I vividly remember my first encounter with Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails...it was April 17, 1990, at the old RPM club in Toronto... Nine Inch Nails were opening for Goth God Peter Murphy and frankly, no one cared...
I was there with a bunch of people chatting at the bar while this noisy band blitzed their way through the first four songs of their set...and then came song number five...it was an insanely heavy version of the Queen song, “Get Down Make Love” from their 1977 album, “News of the World”...
It took about 30 seconds for the crowd to pick up that the band had launched into a cover...and it was a good cover...an excellent cover...and I remember seeing the entire audience turn as one toward the stage to see what the hell was going on...
My memory is that everyone suddenly got into the band...and for the rest of the set—which consisted of “Ringfinger,” Down In It,” and “Head Like A Hole”—the crowd went nuts...and we were rewarded for our attention by the band smashing their gear to bits at the end...
That was it...I was sold on this new band and I’ve been a fan ever since... Nine Inch Nails is one of my desert island bands...I’ve seen the band more times than I can count...I’ve interviewed Trent on multiple occasions...
I have just about every single physical release, including several box sets...if you look in my cd library, you’ll find that I have more Nine Inch Nails bootlegs than anyone else...I even wrote a book on the first two albums...
With all that in mind, here are some of my favourite stories about Trent and the band...and because I like being cute about things, I’m calling this show “Nine Inch Nails tales”.
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