Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine (33 1/3) Read online

  In the 1970s, the only known Mercer musician was a regionally prominent accordionist named Johnny Oakes. In 1974, a farmer named Ralph Watson from the neighboring village of East Lackawannock promoted his first Jesus Fest. The original Jesus Fest, held in Morgantown, West Virginia, in 1973,32 was a response to the success of the nearby Ichthus Music Festival, billed as a Christian alternative to Woodstock, a place for the burgeoning culture of Jesus freaks.33 Watson was so inspired by the Morgantown event that he invited performers to his farm in 1974, ’76, and ’78 for three-day weekends that reached an attendance of 45,000.

  The Mercer area is what Michael Trent Reznor knew from his birth until his high school graduation in 1983. By then, he’d played in a two-piece band with a local girl singing Fleetwood Mac covers at Rotary dinners and gigged at the Seafood Express, one of the venues at Three By the River. A quiet, shy kid who played Judas in his school’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar and tenor sax and tuba in the jazz and marching bands, Trent was known as being both normal and very talented. He hung out in the art classroom when not playing music, played video games at the mall’s arcade, washed dishes at the Howard Johnson near the Interstate, and began fiddling first with an Atari 2600, then a friend’s Radio Shack computer, and finally his own Commodore 64.34 He listened to Floyd, took piano lessons from a former nun, and applied to college for computer programming. His dad first smoked him up at 14, and Trent has said Mike has always been his best friend and biggest inspiration. Trent left town in 1983. He returns to visit, during which time he’ll walk his grandfather Bill’s dog and wave hello to family friends, but then he leaves again.

  The Sharon mills closed in 1987 after a decade of industrial disinvestment throughout the region. A way of life ended in Mercer as a generation of young people found that a century’s tradition of working-class employment was over. Many were forced to leave the area to find work. Today the borough is graying. Folks in town say it’s a nice place to retire or to raise kids. But kids often feel differently.

  In a corridor leading off the main hall of the Mercer Area Jr/Sr High School hangs the “Academic Hall of Fame.” A photo behind a locked glass case shows Reznor, a 2006 inductee, smiling with an L.A.-tanned face and crisp suit. It was taken during his first return to the school in 23 years, on the invitation of his former band director Dr. Hendley Hoge. Hoge founded the Community Band (in which Trent played), built the band shell in the park, and is now the principal of the school. After the induction ceremony the Sharon Herald ran a complaint that the school shouldn’t honor someone who makes what pop critic Ann Powers has called “nasty” art,35 work that bucks social norms and explores the underbelly of society and the mind. One of the Community Band’s members responded:

  I am a member of the Mercer Community Band and have often seen Reznor’s grandfather wearing a NIN hat and belt buckle. How shocking that he can enjoy the music we play as well as support Trent Reznor’s music career. Oh, wait. He’s proud of the accomplishments made by a family member. Could it simply be that Mercer is proud of its native son’s fame and talent? It is my belief that Mercer has every right to be proud of Mr. Reznor’s accomplishments. From a county whose best-known products are rusted steel plants and the air pollution of two interstate highways, Reznor’s extraordinary talents deserve recognition.36

  That may well be true, but the Mercer County Historical Society has no Nine Inch Nails file, and indeed, they consider Trent just another part of a long line of influential Reznors who have called Mercer home. Trent didn’t even make the Top 10 Famous Mercer Countians as listed in the Herald.37 Those more famous natives included John Armor Bingham, who drafted the 14th Amendment; Fred Houser, who worked on the Manhattan Project; and Štefan Banič, inventor of the parachute.

  Head Like a Hole

  David, 42, Youngstown, Ohio

  David responded to a flyer I passed out at Blossom, a venue in Akron, Ohio, the area where Nine Inch Nails played during its summer of 2006 Inconvenient Truth tour. We met at a Denny’s in Austintown, and over coffee he shared his story. He also brought and showed me his most prized NIN show souvenir: a broken synth key.

