Formation (1987–1988) While living in
Cleveland in 1987,
Trent Reznor played keyboards in the
Exotic Birds, a
synth-pop band managed by
John Malm Jr. Reznor became friends with Malm, who informally became his manager when he left to work on his own music. At the time, Reznor was employed as an assistant engineer and janitor at Right Track Studios. Studio owner Bart Koster granted Reznor free access to the studio between bookings to record
demos, commenting that it cost him nothing more than "a little wear on [his] tape heads". Unable to find a band that could articulate the material as he desired, Reznor was inspired by
Prince to play all instruments himself except drums, which he programmed electronically. He has continued to play most parts on Nine Inch Nails recordings ever since. The first Nine Inch Nails live performance took place at Graffiti in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 27, 1988. Soon after, following their live support of
Skinny Puppy, Reznor aimed to release one
12-inch single on a small European label. Several labels responded favorably to the demo material and Reznor signed with
TVT Records. Reznor chose the name "Nine Inch Nails" because it "abbreviated easily" rather than for "any literal meaning". Other rumored explanations have circulated, alleging that Reznor chose to refer to
Jesus's crucifixion with
nine-inch spikes, or
Freddy Krueger's nine-inch fingernails. The Nine Inch Nails logo first appeared on the music video for their debut single, "
Down in It". Reznor and
Gary Talpas designed the logo, inspired by
Tibor Kalman's typography on the
Talking Heads album
Remain in Light. The logo features the band's initials, with the
second N mirrored. Talpas, a native of Cleveland, continued to design Nine Inch Nails packaging until 1997.
Pretty Hate Machine (1988–1991) Written, arranged, and performed by Reznor, Nine Inch Nails' first album
Pretty Hate Machine debuted in 1989. It marked his first collaboration with
Adrian Sherwood (who produced the lead single "Down in It" in London without meeting Reznor face-to-face) Flood's production would appear on each major Nine Inch Nails release until 1994, and Sherwood has made remixes for the band as recently as 2000. Reznor and his co-producers expanded upon the Right Track Studio demos by adding singles "
Head Like a Hole" and "
Sin".
Rolling Stones
Michael Azerrad described the album as "industrial-strength noise over a pop framework" and "harrowing but catchy music"; Reznor proclaimed this combination "a sincere statement" of "what was in [his] head at the time". In fact, the song "Down in It" spent over two months on
Billboard club-play dance chart. After spending 113 weeks on the
Billboard 200,
Pretty Hate Machine became one of the first
independently released records to attain
platinum certification. In 1989, while doing promotion for the album, the band members were asked on what shows they would like to appear. They jokingly replied (possibly while intoxicated) that they would like to appear on
Dance Party USA, since it was the most absurd option they could think of at the time. Much to their surprise, they were booked on the show, and made an appearance. In 1990, Nine Inch Nails began the
Pretty Hate Machine Tour Series, in which it toured North America as an opening act for
alternative rock artists such as
Peter Murphy and
the Jesus and Mary Chain. Nine Inch Nails then embarked on a world tour that continued through the first
Lollapalooza festival in 1991. In response, Reznor secretly began recording under various pseudonyms to avoid record company interference. Involved in a feud with TVT, he signed a record deal with
Interscope Records and created
Nothing Records: We made it very clear we were not doing another record for TVT. But they made it pretty clear they weren't ready to sell. So I felt like, well, I've finally got this thing going but it's dead. Flood and I had to record
Broken under a different band name, because if TVT found out we were recording, they could confiscate all our shit and release it.
Jimmy Iovine got involved with Interscope, and we kind of got slave-traded. It wasn't my doing. I didn't know anything about Interscope. And I was real pissed off at him at first because it was going from one bad situation to potentially another one. But Interscope went into it like they really wanted to know what I wanted. It was good, after I put my raving lunatic act on. In the liner notes, Reznor credited the 1991
Nine Inch Nails touring band as an influence on the EP's sound. He characterized
Broken as a guitar-based "blast of destruction", and as "a lot harder ... than
Pretty Hate Machine". Songs from
Broken earned Nine Inch Nails two Grammy Awards: a performance of the EP's first single "
Happiness in Slavery" from
Woodstock '94, but the EP's most controversial video accompanied "Happiness in Slavery". The video was almost universally banned for its graphic depiction of
performance artist
Bob Flanagan disrobed and lying on a machine that pleases, tortures, then (apparently) kills him. A third video for "Pinion", partially incorporated into MTV's
Alternative Nation opening sequence, showed a toilet that apparently flushes into the mouth of a person in
bondage. Reznor and Christopherson compiled the three clips along with footage for "Help Me I Am in Hell" and "Gave Up" into a longform music video titled
Broken. It depicts the murder of a young man who is kidnapped and tortured while forced to watch the videos. This footage was never officially released, but instead appeared covertly among tape trading circles.
