Nine Inch Nails are one of modern music’s most uncompromising outfits.

Few can execute such a distinct and powerful creative vision like Trent Reznor. For the past three decades, he’s made music that permanently lives on the cutting edge, and that has influenced countless creatives across all manner of disciplines.

Across nine studio albums, Nine Inch Nails’ music has ranged from industrial, progressive rock to dreamy, ambient, synth-pop and hit all manner of styles in between.

This diversity of sound doesn’t dilute the outfit’s incendiary work, Reznor’s passion and meticulous ear for detail shines through on every song.

Join Gemma Pike as we celebrate 30 years of Nine Inch Nails on The J Files, Thursday 18 October from 8pm AEDT.

Hating record labels, struggling to find fulfillment, and the true meaning of 'Closer': Trent Reznor opens up

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In 1994, Trent Reznor was still coming to terms with being one of the most revered rock stars of the early 90s. His first album as Nine Inch Nails, 1989’s Pretty Hate Machine, was at once catchy and confronting.

It was a pop record that hit harder than any other, a rock record that embraced a broader palette of sounds and moods than most. And it made Reznor a bona-fide rock star.

But life as one of the music industry’s most in demand players didn’t turn out to be quite as satisfying as Reznor had hoped.

As such, it took a long time for him to follow up that first record, with the second Nine Inch Nails album, the now legendary The Downward Spiral, only appearing in 1994.

He partly blamed laziness for the almost half-decade gap between his first and second albums, but that’s not the full story. Behind the scenes, Reznor was fighting some battles.

His chief concern? Dealing with the business that surrounds making, releasing and promoting albums.

“Several things have happened between Pretty Hate Machine and the situation I'm in right now,” Reznor told triple j’s Francis Leach in 1994.

“The main thing that took a lot of time was switching record labels in America, to a label that would allow us to do what we wanted to do, rather than what their idea of what we should be doing was.

“That became a very hellish, drawn out procedure that was full of all kinds of threats. That I couldn't make music anymore, to there'd be three to four years before I could make a new album...”

When his label signed Nine Inch Nails, they just weren’t prepared for the full extent of Reznor’s creative drive and his tenacity when it came to presenting his music in the way he intended it.

“Basically, we were on a label that thought we were a nice little pop band,” Reznor explained. “When we weren't that, or when we maybe showed promise at being something that wasn't quite as easily definable and marketable, the problems arose.

“Where I would be fighting to have Nine Inch Nails perceived in a certain way, they'd be doing everything they could to promote us like they would promote shoe polish or something.”

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Pretty Hate Machine captured the infancy of Nine Inch Nails perfectly.

“At the time it was a full expression of Nine Inch Nails,” Reznor said. “That was a Nine Inch Nails that had never played live before.”

But when it came time to follow it up with 1994’s The Downward Spiral, Reznor was able to approach making music with a completely new mindset.

“I wanted to make something that showed a different facet of what Nine Inch Nails could be,” he explained.

“Most of the songs were written on guitar, which I had become more confident with than I was when Pretty Hate Machine was recorded.

“When I hear Pretty Hate Machine now, it sounds to me early. I wouldn't do that record again. I wouldn't remake that record if I had those songs right now, the way that it is. But, at the time, I felt the same way I do about my current record.”

The Downward Spiral is a dark record. Themes of self-abuse, nihilism and all manner of disdain with different sectors of modern life shine through the often deeply metaphorical lyrics.

“People approach me now and ask, 'Are you always depressed?'” Reznor said. “But the fact is, I had a definite theme I wanted to convey. So, I wrote within certain parameters.

“I don't know that I could write a happy song. But if I could, I wouldn't put it on this record cos it doesn't fit the theme.

I knew what I wanted to do lyrically and thematically with this record. I realised it wasn't going to be a 'listen with the top down in your car, happy, party' type album. It was more one that you needed to be in the right mood to listen to.

“For that mood it might be the greatest record in the world. But it's not your all-purpose, life-assuring record.”

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When asked about the violent sexual imagery in ‘Closer’, Nine Inch Nails most enduring hit, Reznor says his original intention has been somewhat misinterpreted.

“It could be interpreted that way, but that's not exactly what I was trying to convey on that,” he said “I realise the main lyric in that implies that.

“When I made this album, I tried to make it a complete album, rather than a collection of ten songs I wrote in the period of a year. Something that worked as a whole.

“So, speaking about that song in the context of the whole, the theme of Downward Spiral, that was a moment where, in searching for some kind of salvation or truth, turning towards sex, realising that that's not the ultimate means of doing that.

“It could be turning towards drugs or turning towards religion. It was one more aspect you could immerse yourself in in an unhealthy way, perhaps. That was the general vibe I was trying to get across in that song, more so than the violent element of sex.”

In the final line of the eerie ‘I Do Not Want This’, Reznor screams, ‘I want to do something that matters’.

Hearing this line led Leach to ask whether making music as Nine Inch Nails was satisfying that urge.

“I thought it was. But I don't know that it is,” Reznor revealed.

“That's why I put that in there. Because I've always felt like I want to do something with my life. I want to do something and I'm not sure the path that I have chosen – although I find it rewarding on a multitude of levels – I don't have the fulfillment I hoped I might have if I'd ever gotten to this spot.”

Almost a quarter of a century later, Reznor is still making music and is still unafraid of making waves in the traditional music industry. Hopefully nowadays he finds it sufficiently rewarding.