  My mom was from the south side of Youngstown. After high school she went to San Francisco, got married, had me, got a divorce, and moved back. When I was 12, she remarried. My stepfather was born in Youngstown and was a schoolteacher in Canfield. But when he met my mom, he was in his 20s and out of work because it was the late seventies and there were no jobs. He went to Texas to work for an overseas construction company called Brown & Root.23 My mom went down there and called to say, “Hey, I got married.” I liked the guy, but it was shocking.

  That was a difficult time in my life. We moved all around and I went to 12 different schools. My junior year, my step-dad took a job in Indonesia, so I went to California to live with my father. Things were going well when his wife—she was the woman he was cheating on my mother with—took me to McDonald’s and told me, “You’re the reason I’m getting a divorce.” She hated kids. She left my father, and then he dated a girl I was in high school with.

  I had a breakdown shortly after that. I had hallucinations, hospitalizations, and was diagnosed as bipolar. I was 16—I was set to go to college—and everything came falling down. You know how in New York City, you’ll see somebody walking the streets and they’re pretty out of it? I was that person: hospitalized, homeless. It’s rare that somebody with the severity of what I had comes back.

  I ended up returning to Youngstown because my mom and stepfather came back. As of 1989, I was in a group home. Around ’91, I was hanging out with guys who were high functioning. We were on disability checks but were able to get an apartment. We didn’t have jobs, and we were hanging out at Denny’s, going to see bands and getting high. We had no purpose, but we were always listening to cassettes, and that was what held us together. We’d go down to [the bar] Cedars, and we were into the local scene big-time. We knew all the cool bands that nobody had heard of.

  My friend had a cassette of Pretty Hate Machine in ’92. It was the most powerful and profound thing I ever heard. To hear what this guy was saying … I was somebody who was in the mental-health system, and I was always trying to reach out of the hole to be normal. My life kind of consisted of partying and not having a good time. I was struggling to really exist and to be somebody. I heard that music and I felt like it became my voice.

  The alternative scene was just catching on. I got so many gifts from that time, like PJ Harvey. Before that was punk—the Misfits and the Sex Pistols. I had the leather jacket, and I’d write things on the back. I felt close to Metallica on … And Justice for All. I heard paranoia and schizophrenia on the song “Dyers Eve”: “Dear Father/What is this hell/ You have put me through?” But that didn’t seem like what Trent was saying. NIN was so heavy, but it was something you could dance to, and headbangers had nothing to dance to. We weren’t too cool that we wouldn’t dance.

  I could relate to music like The Wall when I was institutionalized in state hospitals. But NIN was something different, more one-on-one. Pink Floyd was more of a commercial thing, and Trent seemed to me like a guy over in the other county in Pennsylvania, and we were only a year apart.

  The first song on PHM is “Head Like a Hole.” I think of him in the video. There are blips of jungle people, and you hear that sound: whoo-ooo! It’s like in The Lord of the Rings when they’re going off to war, fists pounding. To hear that song in a club on a good system, just pounding, beating—ah! I think “Head Like a Hole” grabbed me. I mean to hear that forever and ever.

  At that time, I was living in a crappy apartment with little money. Everything was a struggle. To hear him say those lines with such vengeance and to hear that music—it blew me away. He sang, “I’d rather die than give you control.” I could relate. There were so many times I thought I was going to give up, but I would say, “I’d rather die than give you control.” I always said, “By the time I turn 30, if I’m not going to school or working, I’m going to
give up,” but I chose not to.

  The thing that blew me away about NIN was that industrial sound—before I knew of Gary Numan and called it industrial. It was cool to understand what sampling was and to read the liner notes and see that he was using all these snippets of great music from other people. There was a little of everything in his music, like I heard new wave, but I really got that industrial sound, like Ministry and Skinny Puppy. Industrial was like a factory, thumping and pumping. His music was very sexual, too. He was sexual, everything about him. Being bipolar is like that. It comes and goes and when you’re really manic, you feel excited, like a little kid getting toys on Christmas. You don’t want to come down, and you think you’re connected with women sexually.

