Nine Inch Nails: News, History & Updates

Biography by CHARLIE CLOUSER of NINE INCH NAILS

Exclusively for Alternative Nation

Trent Reznor’s legacy with Nine Inch Nails

Trent Reznor’s skills and talents are so versatile. It’s becoming a bit clearer now that he has branched off into scoring. It’s calmed down a lot now, but it was full-on Rock N’ Roll mayhem back in those days, especially when you have Marilyn Manson and company in one room of the studio and Nine Inch Nails in the other room. In the midst of all the craziness, Trent was always still such a hard worker. He never took time off. He could’ve been just sitting back and enjoying the fruits of his labor, but he was always the hardest working guy of all. His work ethic has always been incredible. Even if we had three days off on tour, he would still be up working all night or would find a studio to go work in on off days. Most people would sit by the pool and order room service. He was never that guy.

In many cases, on some of the tours, he would sacrifice majorly from a financial standpoint in order to bring a quality production out to the fans. He would smash so many instruments and would insist upon so many different visual elements, that it was definitely eating into the profits. But at no point did he think we would have to cut back on that so he could have money left over when the tour was done. That always impressed me. I remember playing in Buffalo one night and there was a huge ice storm. The number of people that made it to the gig was way less than what we were used. Even still, the same show went on and the same amount of gear got destroyed. The same intensity went into his live performance. That’s not something that’s always been apparent. He never relaxed. Here we are years later and it’s still true. He’s still at the top of his game creatively.

The Downward Spiral to The Fragile

It’s crazy. It was not actually through any music business connections at all that I met Trent Reznor. It was through a buddy of mine from college who was out in L.A. and was working as one of the many producers on a Nine Inch Nails music video, for the song “Happiness in Slavery.” That video is extreme and they needed to do some sound effect overdubs. My buddy who I had reconnected with thought there was an easier way to do it instead of the big production they had planned. He called me to come over and give it a try at Trent’s studio. They asked me to do a day’s worth of sound effects.

I came over with a bunch of samples; we used the samplers and computers that Trent already had set up for making The Downward Spiral. It took us four hours so we spent the rest of the day just talking shop and fiddling around with the gear. Then I sort of never left. (laughs) I finished up that job then Trent called and said “I’m producing this band and I don’t like the way the drums came out on the recording. Can you come in and duplicate the drum sounds with samples? It will fatten up their live performances.” That turned out to be Marilyn Manson’s first album. I was then completely in his circle.

Shortly after that, the next thing I knew, I was out on the road with Nine Inch Nails. Not playing in the band yet but taking care of and setting up the portable studio. Whenever there was a few days off and we’d be staying in one place, we would drag out all of the road cases, get an extra hotel room and I’d set everything up so that Trent could work on a song.

Eventually, the keyboard player, James Wooley, had gotten over being on the road. So they turned to me and basically said “you’re up!” I had to explain to Trent that I had never played keyboards live before. I came up as a drummer and had only played the keyboard in the studio. I remember telling Trent that I wasn’t even a keyboard player and he said “nobody is, you got this.” So I took over for James in the middle of a tour in 1994. The first time I had ever played keyboards on a stage was in front of 22,000 people at a Nine Inch Nails show in Detroit.

I had been turned on to their first record by a college friend of mine from who had been in Ministry, Killing Joke, Fear Factory and lots of ultra-heavy bands. I wasn’t the diehard fan that had the logo tattooed on my neck, but I knew what Nine Inch Nails was all about. I knew it was a seriously great opportunity because it fit with the kind of thing I like and was exactly what I was good at. It’s just funny the way that I fell into it was through a college buddy who was not a musician. None of the music business connections I had made brought me into the Nine Inch Nails world. It was just this random connection through a friend.

As soon as I started working with Trent I knew he was unbelievably talented. This was when he was about halfway done with The Downward Spiral album so he was at the top of his game. It was a total high point in creativity and production so it was a no-brainer for me to toss everything else aside and jump right in.

I started playing in the live band in 1994 and that lasted up until 2001. When I first joined the band, we were out on the road and we toured forever. When the tour cycle for The Downward Spiral ended, Trent moved from L.A. to New Orleans and bought this big funeral home that he converted to a big studio and rehearsal space. He invited me to join so I ended up moving down to New Orleans as well with a few others. We helped set up the studio and a few us even had our own little mini studios up on the second floor of the complex. I had been doing some programming and remixes with other people like David Bowie, White Zombie, Jamiroquai and Type O Negative. I kept my hand in it because even though we were all down there with intent to contribute to the next Nine Inch Nails record, we knew it was really Trent’s show. I ended up writing a bunch of music with Page Hamilton from Helmet, who had opened up for Nine inch Nails on some shows, so we became friends. After we had finished with The Fragile album and that touring cycle, there was sort of a lull going on in the Nine Inch Nails camp. One by one people started to drift away. I was the second to last to leave.

Charlie Clouser interview conducted by Jeff Gorra for Alternative Nation.