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Michael Trent Reznor (born May 17, 1965) is an American musician and producer. Reznor is the founder and primary creative force behind the band Nine Inch Nails.

Biography

Michael Trent Reznor was born in Mercer, Pennsylvania to Michael J. Reznor and Nancy Clark. Reznor was called by his middle name to avoid confusion with his father. After his parents divorced, he and his sister, Tera (born in 1970), lived with their maternal grandparents in Mercer.*.

Reznor began playing the piano at the age of five and showed an early aptitude for music. In a 1995 interview, his grandfather Bill Clark remarked, "Music was his life, from the time he was a wee boy. He was so gifted." His former piano teacher Rita Beglin said Reznor "always reminded me of Harry Connick, Jr." when he played. [http://nothing.nin.net/int12.html

Reznor has repeatedly acknowledged that his sheltered life in Pennsylvania left him feeling somewhat isolated from the outside world. In a 1994 interview with Rolling Stone, he makes reference to his choices in the music industry, "I don't know why I want to do these things," Reznor says, "other than my desire to escape from Small Town, U.S.A., to dismiss the boundaries, to explore. It isn't a bad place where I grew up, but there was nothing going on but the cornfields. My life experience came from watching movies, watching TV and reading books and looking at magazines. And when your fucking culture comes from watching TV every day, you're bombarded with images of things that seem cool, places that seem interesting, people who have jobs and careers and opportunities. None of that happened where I was. You're almost taught to realize it's not for you." However, Reznor later confesses, "I don't want to give the impression it was a miserable childhood." [http://www.9inchnails.com/articles/articles.php?id=13

At the Mercer Area Junior and Senior High Schools, Reznor learned to also play the saxophone, and tuba. He was a member of both the jazz and marching bands. Former Mercer High School band director Dr. Hendley Hoge remembered Reznor as "very upbeat and friendly." * Reznor also became involved in theatre while in high school. He was voted Best in Drama by classmates for his roles as Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar and Professor Harold Hill in the Music Man.

Reznor graduated from high school in 1983 and enrolled at Allegheny College where he studied computer engineering and music, and he joined a local band named Option 30 which played three shows per week. After a year in college, Reznor decided to drop out to pursue a full-time career in music.

Reznor moved to Cleveland, Ohio. In 1985, he joined a band named The Innocent as a keyboardist. They released one album, Livin' in the Street, but Reznor quit after just three months.

In 1986, Reznor appeared as a member of the fictional band The Problems in the film Light of Day. He also joined a local Cleveland band the Exotic Birds.

He got a job at Right Track Studio (now known as Midtown Recording) as a handyman. Studio owner Bart Koster commented how Reznor "is so focused in everything he does. When that guy waxed the floor, it looked great." * Koster allowed Reznor to use the studio during off hours, which he used to record demos for songs that ended up on Nine Inch Nails' first album, Pretty Hate Machine. These demos were later released as a bootleg under the name Purest Feeling. Reznor was the credited producer for Marilyn Manson's albums Portrait of an American Family (1994), Smells Like Children (1995), and Antichrist Superstar (1996), as well as the soundtrack for the films Natural Born Killers and Lost Highway. Reznor is credited for "Driver Down" and "Videodrones; Questions" on the soundtrack for Lost Highway. One other track, "The Perfect Drug" is credited to Nine Inch Nails instead.

Reznor likes video games, most notably Doom by id Software, which he has said he played on the Nine Inch Nails tour bus after doing shows. He also created the soundtrack for ID Software's hit Quake. The NIN logo also appears on the nail gun ammo boxes in Quake and prior to this, embedded in both the floor and ceiling of a secret room in Ultimate Doom.

Trent returned to work with id Software in 2003 as the sound engineer for video game Doom 3. However, due to "time, money and bad management" *, he had to abandon this project, and his audio work did not make it into the game's release. The original audio files can be found on the Internet, although they are not officially endorsed by Reznor nor id Software. Chris Vrenna, former drummer for Nine Inch Nails, produced the music for Doom 3 with his partner Clint Walsh.