  It wasn’t just the music that was sexual: it was how he said it. It was weird and kinky and perverted. Lou Reed sang about S&M, but I don’t think there was anything like that in the early nineties. Take, for example, the Broken video, where there’s all this S&M, and the snuff video [for “Down in It”39]. My friend got that tape for us; it was so taboo at the time. It was like, “Wow, somebody’s showing this,” and before it was underground. We were into that scene. We were looking to get high and do anything weird or bizarre. It was an outside stimulant for the mind, what Trent was projecting. When you’re doing all that stuff, you want to take it to another level, and there was something that was kind of giving us ideas.

  I remember the first time I listened to The Downward Spiral—I didn’t like it. It was difficult to listen to. There was a lot more going on, and I had to investigate it. And then I couldn’t stop playing it. It was a story. TDS was released after my NIN friend killed himself (there was nothing related). That guy was special, a great person. He would always put his hand out to people who were a total mess—people you generally don’t associate with—so I tried to take that when he died. He was the guy who was into everything that was cool, and he brought me to my favorite band. So after that—I think he killed himself in ’93, ’94—there was Trent writing about a guy who shoots himself: “So much blood for such a tiny little hole.” I’m not really religious, but I believe, and am grateful that I’m here today, because I attempted suicide once.

  Trent sounded like he was crying out, and you could hear how pissed off he was when he used God and fuck in the same sentence. He said all these horrific things, but when I sang the lines, it made me feel good. Horrible lines about being brokenhearted, being hurt, suicide, you know … “God is dead and no one cares.” It’s like you’re the bad schoolboy and saying to a nun, “Listen to this, Teach!” So many people would say his music’s gloom and doom, but it was the most thrilling days of my life, to see those concerts. There was somebody who was expressing the hurt I felt or the pain I had, and it was good to me.

  Broken and Fixed are my favorite albums. I remember being in my apartment—a guy in his underwear all alone blasting music—and singing “Wish.” I love the rage of it. There wasn’t always a “you,” but many times I imagined that I was singing those songs to a girl who broke my heart. I bet you’ve been there, in your room alone, and whatever emotion comes in feels good to you or maybe hurtful. But that’s okay; it makes you feel. And that’s the essence of any good music, right? It makes you feel—any art, really.

  After my friend’s death, I started to notice that where my friends and I were at was, like, nowhere. We were getting used to collecting our checks and not doing anything. We were like pigs in shit and we were getting comfortable, and I realized that I didn’t want that anymore.

  I didn’t know if I had it in me to get out. I decided to borrow some money and take a class at Youngstown State University, and the next thing you knew, I was there for four years. I took art classes and got good grades. I was hanging out at the group home and met a beautiful girl who worked there, and I ended up marrying her. Since then we’ve been married for 10 years. It was hard, but somehow I came out of all that mess.

  My wife was instrumental, and there were teachers who believed in me. Because of those people, the hospitalizations stopped, and I became everything I hated. I became a productive person in society. Before, we were just punkers on the street and we hated everybody who had a job, but to be honest, we were scared that we couldn’t be part of that. Now I use the word conform in a positive way. I knew then that it was all good for me, but I didn’t want to sell out. One of the few things I held on to was the music. Foremost was NIN.

  My wife and her brothers owned group homes for retarded kids, and she said, “I think you can work in one of these homes.” Work was like a four-letter word to me, but I got training and became good at it. I’ve being doing this job now for 10 years. I enjoy it because in the summer, I get paid to take the kids to go swimming and hang out. I try to respect them, and when they say, “Dave, I can’t do this,” I say, “Sure you can.” I don’t tell them my background, but I have a lot in common with them because of the 15 years that I was in the system. My wife just gave her job up, so for the first time in her life she’s not working, and here I am making decent money. My mom says, “I can’t believe my son …”

  I think of the first song on The Fragile, where Trent sings, “Too fucked up to care anymore.” I can relate to that feeling. While there was more clarity, he was still in a dark place at that time. In my lifetime, sure I’ve been in the shit, pretty fucked up and not caring, and could relate to those things Trent sang about. My passion for NIN will always be there, but it’s not what it used to be. It was all that I held on to once. It’s comforting to remember those times, to remember the struggle and to say, “You’re not there anymore, isn’t that wonderful?” But I don’t mean that about the music, because it takes me back to that place, as miserable or as fascinating as that time was.

