Nine Inch Nails consists of Aaron North (guitar), Alessandro Cortini (keyboards), Jeordie White (bass guitar), Jerome Dillon (drums), Trent Reznor (vocals, keyboards, guitar).
"NIN" redirects here. For other uses please see Nin (disambiguation).
Nine Inch Nails (abbreviated as NIN and typeset as NIИ) is a critically and commercially successful American band formed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1988 by Trent Reznor.
Reznor describes the meaning behind the name Nine Inch Nails: "I don't know if you've ever tried to think of band names, but usually you think you have a great one and you look at it the next day and it's stupid. I had about 200 of those. Nine Inch Nails lasted the two week test, looked great in print, and could be abbreviated easily. It really doesn't have any literal meaning. It seemed kind of frightening. [In his best he-man voice] Tough and manly! It's a curse trying to come up with band names."
The Nine Inch Nails logo (the letters "NIN" with the second "N" reversed, looking similar to "NIИ") was inspired by Tibor Kalman's typography on the album cover of Talking Heads' Remain in Light. .
NIN's sound has variously been described as alternative, electronica, heavy metal, rock, synth pop, or, most commonly, industrial or industrial rock. Regarding his music being categorized as industrial, Reznor said in a 1994 Axcess magazine interview:
"What was originally called industrial music was about 20 years ago Throbbing Gristle and Test Dept. We have very little to do with it other than there is noise in my music and there is noise in theirs. I'm working in the context of a pop song structure whereas those bands didn't. And because someone didn't come up with a new name that separates those two somewhat unrelated genres, it tends to irritate all the old school fans waving their flags of alternativeness and obscurity. So, I'd say I've borrowed from certain styles and bands like that."
NIN's songs cover a range of genres: " The Perfect Drug" has the flavor of drum and bass, " Down in It" influenced by early Skinny Puppy, " Happiness in Slavery" is tinged with industrial metal in the vein of Ministry, "The Frail" is a melancholy piano piece, and most of Pretty Hate Machine could be considered dark electronic pop in the style of Depeche Mode.