Broken was followed by the companion remix EP
Fixed in late 1992. The only track that was left off the final version of the release is the remix of "Last", produced by
Butch Vig (the outro of the "Last" remix is heard in "Throw This Away", which also includes Reznor's remix of "Suck"). The unedited version appeared on the internet as an 8-bit mono 11 kHz file, "NIN_LAST.AIFF", available by
FTP from cyberden.com in 1993; it has been removed from the website, but can still be found on
p2p networks (Reznor subsequently made it available in higher quality (256 kbit/s mp3) at remix.nin.com). Vig later spoke about his remix while answering questions on a music production forum, saying "I started recording a lot of new parts, and took it in a much different direction. When it was finished, Trent thought the front part of the mix didn't fit the EP, so he just used the ending. I'm glad it's on his website.
Duke and
Steve worked with me on the remix, in the very early days of
Garbage."
The Downward Spiral (1993–1997) Early ideas for
The Downward Spiral arose after the
Lollapalooza 1991 festival's concerts ended in September. Reznor elaborated the album's themes into lyrics. Reznor searched for and moved to 10050 Cielo Drive, in Los Angeles (known as the Manson Murder House) renting it for $11,000 per month from July 4, 1992, the start of the making of both
Broken and
The Downward Spiral. Nine Inch Nails' second studio album,
The Downward Spiral, entered the
Billboard 200 at number two, and is the band's highest seller in the US, over four million copies, among five million worldwide. Influenced by
Pink Floyd and by
David Bowie's music from the 1970s, Flood co-produced several tracks, while
Alan Moulder mixed most, and later found more extensive production duties on future albums. Reznor invited Sean Beavan to work on
The Downward Spiral. as well as a cover of the
Joy Division song "Dead Souls" on the
soundtrack to the film
The Crow, which went to number 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. The music video for "Closer", directed by
Mark Romanek, was in MTV's frequent rotation, although the network, deeming it too graphic, heavily censored the original. The video shows events in a laboratory dealing with religion, sexuality, animal cruelty, politics, and terror; controversial imagery included a nude bald woman with a
crucifix mask, a monkey tied to a
cross, a pig's head spinning on some type of machine, a diagram of a
vulva, Reznor wearing an
S&M mask while swinging in shackles, and of him wearing a
ball gag. A radio edit that partially mutes the song's explicit lyrics also received extensive airtime. In 2003,
Rolling Stone ranked it 200 among "
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".
Blender named it the 80th
Greatest American Album. It was ranked No. 488 in the book
The Top 500 Heavy Metal Albums of All Time by
Martin Popoff. In 2001
Q named
The Downward Spiral as one of the
50 Heaviest Albums of All Time; in 2010 the album was ranked No. 102 on their ''250 Best Albums of Q's Lifetime (1986–2011)
list. After The Downward Spiral'
s release, Reznor produced an accompanying remix album entitled Further Down the Spiral, the only non-major Nine Inch Nails release to be certified gold in the United States Enjoying mainstream success thereafter, Nine Inch Nails then performed amid greater production values, adding theatrical visual elements. Supporting acts on tour included the Jim Rose Circus and Marilyn Manson. Released in 1997, the Closure
video documented highlights from the tour, including full live videos of "Eraser", "Hurt" and a one-take "March of the Pigs" clip directed by Peter Christopherson. In 1997 Reznor also produced the soundtrack to the David Lynch film Lost Highway'', which featured one new Nine Inch Nails song, "
The Perfect Drug". Around this time, Reznor's studio perfectionism, struggles with addiction, and bouts of
writer's block prolonged the production of
The Fragile.
