By Lori-Anne Hager

"Trent Reznor is Nine Inch Nails"

To some people, that would immediately say that Trent is a Satanist or has some sort of psychological problem. No. He and his music have been stereotyped along with all other harsher music. Behind the images of smashed keyboards and utter chaos, there is a real person. Not necessarily good and not necessarily bad. He's human.

Born May 17, 1965, Michael Trent Reznor, the "tormented genius" of rock and roll came into the world as any other child. His parents weren't the best or the worst, his life wasn't too different from anyone else's. He was normal. His mother, Nancy Clark, and father, Michael Reznor, divorced in the 70's. Trent was raised by his maternal grandparents. His sister, Tera, lived with their mother. From the beginning, Trent was interested in music. He took piano lessons at an early age and became very adept at playing the classics. He could have been a famous classical pianist today if he had chosen. In a high school band, he also played the saxophone.

Also during high school, he played Judas in a school performance of Jesus Christ Superstar. His drama class voted him as best actor. His acting abilities are seen later in his videos, where his expressions go way beyond just lip-synching a song he spent hours in the studio on. Music concerned Trent more than school did. He spent one year at Allegheny College, majoring in computer engineering and music. He dropped out and spent his time with local bands, never doing much more than keyboards and background vocals.

The changed when he was the night janitor at a recording studio. He was interested in how things worked there, and had started to write some of his own music. When he had finished one song that he was confident with, he approached the head of the studio with the request to record while no one else was there. Request granted. Nine Inch Nails was born.

Trent's first song, 'down in it,' is a strong about and extreme feeling of failure. Some people say it's about suicide–and the video helps with that belief–and some say it's about sex. Only Trent knows for sure. He tries not to talk about what his songs mean. The first halo–which is what his recordings are called–was the single for 'down in it.' Halo 2 was the first real recording: pretty hate machine. Trent signed up with TVT for this record, and it was a mistake. TVT was too restrictive for an independent like him.

By the time Trent needed to release a new recording, he wouldn't. At least not under TVT. He signed on with Interscope and made his own company–Nothing–through that, but was still bound by his contract to TVT. He didn't write a whole CD's worth of material, and a lot the songs were based on angry emotions and self-loathing brought about by the dispute with TVT. Specifically, 'gave up' was talking to the head of TVT. The song talks about a view of the world that was shattered because of one person.

Since the beginning, Trent was a one-man-band. He wrote the lyrics, composed and arranged the songs, programmed many of the instruments in computers, and did all the vocals. This one-man-band who for all intents and purposes should have gone nowhere had by halo 5–broken, the LP–two platinum records and one Grammy to his name. The Grammy was for 'wish.' Trent wasn't so much proud of his accomplishment as a writer at that moment as he was for the fact that he'd written the first song to win a Grammy with the words "fist fuck" in it.

Between touring and managing his company–which had picked up acts like Marilyn Manson, Pop Will Eat Itself, and Two–Trent started producing soundtracks. Natural Born Killers was his first. He began by just writing the song 'burn' for the movie. Oliver Stone–the director–believed it was the strongest song he had written. In the soundtrack were two other NIN songs: 'something i can never have,' and 'a warm place.'

The same year that soundtrack came out, what people call Trent's best CD was released. Halo 8: the downward spiral. This CD told a story of corruption and self-hatred that finally ended in suicide. The only story recording Trent has written, and probably the last. Again, it hit platinum sales. The next soundtrack he was to produce featured more heavily music by his idol, David Bowie, than by his own band (though two short songs under his own name were on it). The Lost Highway sold platinum and 'the perfect drug' earned a Grammy nomination. The Smashing Pumpkins beat it with 'The End is the Beginning is the End.'

Trents ability to write music has gotten better and better through the years, yet he has still to beat his best song off pretty hate machine. 'something i can never have,' as previously mentioned being in the Natural Born Killers soundtrack, is his most soulful, haunting, well-written piece to this date. The song itself is simple; keyboard-based, repeating one set of notes throughout the whole song, with soft drums during the chorus and quiet electronic sounds in the background. The tune is basic. But the lyrics blow me away.

There are so many songs out there about lost love that it's been beaten into the ground. Even by 1989 (release date of pretty hate machine), there should have been no original way to approach it. But Trent worked up a more obsessive view on the lost love song. The theme is almost repeated years later in 'the perfect drug' with the words "without you everything falls apart." 'something i can never have' tells the story of a man that is broken apart by the loss of the person he loves. Everything he does, he's reminded of her. "everywhere i look you're all i see." And now, if he could just hear her voice once more, everything would be okay.

"come on tell me/make this all go away, " a vivid picture of self-destruction, a favorite NIN topic, and longing is painted in one of the two only truly soft songs that Trent has written under Nine Inch Nails. Even though backed by the power of tortured emotion and subtle instrumentation, 'something i can never have' was never released as a single. The most memorable thing the song has done was to credit an appearance on the live performances in closure.

Fans of Trent Reznor believed that halo 8 and its remixes could have proved the end of Nine Inch Nails. There had been rumors that Trent wanted to retire and just produce other people's music. Hope was renewed with the release of the controversial halo 12, closure. This was a collection of all NIN videos except 'burn' and an hour of live performances and interviews. closure was banned from some places in Canada for the graphic and explicit scenes in 'sin,' 'happiness in slavery,' and 'closer.'

Rumors of Trent's retirement are rolling around again, now that halo 13 has been put off for about a year. It was promised for the end of '97, and then for mid-August '98, but now the only confirmation is that it won't be out for a long time. The title hasn't even been confirmed. The two most likely are the fragile and impossible pain. Hit Parader keeps claiming it will be called dissonance, but Hit Parader is not the most trustable resource in the world.

And then there are the rumors that halo 13 won't even be released. Is Trent having another dispute with one of his labels? Does he find the barriers of Nine Inch Nails too restrictive? Halo 13 was supposed to have roots in more pop music than anything he has written before, and the news of that brought some of the less devoted fans into an uproar. How could any industrial artist (though he hates being called industrial) write pop songs? But the true Reznarians who have followed him for years know that everything he does has his sound to it, not the sound of any specific genre. If he wishes to make his music lighter, so be it.

To throw away his career in Nine Inch Nails now would be commercial suicide. His Nothing label would still hold strong, carrying strong acts like Marilyn Manson, but it would be almost impossible for him to release a solo album under his own name. People would only remember Nine Inch Nails, and the success that had disappeared with the band.

Literally millions of fans who used to be crying out to Trent Reznor as a rock-n-roll deity are now crying out for him to hold on, at least until halo 13 is released. There's nothing worth dropping this many fans for. Just one more CD, even an EP like broken will sate the masses and leave him free to do whatever he chooses to with his career.

Quality links of interest:
	http://www.nineinchnails.net/ (nineinchnails.net) http://www.9inchnails.com/ (painful convictions) http://www.0-halo.net/nin/ (The Perfect Drug)