Cross - Nine inch nails: the secret history

With just two albums and one EP over five years, the despair-driven, Macintosh-powered rage of Trent Reznor forever altered the alt-rock landscape. His portrait of the artist as a torture victim turned him into something of an antihero, whose anthems detailed such isolation and pain that listeners were sucked into his pit and forced to face demons of their own. For many Gen Xers, frightened by AIDS, recession and a terribly uncertain future, Nine Inch Nails provided both a cathartic outlet and a place to commiserate. Unlike the cartoonish nightmares offered up by Alice Cooper and KISS, the bad dreams summoned by the ultra-charismatic Reznor were all too personal and therefore far more real and frightening.

But theres more to Nine Inch Nails than Trent Reznors personal problems. As an artist, he has achieved and maintained an enviable level of integrity and credibility as he pushes the envelope with music, video and stage performances legendary for their violent intensity and disturbing imagery. His technical expertise in the studio is such that hes in demand as a collaborator, producer and remixer. Meanwhile, his records (and many of those that bear his fingerprints) sell in the millions. But Trent Reznor is one unlikely pop star.

Mercer, Pennsylvania, is a quiet town of just over 2,500 people, about halfway between Erie and Pittsburgh on Route 19 in the western part of the state. Its a pretty conservative place, surrounded by corn fields farmed by the kind of people who instinctively understand the term family values. Its also a gentle part of the world. The town suspended all criminal trials over the Christmas season, concerned that juries might become caught up in the Christmas spirit and end up being too soft on the accused in the witness box. On the other hand, in the 1980s there were no cool record stores, no college radio stations and no MTV on cable. About the only intrusions from the outside world were the McDonalds and the chain stores at the Shenango Valley Mall. One would almost expect to see Andy and Opie walking with fishing poles down Main Street.

The Reznor family has deep roots in this part of the state. Two generations ago, they founded a heating company called Reznor Heaters. Michael Reznor was a student at the local high school when he met Nancy Clarke and by 1964, with both of them still in their teens, they were married. Love had something to do with it, although Nancy was pregnant at the wedding. Michael Trent Reznor was born just a few months later, at 7:30 a.m., May 17, 1965.

Soon after Trent was joined by a baby sister named Tera in 1971, the family began to disintegrate. Michael and Nancys marriage broke up and, with neither parent financially able to look after the children, Trent fell under the care of his maternal grandparents while Nancy looked after Tera.

Shortly after he moved in with grandma and grandpa, Trent began to take piano lessons. His teacher, Rita Beglin, immediately recognized him as a natural musician and encouraged him to pursue more difficult classical studies. As somewhat of a loner (his parents divorce had left a permanent mark on his psyche), he often sought solace at the piano. Still, he was well liked despite his awkward shyness and made a number of friends, especially after he got involved with the school band, learning to play the tuba and saxophone. In high school, he appeared in a couple of school musicals, playing the lead role in The Music Man and the part of Judas in Jesus Christ Superstarhe was voted best in drama by fellow students.

It wasnt cool to play music where I was from, Trent told Rolling Stone. You had to be an athlete, or else an athlete, a fucking turd in a football uniform. The teachers at my school were shitty for the most part, and I got a pretty bad education because I had a bad attitude. If I wanted to get good grades, I could. Stuff Id like to know now, at the time, I thought was irrelevant: typical teenage stupidity.

I hated school, he said in a separate confession in Musician, I fucking hated it. The fact that it revolved around something you didnt have access to. If you werent on the football team, if you were in the band, you were a leper. When people say those were the best years of our lives, I want to scream. But my parents allowed me to do things that my friends werent allowed to. I smoked pot with my dad for the first time [at age 14]. I didnt have to be in by midnight. It was an open environment... at least I had that liberal, questioning environment.

From the evil power of KISS, Trent branched out to Supertramps Crime of the Century (a natural choice for any kid interested in the piano) as well as The Wall from Pink Floyd. He soon developed a morbid fascination with science fiction, comic books and A-grade horror movies. In an interview with Details magazine, Trent said The Omen scared him so much that he became convinced that he was the Antichrist. For weeks after seeing the movie, hed search through his hair just before bed, looking for the telltale 666 mark, just like Gregory Peck had done with little Damien in The Exorcist. He also remembers licking the metal tools in his grandfathers garage, just to see what they tasted like.

Michael Reznor, looking to repair some of the damage caused by the divorce, encouraged his sons growing interest in rock music. In addition to working as an interior designer and graphic artist, Michael was an amateur bluegrass musician and ran a small music shop that sold a variety of acoustic instruments and guitars. In his spare moments, he taught Trent the basics of the guitar and later managed to procure Trent an electric piano. It wasnt long before Trent and some of his friends began jamming together in the small room at the back of the shop. Once techno-pop hit, Trent immersed himself in that culture, fascinated by groups, such as the Human League, whose music was generated entirely by machines. As he later told Spin magazine, The excitement of hearing a Human League track and thinking, thats all machines, theres no drummer. That was my calling. It wasnt the Sex Pistols. Successfully lobbying his parents for cash, he purchased a cheap Moog synthesizer and set about trying to create the same sounds he heard Greg Hawkes play on all those Cars records.

Trent realized that music could be his ticket out of Mercer. Enrolling in a computer engineering course at Allegheny College in nearby Meadville, Pennsylvania (pop. 15,000), his initial hope was that a degree might lead to a career in synthesizer design with a big company like Moog or Sequential. But discovering that designing electronic keyboards was more about math than it was about music, he dropped out after his first year.

Trent spent the next year living with his father out in the woods near Mercer, planning his escape to Cleveland, 200 miles to the north. To Trent, Cleveland was a different planet: he could hear the latest new music on the radio, browse through stacks of cool new albums at record stores and meet other people who thought and felt the same way he did. After bidding his father farewell, Trent packed up whatever gear he had and moved there, determined to explore music made by machines.

Although most of industrial musics early appeal was in Europe (especially in Germany and Belgium), it did find a small cadre of fans in North Americaand that included Trent Reznor.

When I started to hang around better colleges, he reported to Rolling Stone, I realized, Jesus Christ, theres a lot of music Id never heard. It was like a musical awakeningfrom Test Dept. to XTC, all these bands I never knew existed. All those classic one-hit-wonder synth bands were permeating the airwavesand it was kind of interesting just to see Devo and Human League briefly edge out Bruce Springsteen. That was about when synthesizers were becoming relatively affordable, and sequencers for home computers were just coming out. And when I stumbled into all that harder-edge music that incorporated electronic elements, it pretty much fit with things that were already in my head. Suddenly, music started to make sense.