The Fragile (1998–2002) Five years elapsed between
The Downward Spiral and Nine Inch Nails' next studio album,
The Fragile, which arrived as a
double album in September 1999. Canadian rock producer
Bob Ezrin was consulted on the album's track listing; the liner notes state that he "provided final continuity and flow." On the heels of the band's previous successes, media anticipation surrounded
The Fragile more than a year before its release, when it was already described as "oft-delayed". The album debuted at number one on the
Billboard 200, selling 228,000 copies in its first week and receiving generally positive reviews. Nine Inch Nails released three commercial singles from the album in different territories: "
The Day the World Went Away" in North America; "
We're in This Together" in the EU and Japan (on three separate discs); and "
Into the Void" in Australia. Several songs from the album became regulars on alternative rock radio stations, however the album dropped to number 16 and slipped out of the
Billboard Top 10 only a week after its release, resulting in the band setting a record for the
biggest drop from number one, which has since been broken. Reznor funded the subsequent North American tour out of his own pocket. Before the album's release, the song "
Starfuckers, Inc." provoked media speculation about whom Reznor had intended its acerbic lyrics to satirize.
Cinesexuality critic Patricia MacCormack interprets the song as a "scathing attack on the alternative music scene," particularly Reznor's former friend and protégé Marilyn Manson. The two artists put aside their differences when Manson appeared in the song's music video, retitled "Starsuckers, Inc." and performed on stage with Nine Inch Nails at
Madison Square Garden in 2000. Reznor followed
The Fragile with another remix album,
Things Falling Apart, released in November 2000 to poor reviews, a few months after the 2000
Fragility tour which itself was recorded and released on CD, DVD, and VHS in 2002 as
And All That Could Have Been. A deluxe edition of the live CD came with the companion disc
Still, containing stripped-down versions of songs from the Nine Inch Nails catalog along with several new pieces of music. In 2002,
Johnny Cash covered the Nine Inch Nails' "
Hurt" for his album,
American IV: The Man Comes Around, to critical acclaim. After seeing the music video, which later won a Grammy, Reznor himself became a fan of the rendition: I pop the video in, and wow ... Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps ... Wow. [I felt like] I just lost my girlfriend, because that song isn't mine anymore ... It really made me think about how powerful music is as a medium and art form. I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in, totally isolated and alone. [Somehow] that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era/genre and still retains sincerity and meaning—different, but every bit as pure.
With Teeth (2004–2006) A further six years elapsed before Nine Inch Nails' fourth full-length album.
With Teeth was released in May 2005, though it was leaked prior to its official release date. The album was written and recorded throughout 2004 following Reznor's battle with alcoholism and substance abuse and legal issues with his former manager, John Malm Jr.
With Teeth debuted on top of the
Billboard 200, Nine Inch Nails' second reign at number one with an album. The album's package lacks typical liner notes; instead it simply lists the names of songs and co-producers, and the
URL for an online
PDF poster with lyrics and full credits. The entire album was made available in
streaming audio on the band's official MySpace page in advance of its release date. Critical reception of the album was mostly positive:
Rolling Stones
Rob Sheffield described the album as "vintage Nine Inch Nails".
PopMatters condemned the album, claiming Reznor "ran out of ideas." {{Quote box |width=30em |align=right |salign=right A music video for the song "
The Hand That Feeds" premiered on the Nine Inch Nails official website in March 2005. Reznor released the source files for it in
GarageBand format a month later, allowing fans to remix the song. He similarly released files for the album's second single "
Only" in a wider range of formats, including
Pro Tools and
ACID Pro.
David Fincher directed a video for "Only" with primarily
computer-generated imagery. The planned music video for its third single, "
Every Day Is Exactly the Same", was directed by
Francis Lawrence but reportedly scrapped in the post-production stage. All three singles topped the
Billboard Alternative Songs chart. Nine Inch Nails launched a North American arena tour in Autumn 2005, supported by
Queens of the Stone Age,
Autolux and
Death from Above 1979. Another opening act on the tour, hip-hop artist
Saul Williams, performed on stage with Nine Inch Nails at the
Voodoo Music Experience festival during a headlining appearance in hurricane-stricken New Orleans, Reznor's former home. The Nine Inch Nails live band completed a tour of North American
amphitheaters in the summer of 2006, joined by
Bauhaus,
TV on the Radio, and
Peaches. The
home video release debuted at number one on both the
Billboard Top Music Videos and
Billboard Comprehensive Music Videos charts in the United States.
