "Iamamiwhoami" series, according to Aguilera's publicist, "Iamamiwhoami" is "100 percent not [Christina] ... not sure why people think it is."

So there you go. But who else could it be? Well, Reznor did recently post on NIN.com that "2010 has a number of things planned, including new material from Nine Inch Nails and something else that isn't Nine Inch Nails," so he's still in play. MGMT — whose Congratulations is due this year — could also be responsible, and a pair of e-mails sent to a spokesperson for the band about "Iamamiwhoami" have thus far gone unanswered.

The Knife, who are plenty odd, also could be behind all this madness. They're releasing a studio version of an opera based on the life of Charles Darwin, and the videos do have a rather "natural" quality to them (not to mention the fact that the music does sound like the stuff they've done in the past). Goldfrapp has been known to use owl imagery, and while they do have an album due this year, the dank aesthetic of the YouTube clips doesn't seem to match the airbrushed cover of the thing. And as far as we know, there's no new music from Bjork coming anytime soon, and Gaga's still promoting her Fame Monster album.

So, like all great viral campaigns, we're just as stuck as you are. The mystery of "Iamamiwhoami" rolls on, and all we can do is wait for the next clue. Whoever's behind all this, we salute you: You've got us hooked!

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R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails Join Campaign To Close Guantanamo Bay

22 Oct 2009 12:31:00 EDT

'It's anti-American, period,' said R.E.M. about the practice of using their music and others' at high volumes to intimidate detainees.
By Gil Kaufman

A diverse group of musicians joined a coalition on Tuesday asking that the Obama administration close down the terror suspect camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Taking issue with their music reportedly being blasted at ear-bleeding levels in an attempt to break uncooperative terror suspects, artists including R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, Rosanne Cash, Steve Earle and Billy Bragg announced their support for the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo, according to The Associated Press.

As part of their effort, the National Security Archive in Washington is filing a Freedom of Information Act request in an effort to uncover classified records that detail the use of loud music as an interrogation device. A November 2008 report by the Senate Armed Services Committee makes several references to the use of loud music as an interrogation tool, including the case of a Mauritanian prisoner who was allegedly blasted with music, such as Drowning Pool's "Bodies," to "stress" him because he believed listening music was forbidden. Drowning Pool has not objected to the use of its music at Guantanamo Bay and other U.S. detention sites.

Among the songs reportedly played at high volumes near prisoners in the detention camp are death-metal band Deicide's "F--- Your God," Metallica's "Enter Sandman," the Meow Mix cat food jingle, music from "Sesame Street," Don McLean's "American Pie," Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.," Nine Inch Nails' "March of the Pigs," Queen's "We Will Rock You," the "I Love You" song from the children's show "Barney," as well as tunes by R.E.M., Pearl Jam, AC/DC, Britney Spears, the Bee Gees, Marilyn Manson, and others.

A spokesperson for the Joint Task Force Guantanamo told the AP that loud music has not been used with detainees since the fall of 2003; the first batch of prisoners were sent to the facility in January 2002. President Obama signed an executive order on January 22, 2009, pledging to close the facility within a year, but the move has drawn criticism from some Republican members of Congress, and it is unclear if the timetable will be achieved. A CIA spokesperson said the music was used for security purposes, to block detainees from communicating with each other, for instance, not for "punitive purposes — and at levels far below a live rock band."

According to BBC News, in a statement announcing their participation in the coalition, R.E.M. said, "We have spent the past 30 years supporting causes related to peace and justice. To now learn that some of our friends' music may have been used as part of the torture tactics without their consent or knowledge is horrific. It's anti-American, period."

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Nine Inch Nails Wave Goodbye Forever, Frighteningly Enough

26 Aug 2009 11:06:00 EDT

Our columnist once saw Trent Reznor as terrifying, and on this latest tour, he still is, in Bigger Than the Sound.
By James Montgomery

Despite what you might have heard, in the summer of 1991, when I was 12 years old and terrified of everything, I didn't actually go to Lollapalooza.

This is a pretty big revelation, as I have spent the subsequent 18 years pretending that I actually did go to Lolla '91 ("Man, Body Count were crazy"), and to this day, I'm not really sure why I didn't. I mean, it was certainly the biggest thing to hit the Central Florida Fairgrounds that summer — the standard-bearers of Alternative Nation (Jane's Addiction, Siouxsie & the Banshees, the Violent Femmes, Nine Inch Nails, the Rollins Band, etc.) in sleepy, swampy Orlando, Florida! — and I had a ticket and everything ($20, which was a lot of scratch when you were 12). I just think, when it came down to it, I was too scared to go. So the day before the show, I wussed out and told my buddies that my parents wouldn't let me go.