  I won’t let go of it, because nothing else has grabbed me and touched me. When Trent sang, “It took you,” in concert, I pointed at him. “It took you to make me realize/It took you to make me see the light.” He’s not Jesus, but for me, “the light” was the wrong or who was wronging me. I think I solved a lot of my problems, or pondered them, while listening to Trent. “It took you” to make me pull myself out.

  I’m glad he’s been clean for a while. I went through years of addiction, but I don’t regret it. Hopefully he’s a better person for going through it. I was mentally ill for a big part of my life, and while I’m not ecstatic about it, I’m glad it shaped me into who I am today. My idol was a drug user, and now he’s clean and square. That doesn’t change anything or bother me. Now he looks like Henry Rollins, Glenn Danzig—good for him. We all gotta grow up sometime.

  Terrible Lie

  Adam, 24, Youngstown, Ohio

  Adam was referred to me by the younger brother of my high school best friend. We met and talked in the computer room at his parents’ house in Boardman, Ohio, the suburb in which we both grew up.

  I was born in Youngstown and have lived there all my life. My mom worked at Minnesota Fabrics and my dad had some government job, and then he became a newspaper truck driver. Throughout elementary school, I was a huge Weird Al Yankovic and Michael Jackson fan. I was a big Kiss fan in middle school and was also into pro wrestling, so I guess I liked theatrical things. I got into the guitar at 12, and I’m sure I thought of myself someday being like Ace Frehley or Paul Stanley.

  When I was in middle school, my parents took me to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where I saw the Aladdin Sane latex bodysuit and a Ziggy Stardust costume with outrageous bell-bottoms, the one Bowie wore along with a big jewel on his head. I liked Bowie visually, what he symbolized: androgyny.

  I never really fit in or got into the sanctioned topics for kids at Boardman. I was drawn to things that were alternatives. Bowie really affirmed something about being different. Around that time, I started growing long hair and shopping at this store Wyld Stylz, later called the Anti-Mall. I remember in the window there was an airbrushed shirt of a cowgirl with her leg up, in some red, skimpy outfit. I went into the store in sixth grade, trying to loo
k like I belonged there. I liked band T-shirts and vintage velour shirts, stuff that would make me look like Led Zeppelin. I was too young to be friends with the people who worked there, but they knew me. I’d go just to hang out. Mary, the owner, was into industrial and goth music. It wasn’t the stuff that I would listen to and buy. What I listened to had to have catchiness, even if it were heavy. That music was more abrasive, experimental. I always liked kooky music.

  There was a mass migration of my friends toward growing long hair and smoking. There were increasing levels of tension about it, and then my mom said I wasn’t allowed to hang out with some of my friends, and she took my Ozzy, Iron Maiden, Nirvana, and Marilyn Manson CDs. I guess she thought music was making me depressed, because Iron Maiden songs had references to Satan (even though it was kind of silly) and because Kurt Cobain killed himself. I don’t think I understood it then, but I have a better understanding of mental illness now. I thought that was how life was: depressing. There are causes, but it’s also biological. Music played a part in helping with it. Like instead of going to counseling, you listened to something that counseled you through your problems by people who knew about them.

  I first heard PHM in Wyld Stylz, and I bought NIN stuff pretty quickly. All my friends listened to it. I had pictures of Trent in my locker in middle and high school. I wanted to look like him. I thought that I could because I have dark hair and I could grow it in a similar fashion. It seemed like the alternative girls all really liked Trent. I always wanted the pants he was wearing on the inside cover of PHM, but I could never find out what kind they were. I liked how he seemed pretty intense, like somehow his passions were above the normal human’s passions. He had, like, an aura about him that came through in his vocal delivery. There was something hypnotic about his gaze or just the way he looked.