During the five years between his albums The Downward Spiral (1994) and The Fragile (1999), Trent Reznor struggled with depression, social anxiety disorder, writer's block, and the death of his grandmother. It has also been revealed by Reznor that he had been suffering from alcohol and drug addiction during the Fragile era. In a 2005 interview with Kerrang!, Reznor makes a note of his self-destructive past, "There was a persona that had run its course. I needed to get my priorities straight, my head screwed on. Instead of always working, I took a couple of years off, just to figure out who I was and working out if I wanted to keep doing this or not. I had become a terrible addict; I needed to get my shit together, figure out what had happened." In contrast with his former suicidal tendencies Revolver that, "I’m pretty happy right now." But added, "Wait! Don’t print that! You’ll ruin my reputation. At least lie and say that I’ve got a dead body in my closet or something." [http://theninhotline.net/archives/articles/manager/display_article.php?id=51" target="_blank" >*

Tapeworm, a collaboration with Danny Lohner, Maynard James Keenan of Tool, and Atticus Ross of 12 Rounds, was in production for almost ten years, but an update on the official Nine Inch Nails website declared that the project had been terminated. The only known performance of any Tapeworm material was when Keenan's other band A Perfect Circle performed the song "Vacant" on tour in 2001. "Vacant" appears on A Perfect Circle's third album eMOTIVe, reworked and retitled "Passive".

Reznor will make a guest appearance on rapper El-P's next album, I'll Sleep When You're Dead on the track "Flyentology" Only", released with the single "Every Day Is Exactly the Same". Reznor has also been confirmed as the co-producer of the next album by Saul Williams, who toured with NIN in 2005 and 2006 [http://www.theninhotline.net/news/index.php?fromrss=1#1142284426" target="_blank" >*.

Discography

This is a list of musical work credited to Trent Reznor. For work credited to Nine Inch Nails, see Nine Inch Nails discography.

Writing and performance

  • Sound effects and music for Quake (1996). Credited to Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails
  • "Videodrones; Questions" appears on Lost Highway soundtrack (1997)
  • "Driver Down" appears on Lost Highway soundtrack (1997)

Featuring

Guitar

Mellotron

Mixing

Piano

Producer

Programming

  • Antichrist Superstar (Marilyn Manson, 1996)

Remixes

For remixes credited to Nine Inch Nails, see Nine Inch Nails discography: Remixes.

Saxophone

Vocals

Trivia

  • Reznor enjoyed science fiction as a child, particularly the television show The Six Million Dollar Man. Later in life, he used the Six Million Dollar Man's name, "Steve Austin," as an assumed name when travelling *.
  • Reznor is in possession of John Lennon's Mellotron, which he has used on Broken, The Fragile, and Marilyn Manson's 2nd full-length studio album, Antichrist Superstar.
  • Trent's favorite candy is Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.
  • Trent is 5'6" (~168 centimeters) tall.
  • While writing The Downward Spiral, Reznor lived in the Tate mansion where the Manson family murders took place. After he moved out, and it was demolished, he went back and took the door as a souvenir.
  • Reznor's favourite album is Low by David Bowie from 1977. He has stated in interviews that he played it constantly during the recording of The Downward Spiral. However, he occasionally cites Bowie's Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) as his favorite, and has performed the title track live with Bowie during Bowie's Outside Tour in 1995.
  • During the process of making Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar, Manson described Reznor as "the brother I never had", according to his autobiography, The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell.
  • Reznor moved to New Orleans in 1995 and built a studio out of a former funeral home. He left in 2004 for Los Angeles because he claimed he needed friends that don't drink.
  • Reznor was involved in a feud with the band Limp Bizkit (specifically their frontman Fred Durst) in the late 1990s, around the height of their popularity, calling Durst a 'moron' and saying in a 1999 interview in Rolling Stone magazine, "Let Fred Durst surf a piece of plywood up my ass." *
  • Reznor was to produce a song on Aaliyah's final album, Aaliyah, but scheduling conflicts did not permit this to happen.
  • Trent Reznor makes a very small cameo in the show Mission Hill. While Kevin French is at the red carpet for the Grammy Awards, a man in risque, S&M-like clothing strolls in the background with a leashed monkey.
  • In January of 2006, Reznor filmed a public service announcement for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals *.
  • In April of 2006 on The Spiral Fanclub message board, Trent Reznor posted that he officially ended his struggle with drugs and alcohol on June 11th, 2001.

See also

External links

Nine Inch Nails | American musicians | Industrial musicians | American atheists | Atheist thinkers and activists | College dropouts | Doom production crew (game) | Musical activists | Pennsylvania musicians | People from Pittsburgh | Quake | People with social anxiety disorder | People with bipolar disorder | 1965 births | Living people | American male singers | American rock singers | American singer-songwriters | Trent Reznor | Trent Reznor | Trent Reznor | Trent Reznor | Trent Reznor | Trent Reznor | Trent Reznor | トレント・レズナー | Trent Reznor | Резнор, Трент | Trent Reznor | Trent Reznor | Trent Reznor

 

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