And, yes, I have regretted this decision ever since.

Here's the thing, though: Looking back on it now, what frightened me wasn't the mosh pits (or the accompanying Dr. Martens) or Henry Rollins' histrionics (or the accompanying short-shorts). No, that stuff actually seemed pretty thrilling to me back then. What I was scared of — I mean, positively, totally, 100 percent terrified by — was Nine Inch Nails. Because they were evil. This is pretty embarrassing to admit now, but when I was 12, there was no band on the planet as frightening as NIN. They were nihilistic, brutal and brooding. They were into stuff like S&M and drugs and saying "f---" a lot, and Pretty Hate Machine was the soundtrack to all of that, a violent, twisted missive that poked holes in my sunny, suburban brain (I had never heard a Skinny Puppy or Throbbing Gristle record at this point, so cut me some slack).

Frontman Trent Reznor was the worst part of it all. He personified everything evil about NIN, and rather gleefully so. Like he sang on "Wish" (which NIN had begun playing during Lolla '91), "I'm the one without a soul/ I'm the one with this big f---ing hole." To a suburban 12-year-old who had rung in 1991 with Vanilla Ice's To the Extreme stuck in his Walkman, this was traumatizing stuff. I was so certain Reznor was going to leap off the Lolla stage and flagellate me — while his black-clad fans cheered him on — that I opted to skip the festival altogether, $20 be damned.

In retrospect, all that fear only goes to show the power of NIN's music and mythos (not to mention how dumb I was as a 12-year-old). In the years since, I have seen the band on several occasions — including a 2000 stop on the Fragility Tour (don't remember much), their chill-inducing set at New Orleans' Voodoo Music Experience, just two months after Katrina decimated the city, and last year at Lollapalooza — and not once was I even remotely frightened. In fact, during some of the Ghosts I-IV stuff they worked through at Lolla, I was even slightly bored.

Basically, I had triumphed over my inner 12-year-old. But then, last week, someone brought up a good point: I've never actually seen a Nine Inch Nails show. The Fragility gig didn't count, since it was at an arena and I was so intoxicated, and I've only caught festival gigs since then. I've had ample opportunities to see them at various points in between, yet, for whatever reason, I always skipped those shows. Was I still actually terrified of Trent Reznor?

This seemed rather funny to me. After all, I have interviewed Reznor and found him to be a nice, if somewhat serious, guy. He's gotten clean and gotten buff and is decidedly less nihilistic than he was 20 years ago, when he first started Nine Inch Nails. Still, maybe there was something to it. I mean, I generally prefer my music as cloying and unthreatening as possible (Sufjan Stevens, Wilco, the National, et al), so I decided that I had to face my fears once and for all. I was going to see a real NIN show.

Of course, I had to do it fast, since NIN are currently in the midst of their 10-date Wave Goodbye Tour, a farewell run of shows in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles (and one in Toronto at some festival, but who's counting?). So on Tuesday, I plunked down $55 (which is a lot of scratch when you're 30 and it's a recession) and packed into New York's Terminal 5 to catch the band for the first — and last — time.

And after something like 29 songs stretched over 250 minutes, I can unequivocally say that I am still positively, totally, 100 percent terrified by Nine Inch Nails. Not so much because they're evil or nihilistic or really into S&M (all those things seem to have disappeared with age), but because they are a frighteningly great band, the kind capable of creating thunderous rackets one minute ("March of the Pigs," "Burn," "Survivalism" and, of course, "Head Like a Hole") and whisper-quiet atmospheres the next ("La Mer," "The Fragile," "The Way Out Is Through"). Their live show is a whirlwind of tempos and emotions, of volume and violence, of subterfuge and defiance. They summon great waves of industrial noise and fury, currents of slinking, slurring bass lines and tracks of clicking, ticking electronics, and they do it all with lockstep precision. They are a machine.

And deservingly, they command an army of frighteningly loyal fans, the kind that sweat and bleed for them, the kind that turned Terminal 5 into a hazy, stinking hive of fists and legs and emotion. If anything, Tuesday's NIN show made me feel 12 all over again (OK, maybe closer to 16); it was packed, sweaty, dangerous. Kids surged toward the stage from the opening strains of "Home" and didn't let up until the final booming chords of "Hurt" had finished echoing around the room. There was pot smoke and crowd-surfers, kids with bloody heads and terrified girls pushing by you, trying to break free from the masses. I haven't been to a show like this since I was in high school. And that's pretty scary, when I think about it.

