Trent Reznor Biography

Fast Facts

• Raised by his maternal grandparents after his parents divorced
• Started playing piano at 5 years old
• His hero as a child was Steve Austin, the main character in The Six Million Dollar Man
• He later used Steve Austin as an alias for hotels while on tour
• Played tenor sax in his high school's jazz and marching bands
• Appeared in high-school productions of Jesus Christ Superstar (as Judas) and The Music Man (as Professor Harold Hill)
• Left college after a year and relocated to Cleveland in order to pursue music full-time
• Appeared in the movie Light of Day with Michael J
• Fox and Joan Jett in a bar scene with a fictional band called the Problems
• Worked as a janitor and assistant engineer at Right Track, a Cleveland recording studio
• The owner allowed him to record during off-hours
• Participated in the first Lollapalooza tour
• Fought for his release from the TVT record label after it attempted to exert control over his follow-up to the million-selling debut Nine Inch Nails album Pretty Hate Machine
• He eventually signed with Interscope
• Signed Marilyn Manson to his nascent label, Nothing Records, in 1993 and produced Manson's breakthrough 1996 album Antichrist Superstar
• Assembled the soundtrack for the movie Natural Born Killers
• Wrote the song "Hurt," a minor hit in 1995 that was later covered by Johnny Cash