Year Zero (2007–2008) Nine Inch Nails' fifth studio album,
Year Zero, was released on April 17, 2007, only two years after
With Teeth, a marked change in the slow pace from the release of previous albums. With lyrics written from the perspective of multiple fictitious characters,
Year Zero is a
concept album criticizing the
United States government's policies and their effect on the world fifteen years in the future. Critical response to the album was generally favorable, with an average rating of 76% on
Metacritic. The story takes place in the United States in 2022, which has been termed "Year 0", by the government, being the year America was reborn. It had suffered several major terrorist attacks, apparently by Islamic fundamentalists, including attacks on Los Angeles and
Seattle, and in response, the government seized absolute control of the country. The government is a Christian fundamentalist theocracy, maintaining control of the populace through institutions like the Bureau of Morality and the First Evangelical Church of Plano. The government corporation Cedocore distributes the drug Parepin through the water supply, making Americans who drink water apathetic and carefree. There are several underground rebel groups, mainly operating online, most notably Art is Resistance and Solutions Backwards Initiative.
An alternate reality game emerged parallel to the
Year Zero concept, expanding upon its storyline. Clues hidden on tour merchandise initially led fans to discover a network of fictitious, in-game websites that describe an "
Orwellian picture of the United States circa the year 2022". Before
Year Zeros release, unreleased songs from the album were found on
USB drives hidden at Nine Inch Nails
concert venues in Lisbon and Barcelona, as part of the alternate reality game. Fan participation in the
alternate reality game caught the attention of media outlets such as
USA Today and
Billboard, who have cited fan-site The NIN Hotline, forum Echoing the Sound, fan club The Spiral, and NinWiki as sources for new discoveries. The album's first single, "
Survivalism", and other tracks from
Year Zero were released as
multitrack audio files for fans to remix. A remix album titled
Year Zero Remixed was later released, containing remixes from
Year Zero by other artists. The remix album was Nine Inch Nails' final release on a major record label for over five years, as the act had completed its contractual obligation to
Interscope Records and did not renew its contract. The remix album was accompanied by an interactive remix site with multitrack downloads and the ability to post remixes. Reznor planned a film adaption of the album and noted
Year Zero as "part of a bigger picture of a number of things I'm working on. Essentially, I wrote the soundtrack to a movie that doesn't exist." On August 10, 2007, Reznor announced that they would be taking the concept to television networks in an attempt to secure a deal: "We're about to pitch it to the network, so we're a couple of weeks away from meeting all of the main people, and we'll see what happens." Since first announcing his plans for a television series, progress slowed, reportedly due to the
2007–2008 Writer's Guild strike, but it nevertheless continued. In 2010, the resultant miniseries, also named
Year Zero, was reported to be in development with
HBO and
BBC Worldwide Productions, with the screenplay and script written by Reznor and
Carnivàle writer
Daniel Knauf, but at the end of 2012 Reznor said that the project was "in a holding state".
Ghosts I–IV and The Slip (2008–2012) In February 2008, Reznor posted a news update on the Nine Inch Nails website entitled "2 weeks". On March 2,
Ghosts I–IV (the first release on The Null Corporation label), a 36-track instrumental album, became available via the band's official website.
Ghosts I–IV was made available in a number of different formats and forms, ranging from a free download of the first volume, to a $300 Ultra-Deluxe limited edition package. All 2,500 copies of the $300 package sold out in three days. The album is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike licence. The album was created improvisationally over a ten-week period and contributors included
Atticus Ross,
Alan Moulder,
Alessandro Cortini,
Adrian Belew, and
Brian Viglione. Similar to the announcement that ultimately led to the release of
Ghosts I–IV, a post on the band's website in April 2008 read "2 weeks!" On May 5, Nine Inch Nails released
The Slip via its website without any advertisement or promotion. The album was made available for download free of charge with a message from Reznor, "this one's on me," protected under the same Creative Commons licence as
Ghosts, and has seen individual downloads surpassing 1.4 million.