But here's the thing I found most frightening about the whole Nine Inch Nails experience on Tuesday: After they wrap up the Wave Goodbye Tour next month in Los Angeles, NIN will cease to exist. We will have lost one of our most confounding, confrontational and uncompromising bands, and I'm not sure there's anyone waiting in the wings to replace them. There will be a whole new generation of 12-year-olds who won't even have the option of wussing out of a NIN show, which, to me, is more terrifying than the "Happiness in Slavery" video (which is banned just about everywhere).

So, if this really is it, thanks for frightening me for all these years, Trent. Thanks for never bending or breaking. Thanks for always pushing the envelope and never backing down or editing or filtering. Thanks for being Nine Inch Nails. I'll see you in my nightmares.

Questions? Concerns? Hit me up at BTTS@MTVStaff.com.

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Trent Reznor Says Bonnaroo Was Nine Inch Nails' Last U.S. Show

15 Jun 2009 09:38:00 EDT

'Don't be sad. I'll keep going,' Reznor tells audience.
By Gil Kaufman

At a time when very few people can afford to retire early, Nine Inch Nails CEO Trent Reznor is pulling the plug at the ripe old age of 44. During an early-morning set on Sunday at the three-day Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, Reznor informed the crowd that the searing performance would be his long-running band's last-ever U.S. date.

"It just dawned on me that this is our last show ever in the United States," Reznor told the crowd, according to The Associated Press. "Don't be sad. I'll keep going. But I think I'm going to lose my ... mind if I keep doing this, and I have to stop."

Reznor, the only consistent member of the group since its inception in the late 1980s, took the stage with his band's latest line-up not long after Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band wrapped up a three-hour set. NIN recently finished a co-headlining U.S. tour with Jane's Addiction, and they're slated to play a series of shows in Europe and Asia that end in August. The entire run of gigs was dubbed the Wave Goodbye Tour, intended as a farewell tour to mark the 20th anniversary of the group's 1989 debut, Pretty Hate Machine.




	Nine Inch Nails, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, More At Bonnaroo 2009

In February, in announcing the tour with fellow alternative-rock godheads Jane's, Reznor explained that the anniversary had caused him to reflect on his band's history. "In NIN world, 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of our first releases," he wrote in a post on the official NIN forum. "I've been thinking for some time now it's time to make NIN disappear for a while. Last year's Lights in the Sky tour was something I'm quite proud of and seems like the culmination of what I could pull off in terms of an elaborate production. It was also quite difficult to pull off technically and physically night after night and left us all a bit dazed. After some thought, we decided to book a last run of shows across the globe this year."

Reznor promised the shows would be more "raw, spontaneous and less scripted" than the technically complex Lights performances. "Fun for us and a different way for you to see us and wave goodbye," he said.

A spokesperson for the group could not be reached for comment at press time to confirm Reznor's future plans for NIN.

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Jane's Addiction Call Tourmates Nine Inch Nails 'Extended Family'

08 May 2009 16:11:00 EDT

'There's a familial feeling within this tour,' Dave Navarro says of NINJA jaunt, which kicks off Friday night.
By James Montgomery

Eighteen years ago, they helped found Alternative Nation on the first-ever Lollapalooza tour. On Friday night (May 8), they'll hit the road together again.

Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction kick off their so-called NINJA 2009 jaunt Friday in West Palm Beach, Florida, marking the first time they've shared the stage together since Lolla '91. It's a double bill that makes an awful lot of sense — yet, for a whole lot of reasons, it almost never happened.

First and foremost, Jane's had to reunite with original (and long-estranged) bassist Eric Avery, which British music mag NME had a lot to do with.

"We weren't thinking of getting together at all. But we were called by NME magazine to receive this thing called the 'Godlike Genius Award,' and it flattered the sh-- out of us," Jane's frontman Perry Farrell told MTV News. "So everybody appeared to receive the award, and it started to dawn on everybody that it would be fun to [play music again]. We hadn't done it, in some cases, in 18 years, and it was one of those things that you try it out again, see if it feels good."

And that led to a series of Los Angeles club gigs and a fiery headlining slot at South by Southwest in March. It sounded great, and it felt even better.

