Nine Inch Nails: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 2020 Inductees

With Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor (born May 17, 1965 in New Castle, Pennsylvania) has taken the sounds and sights of transgressive art into the mainstream, converting alienation into community. 

Nine Inch Nails began in Cleveland in the late 1980s as a studio project for Reznor but blossomed onstage with his live band during the first Lollapalooza tour in 1991, which found them destroying instruments in the afternoon sun as fellow musicians and converted fans looked on.

The 1994 breakthrough album The Downward Spiral combined the mechanized funk and discordant noise of industrial rock with Reznor’s belief in melody and song structure. 

It debuted at number two on the Billboard album chart and spawned the Top 40 hit “Closer” — with its promises of animalistic sex as a way of being nearer to God — as well as “Hurt,” later covered by Johnny Cash.

A mud-splattered, star-making performance at Woodstock ’94 delivered Nine Inch Nails to the arena level. 

Nine Inch Nails delivered one of the most powerful and historic performances of the Woodstock ‘94 festival in Saugerties, New York, establishing the band's reputation as one of the greatest live acts in the world. 

“On the way to the stage there was a little accident,” Trent Reznor told MTV after their set.

Reznor continued, “It turns into a mud wrestling thing that escalated into a full-scale mud riot … I accidentally tripped and pushed Danny [Lohner’s] face into the mud. He retaliated by body-slamming me.”

Completely caked in mud, Nine Inch Nails went on to perform a blistering 15-song set to the largest density crowd of the festival.

Conceived by Reznor for this exhibit, this installation evokes that iconic moment.