The Slip has since been released on CD as a limited edition set of 250,000. Following the release of
Ghosts I–IV and
The Slip, a 25-date tour titled
Lights in the Sky, was announced in several North American cities, and was later expanded to include several more North American dates as well as dates in South America. Cortini and
Josh Freese returned as members from the previous tour, while
Robin Finck rejoined the band and
Justin Meldal-Johnsen was added on bass guitar. In an immediate response, a fan organization known as This One Is On Us quickly downloaded the data and had begun to assemble the footage alongside its own video recordings to create a professional three-part digital film, followed by a physical release created "by fans for fans". This tour documentary became collectively known as
Another Version of the Truth and was released throughout late December 2009 to February 2010 via three formats: DVD, Blu-ray Disc and BitTorrent. To date, the group and the project has received significant attention from media outlets such as
USA Today,
Rolling Stone,
Techdirt and
Pitchfork TV, and holds the support of both Reznor and the fan community with theatrical screenings being held all over the world. Nine Inch Nails art director and webmaster
Rob Sheridan noted on the band's official website: This is yet another example of a devoted fanbase and a policy of openness combining to fill in blanks left by old media barriers. The entire NIN camp is absolutely thrilled that treating our fans with respect and nurturing their creativity has led to such an overwhelming outpour of incredible content, and that we now have such a high quality souvenir from our most ambitious tour ever.
Nine Inch Nails Revenge, an
iPhone/
iPod Touch-exclusive
rhythm game developed by
Tapulous, was released on March 8, 2009 (five months after the company announced the development of the game). This installment in the
Tap Tap video game franchise was themed after Nine Inch Nails, and included tracks from
Ghosts I–IV and
The Slip. Portions of the album
Ghosts I-IV were also used in making of the soundtrack for the documentary
Citizenfour. In February 2009, Reznor posted his thoughts about the future of Nine Inch Nails on his official website, stating that "I've been thinking for some time now it's time to make NIN disappear for a while." Reznor since clarified that he "isn't done creating music under the moniker, but that Nine Inch Nails is done touring for the foreseeable future." The "Wave Goodbye" tour concluded on September 10, 2009, at the
Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles. Reznor subsequently released two tracks under the Nine Inch Nails moniker: the theme song for the film
Tetsuo: The Bullet Man, and a cover of
U2's "
Zoo Station", included in the
Achtung Baby tribute album
AHK-toong BAY-bi Covered. In 2009 Reznor married
Mariqueen Maandig, and formed a project with Maandig and Atticus Ross dubbed
How to Destroy Angels. Its first release, a six-track
self-titled EP, was made available for free download in June 2010. Reznor's next collaboration with Ross was co-writing and producing the
official score for
David Fincher's 2010 film,
The Social Network. Reznor and Ross received two awards for the score, a
2010 Golden Globe Award for
Best Original Score for a Motion Picture, and a
2010 Oscar for
Best Original Score. Reznor and Ross again collaborated with Fincher for the
official score the
American adaptation of the novel
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, released in December 2011, and then again on Fincher's 2014 film
Gone Girl. In July 2012 Reznor teamed up with video game developer
Treyarch to compose the theme music for
Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Later that year Reznor again worked with Atticus Ross along with Alessandro Cortini on a remix of the song "Destroyer" by
Telepathe. Reznor also appeared in a documentary called "
Sound City" directed by
Dave Grohl, in addition to co-writing and performing the song "
Mantra" with Grohl and
Josh Homme. This led to further collaboration with Reznor and Homme on the 2013 album from
Queens of the Stone Age titled
...Like Clockwork. Reznor contributed vocals and drum programing to the song "Kalopsia" and vocals on "Fairweather Friends" along with
Elton John on piano and vocals. In October a project with
Dr. Dre and
Beats Electronics was announced that Reznor wrote was "probably not what you're expecting [from me]". The project was named "Daisy"; a digital music service was announced in January 2013. It was until January 2014 that the service was fully launched, with Reznor serving as chief creative officer.