"We've had an amazing time. We haven't worked with Eric in close to 17 years, and there's been a lot of different versions of Jane's Addiction," guitarist Dave Navarro said. "We've had amazing bass players over the years ... and they've all been amazing assets to those incarnations of the band, but there's something about having the original bass player, Eric Avery, who we wrote and crafted the songs with, in place that ... it's kind of like having the missing ingredient that you haven't had all these years."

So now it's on to the NINJA tour — which, as if it weren't already a huge enough event, might just also serve as Nine Inch Nails' farewell tour. But whatever ends up happening with NIN, the guys in Jane's can't wait for the kick-off. It's just like old times.

"We're about to go on a six-week tour with Nine Inch Nails, and something that I've never had the opportunity to do is get to know the other artists on the bill, for an extended period of time on a creative level, prior to a tour," Navarro said. "In a lot of ways, this tour really does feel like extended family, based on the creative time we spent together and, going all the way back to Lollapalooza number one, where we did a month and a half of touring with them, so — there's a familial feeling within this tour."

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Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor Engaged

04 May 2009 11:05:00 EDT

Girlfriend Mariqueen Maandig's band West Indian Girl announces the news on their site.
By Jocelyn Vena

Trent Reznor and his girlfriend, Mariqueen Maandig, announced their engagement over the weekend on the Web site of her band, West Indian Girl.

"In case [you] haven't heard the news, Mariqueen got engaged," the post reads. "Everyone in the West Indian Girl camp is super excited and happy for her. Q's an awesome person, friend and bandmate, and she couldn't be marrying a cooler guy. Talk about analog and digital love — their kids might all have Moogs for arms."

The NIN frontman and the West Indian Girl lead singer went public with their relationship at the "Star Trek" premiere last week in Los Angeles, reports Twentyfourbit.com.

In an interview with Rock Sound in 2005, Reznor talked about how his rock career and drug addiction had delayed marriage and kids for him. But now it appears he has now found time to include that in his life. "I had neglected [my love life], but I've been paying more attention to it," he said. "It feels like I'm more equipped to function in that situation. I can actually be honest with myself and another human being."

"What it had really been was an extension of that 23-year-old kid who said, 'I want to stop everything in my life to do this,' " he told the magazine. "I didn't want a girlfriend or marriage or a kid to get in the way of that opportunity. What that leads to eventually is one day saying, 'Okay, I've sold this many records and played this big place. ... I'm lonely.' Then 'Wow, I'm older than everyone else. How did that happen?' Plus with drugs involved, time just flies off the calendar. So now I'm going to be an old dad instead of a young dad."

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Nine Inch Nails To Go On Hiatus After Tour With Jane's Addiction?

17 Feb 2009 12:47:00 EST

Trent Reznor says he wants 'to make NIN disappear' and has reached out to Jane's about tour.
By James Montgomery

Are Nine Inch Nails finished?

That's the question many are asking after NIN mastermind Trent Reznor posted a blog entry on the band's official site on Monday that seemed to hint the group will be taking a rather indefinite hiatus.

Titled "A note from Trent and a wave goodbye," the post detailed the time Reznor had recently spent in the studio with the reunited Jane's Addiction, "experimenting" and recording "lots of guitar solos." Reznor wrote in a nostalgic tone about early shows with Jane's — the bands shared the stage on the inaugural run of the Lollapalooza festival in 1991. They were "truly the best times I've had," he said. Then he revealed that the two bands plan to share the stage on a U.S. tour later this year.

He also dropped an even bigger bombshell: That tour will be NIN's last.

"In NIN world, 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of our first releases," Reznor wrote. "I've been thinking for some time now it's time to make NIN disappear for a while. Last year's Lights in the Sky tour was something I'm quite proud of and seems like the culmination of what I could pull off in terms of an elaborate production. It was also quite difficult to pull off technically and physically night after night and left us all a bit dazed.

"After some thought, we decided to book a last run of shows across the globe this year," the post continues. "The approach to these shows is quite different from last year — much more raw, spontaneous and less scripted. Fun for us and a different way for you to see us and wave goodbye. I reached out to Jane's to see if they'd want to join us across the U.S., and we all felt it could be a great thing. Will it work? Will it resonate in the marketplace? Who knows. Are there big record-label marketing dollars to convince you to attend? Nope."

It's not clear from the post whether Reznor plans on retiring the NIN moniker completely — i.e. no more albums — or if he's just taking the band off the road for good. Nine Inch Nails are currently on tour in Australia and New Zealand. Earlier this month, it was announced that they would appear at the Bonnaroo festival, scheduled for June 11-14 in Manchester, Tennessee.

Spokespeople for NIN and Jane's could not be reached for comment by press time.

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