Hesitation Marks (2012–2014) In an interview with
BBC Radio 1, Reznor indicated that he would be writing for the majority of 2012 with Nine Inch Nails "in mind". Reznor eventually confirmed that he was working on new Nine Inch Nails material and might be performing live again. In February 2013, Reznor announced the return of Nine Inch Nails and revealed the
Twenty Thirteen Tour. He also revealed that the new lineup of the band would include
Eric Avery of
Jane's Addiction, Adrian Belew of
King Crimson, and
Josh Eustis of
Telefon Tel Aviv, as well as returning members
Alessandro Cortini and
Ilan Rubin. However, both Avery and Belew would quit the touring band before performances commenced, with former member Robin Finck returning in their place. By May 28 a new Nine Inch Nails album was complete. Released September 3,
Hesitation Marks incorporated rhythms reminiscent of earlier releases, but was more expansive and theatrical. In addition to the recently departed Adrian Belew, Reznor employed bassist
Pino Palladino along with
Todd Rundgren and
Fleetwood Mac's
Lindsey Buckingham to achieve various
art-rock elements. in Milan in 2013, (from left to right): drummer
Ilan Rubin, bassist
Joshua Eustis, singer
Trent Reznor, guitarist
Robin Finck and keyboardist
Alessandro Cortini. The album produced three singles, all released prior to that of the album itself. "
Came Back Haunted" was released on June 6, with an accompanying music video bearing an
epileptic seizure warning. The second single, "
Copy of A", was released on August 12 free of charge to US and UK
Amazon.com account holders. "
Everything" was the third and final single, recorded during sessions for the Nine Inch Nails
greatest hits album. The sessions gave way to more songs that ended up yielding the entire album. In July the Twenty Thirteen Tour was underway, beginning with a slew of festival appearances that included the
Fuji Rock Festival, and the
Pukkelpop,
Hockenheim, Germany's Rock'n'Heim and the
Reading and Leeds festivals in August. The Tension 2013 North American leg of the tour ran from September to November and added Palladino,
Lisa Fischer and Sharlotte Gibson to the lineup with
Godspeed You! Black Emperor and
Explosions in the Sky as
opening acts. This leg of the tour was documented and released in the spring as
Nine Inch Nails Tension 2013. In 2014 the band extended its tour worldwide as a four-piece. The new lineup included previous collaborators, Ilan Rubin, Alessandro Cortini, and Robin Finck. The band was joined by
Queens of the Stone Age for the Australia and New Zealand tour, during which a nightly coin toss determined who opened. The tour closed in Europe with supporting synth-pop act
Cold Cave. After a month-long break, Nine Inch Nails again hit the road on a joint tour with
Soundgarden. The 23-day journey extended throughout the continental US, with experimental hip-hop group
Death Grips scheduled to open most of the shows. Two weeks prior to the tour, Death Grips announced its breakup and cancelled all subsequent live shows.
Oneohtrix Point Never,
the Dillinger Escape Plan and Cold Cave each replaced Death Grips separately for the tour. In 2014, its first year of eligibility, Nine Inch Nails was nominated for induction into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with 14 other candidates. While they were not inducted that year, the band placed second in the 2015 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees Fan Vote. In 2015, Nine Inch Nails was once again nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. However, they once again did not get inducted. In June 2015, Nine Inch Nails released instrumental versions of
The Fragile and
With Teeth to stream exclusively on
Apple Music, a service of which Reznor is chief creative director. In an interview promoting the service, Reznor mentioned he has started "messing around with some things" in regards to a new Nine Inch Nails album, stating "It's not a record I'm trying to finish in a month. It's more just feeling around in the dark and seeing what sounds interesting". In December 2015, Reznor reported that "Nine Inch Nails will return in 2016".
The Trilogy (Not the Actual Events / Add Violence / Bad Witch) (2016–2019) In October 2016, in response to a fan's question about the lack of new Nine Inch Nails music, Reznor responded with "2016 is not over yet". In December 2016, Reznor commented on his statement regarding Nine Inch Nails' return by the end of the year: "Those words did come out of my mouth, didn't they? ... Just wait and see what happens." Three days later, Reznor announced an EP titled
Not the Actual Events, along with reissues of
Broken,
The Downward Spiral, and
The Fragile, with subsequent reissues of
With Teeth,
Year Zero, and
The Slip to be released later in 2017, these plans however fell through. Also announced was
The Fragile: Deviations 1, which comprised 37 instrumental, alternate and unreleased tracks, many of which have never been heard before anywhere.
Not the Actual Events was released on December 23, 2016, with fans who pre-ordered it receiving their download links one day earlier.
Atticus Ross was also revealed to be an official full-time member of the band, the first member other than Reznor to be added to the band. In early 2017, the band announced three headlining festival dates in North America. In January 2017, the band announced that it would be performing at the
Panorama Music Festival in New York on July 30. On March 21, the band announced on their official
Facebook page that it would be headlining Day 3 of
FYF Fest in Los Angeles on July 23. In the same post, the band also announced their 2017 touring lineup, which included Reznor and Ross joined by the band's 2014 touring lineup,
Robin Finck,
Alessandro Cortini, and
Ilan Rubin. The band appeared in
Part 8 of the
third season of Twin Peaks, performing their song, "She's Gone Away". In June 2017, in an email that was issued out to customers waiting on delayed vinyl orders, Reznor confirmed that
Not the Actual Events would actually make up the first part of a trilogy of EPs, with the second installment
Add Violence being released on July 21 and the third and final EP of the trilogy to follow in 2018. The single "
Less Than" was released a week prior to the second EP's release. Also in 2017, the pair were tasked to score the upcoming
Ken Burns series
The Vietnam War, and provide both original music and a compilation soundtrack of popular songs. Their score, which was released on September 15, 2017, included original compositions, and it also includes reworked pieces from other Nine Inch Nails songs and their award-winning scores for
The Social Network and
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The band released their ninth studio album,
Bad Witch, on June 22, 2018. The band also announced the "Cold and Black and Infinite 2018 North America Tour", where it toured with
the Jesus and Mary Chain. To prevent
ticket scalping, the band took the unusual step of only selling physical tickets that had to be purchased at the venue prior to the shows. Reznor stated of the decision, "The promise of a world made better by computers and online connectivity has failed us in many ways, particularly when it comes to ticketing. Everything about the process sucks and everyone loses except the reseller. We've decided to try something different that will also likely suck, but in a different way."
Ghosts V–VI (2020–2022) On January 15, 2020, Nine Inch Nails was officially named as members of the Class of 2020 for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. However, due to the onset of the
COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the induction ceremony was postponed indefinitely. Originally, only Trent Reznor was to be inducted as the sole full-time member of the group for most of its history. After holding discussions with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Reznor announced that former live band members Chris Vrenna and Danny Lohner, as well as current members Alessandro Cortini, Ilan Rubin (the youngest person ever inducted into the Hall of Fame), longtime guitarist Robin Finck, and the only other full time member of the band, Atticus Ross, would all be inducted as members of Nine Inch Nails. On March 26, 2020, Nine Inch Nails released
Ghosts V: Together and
Ghosts VI: Locusts, its tenth and eleventh studio albums and the sequels to their 2008 instrumental album
Ghosts I–IV. The albums were released for free as a show of solidarity with the band's fans during the
COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the pandemic, the live induction ceremony for the 2020 Hall of Fame Induction was cancelled on July 15, 2020, and simultaneously, an induction special was announced to be broadcast and available for streaming through HBO and
HBO Max, respectively, on November 7, 2020. In the interim, a special display was created to represent Nine Inch Nails' presence in the Hall of Fame that celebrated their popular, muddy performance at
Woodstock '94; opened on the 26th anniversary of the concert. On November 6, 2020, Trent Reznor and the other to-be-inducted members of Nine Inch Nails were interviewed by journalist
David Farrier about the history of the band and their feelings on being inducted. Then on November 7, Nine Inch Nails was formally inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Class of 2020, by punk icon
Iggy Pop. Reznor thanked the fans, his family, and all of his many Nine Inch Nails collaborators in his acceptance speech, recorded from his home in
Beverly Hills, CA. On May 6, 2021, Nine Inch Nails released a new track, "Isn't Everyone" in collaboration with noise rock group
HEALTH, who had previously been an opening act on their
Lights In The Sky and Wave Goodbye tours. On May 7, they announced they would be playing two shows in Cleveland (September 21 and 23, 2021) with the
Pixies to commemorate their inauguration into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which, according to the band, would be "the only NIN headline shows in 2021". Those shows were cancelled on August 19, 2021, due to rising COVID-19 cases in the United States. Also in 2021, Reznor and Ross produced
Halsey's album ''
If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power''. It was later nominated for the
Best Alternative Music Album award at the
64th Annual Grammy Awards. In February 2022, Nine Inch Nails announced a short tour of the United States for 2022, the group's first performances in nearly four years. A tour of the United Kingdom was announced shortly afterwards. On September 24, 2022, Nine Inch Nails performed in their native Cleveland for the first time since 2013 after a "Nine Inch Nails Fan Day" at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame the previous day. Over the course of the performance, all the other six inductees, as well as former members
Richard Patrick and
Charlie Clouser, joined Reznor on stage and even covered Patrick's
Filter hit, "
Hey Man Nice Shot". Reznor posted on his Discord after the show, "When/If we tour again, it will be different. Not like [2018′s "Cold Black Infinite" tour] era – It's over."
Tron: Ares, Peel It Back Tour and Nine Inch Noize (2024–present) On April 4, 2024, Nine Inch Nails revealed plans to create a project with
Epic Games that they described as "something that is not exactly a video game, in the UEFN ecosystem Epic has built around
Fortnite", to develop a TV series with
Christopher Storer, and create a film with
Mike Flanagan. The projects were being created from a newly established multimedia company With Teeth, run in partnership with the band's art director John Crawford and producer Jonathan Pavesi. The band is also working on a short film with artist Susanne Deeken, a clothing line called Memory Fade, as well as a music festival and a new record label set to launch alongside it. On August 10, 2024, Reznor and Ross appeared at Disney's
D23 fan event to announce Nine Inch Nails was producing the
film score for
Tron: Ares. It was reported that the soundtrack would feature "new original songs" by the band. Previously, soundtracks were credited to simply Ross and Reznor, whereas the score for
Tron: Ares specifically credited the Nine Inch Nails entity. Plans for a tour titled
Peel It Back leaked on January 13, 2025. Details indicated August and September shows in the United States, Canada, and Europe, as well as a
Facebook post for a September 10 event in
Tampa, Florida, and an associated
Ticketmaster listing. On January 14, the band confirmed they were touring, with further details to follow, but their announcement was paused due to the ongoing
Los Angeles wildfires. The band later announced the summer tour on January 22. On July 17, 2025, the band released "
As Alive as You Need Me to Be" as the lead single from the
Tron: Ares soundtrack. The song would later be nominated for
Best Rock Song and
Best Song Written for Visual Media at the
68th Annual Grammy Awards. On July 30, the band announced that Freese would rejoin the touring lineup after Rubin's departure to join the
Foo Fighters, who had released Freese earlier that year. This marked the band's first lineup change in nine years, the longest timespan to date. On September 16, 2025, it was announced that Nine Inch Nails and
Boys Noize would perform at
Coachella 2026 as a
supergroup called
Nine Inch Noize. Boys Noize had previously opened for the Peel It Back Tour, and would join the band on stage during the third act of every performance, with the Coachella performances acting as an extension of the third act. On October 1, a second North American leg of the Peel It Back Tour was revealed, scheduled for February and March 2026. For the tour,
Stu Brooks was brought in as the band's primary bassist, as Cortini had quietly left Nine Inch Nails shortly after the first leg of the Peel It Back Tour. On February 27, 2026, Nine Inch Nails released the remix album
Tron Ares: Divergence, featuring previously unreleased material from the
Tron: Ares score, along with remixes from Arca,
Mark Pritchard,
Boys Noize, Lanark Artefax,
Chilly Gonzales,
Danny L Harle,
Jack Dangers,
Pixel Grip, Working Men's Club,
The Dare, and Schwefelgelband.
Nine Inch Noize was released on April 17, 2026, as Halo 38 in the
halo numbering system. The record was first announced on April 8, being advertised by a billboard on the way to Coachella in
Indio, California. Reznor stated there won't be any further
Nine Inch Noize tours following Coachella "anytime soon", and he will be back to working on Nine Inch Nails material. ==Artistry==