Trent Reznor is a man whose reputation and genius truly precede him. Since forming Nine Inch Nails in 1988, the group has sold over 20 million records, including landmark albums Pretty Hate Machine and The Downward Spiral.

Currently attending to the bass role for the industrial rock band’s Peel It Back tour is the multi-talented Stu Brooks, who replaced longtime bassist Alessandro Cortini earlier this year. Luckily, in drummer Josh Freese and guitarist Robin Finck, Brooks has two dedicated role models.

“Josh and Robin are longtime friends,” says Brooks. “We’d previously formed a band for Danny Elfman’s Coachella performance in 2020, which was postponed due to the pandemic. Instead we ended up recording Danny’s record Big Mess.

“I then had the privilege of producing a companion release, Bigger. Messier., which included collaborations with Trent Reznor on True and Native Intelligence. That was my first introduction to Trent.”

Defining a place in a band as celebrated as Nine Inch Nails may seem a near-impossible task, especially given that his predecessors include the likes of Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Pino Palladino, Danny Lohner, Jeordie White and Eric Avery, but Brooks was more than up to the challenge, proving once again that Reznor’s instinct for spotting talent is as keen as ever.

“I actually feel like I’ve been molded for this gig. Trent has been an influence on me from the beginning of my career, and I’ve known these songs for years. That’s not to say it isn’t still a very challenging gig. I certainly had a ton of homework to do, but it has all felt very natural.

“The team has made me feel like I’m right where I belong. I’m super-grateful for that, and I’m excited to see the band get better and better.”

Diving into an experimental mix of sounds, Brooks displays the kind of creativity and restraint that had previously defined his role within Elfman’s band, but has still found a way to carve his own distinctive voice within the mix.

“Trent gave me the opportunity to experiment in preparation for the tour, but if there was something that needed adjustments he would always chime in. His ears are so dialed.

“I had some freedom to come up with new bass parts for Heresy and Copy of A. We went back and forth a bit and eventually came up with a unique arrangement that’s specific for this tour.”

Add to this the fact that tuning varies from song to song, and that Brooks is often obliged to switch from guitar to bass to keyboards.

“For this tour I need to cover guitar, synth, piano and bass parts, not to mention vocals. I jump from guitar to bass guitar on Mr. Self Destruct, and Reptile is another one that’s busy with a whole array of samples and synths.

“Gave Up is super-fun having to multi-task between guitar and synth parts, and playing piano on Hurt is devastatingly beautiful.”

And what of the Nine Inch Nails bass sound?

“I’ve been able to utilize the team: Jamie Pollack at front of house, Connor Hawkins at monitors, Dustin Mosley, my tech Edward Mendoza, and of course Robin Finck and Atticus Ross. They have all helped out with tones on bass.

“Sound design is a huge part of this gig, but the experience has been highly collaborative, with patience, attention to detail, and nuance that have been truly inspiring and will undoubtedly leave a lasting impression on me.”

What was it like preparing for the tour?

Robin and I literally went knee to knee with our guitars for a couple of weeks and went over everything that I had prepped. He knows the material so intimately that by the end of those practice sessions with him I had come a long way.

We then took it to a sound stage with a PA, added our techs to the mix and started focusing in on “the rig” and sound design. We prepped about 40 songs.

After about a week of that we had tech rehearsals with the audio crew and the rest of the band. Then we moved it to New Orleans and rehearsed a couple of times at the venue, adding lights and visuals. It was a very well organized and gradual ramp up to the first show.

What’s been your most memorable moment so far?

That first show was such a giant shot of adrenaline and it was such a huge relief to have it under my belt. I had a quiet moment after the show by myself, reflecting and full of gratitude, savouring the moment.

What’s been the biggest challenge?

To be completely honest, I’d say the time leading up to the first rehearsal was the hardest part. Staying confident in myself, keeping anxiety at bay and fighting off any negative thought patterns. I’ve done a lot of work on that over the past few months and I have a grown a lot.

How have you approached the gig?

I’m aiming to replicate the studio albums as accurately as possible, while naturally incorporating some of my own personality. The exciting aspect of Nine Inch Nails is the diverse styles and range present in their catalog. I’ve always been a big fan of Danny Lohner’s and if I can incorporate just a percentage of his spirit on stage then I’m happy.

What’s your bass and pedal setup for this tour?

The pedal setup is all Neural DSP Quad Cortex into a Jad Freer Sisma. There are no actual stompboxes. That really helps with the consistency element.

I needed a different bass for every tuning and some with Hipshot detuners, so I’ve been using several P-Basses. Fender’s new American Pro II is ridiculously good. I’m using those, along with a couple vintage P’s from 1978.

I love LaBella’s Olinto basses and I’m using a couple of those as well. I’m also using the new Yamaha Broadbass BB734A. Peter Hook always used the BB basses and his name is referenced all the time.

I’ve always used LaBella strings, and for this gig I have these on all the basses: RX-S4D Rx Stainless, 45-65-85-105.

I’m also playing some baritone guitar, but for guitar I’m mostly playing a Gibson Les Paul Black Beauty. James Carbonetti, who is part of the LaBella and Olinto family, also made me an incredible guitar called a Moonphase.

You’ve also worked with the likes of Lady Gaga, Mary J Blige, Lauryn Hill and 50 Cent – what would you count as your highlights?

50 Cent was actually the sponsor for my first artist visa to the USA. Around that time, I was also working on demos with Stefani Germanotta, and midway through the project she changed her name to Lady Gaga.

Being there at the beginning of her career, watching her get signed and then have the career that she’s had has been amazing to watch.

I’ve also been playing with Dominic Fike for around 4 or 5 years. He’s incredibly talented, and his voice is like a soothing ASMR experience for me. His entire journey is so unique, and I’m so grateful to be a part of it.

Joining Danny Elfman’s band in early 2020 was another career highlight. When I was working with him for his Bigger Messier record, I had the chance to put together an entire album that led to collaborations with Squarepusher, Iggy Pop, Death Grips, Scientist, and Ghostemane. We have a record that we have been working on coming out in the Fall of 2026 on Sumerian records.

Do you feel your experience as a composer and producer has helped your bass playing to develop in a more musical way?

Absolutely! It’s a constant challenge to strike the right balance between keeping things simple and making them engaging. Knowing when to stay supportive and when to really let the bass shine is key.

Producing and arranging in the studio are great ways to hone that skill. It helps you understand dynamics, the flow of a song, how to blend with other instruments, and how to create tones that sit well in the mix.

Where can we hear more of your music?

I recently returned from Jamaica where I recorded a bunch of tunes with the late drummer and producer Sly Dunbar. We recorded in his studio at Anchor Studios and the legendary Tuff Gong Studios. I will be including that on the solo stuff I’ve been working on.

Last year I released an album under my name on Dine Alone Records that features collaborations between me and Flowdan, Richard Divine, Machine Girl, HR of Bad Brains, Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy, Paul Leary of Butthole Surfers, Scientist, Twin Shadow, Fever 333, N8NOFACE, and more.

My most recent release is a collaboration between me and N8NOFACE called Bad Man Back Again, which I produced with Dustin Mosley. He has been working with Nine Inch Nails in the studio and as a tech for 20 years now.

If you had some lasting advice for bass players, what would it be?

One of the most important things about being a bassist is to stay true to your personality and let your life and musical journey come through in your bass playing.

Stay authentic to your true self. Be confident in that, but remain humble and gracious. Be respectful and treat people with dignity and respect.

Adrian Belew has opened up on his 1990s collaboration with Nine Inch Nails, admitting he had no idea who the band were before heading into the studio with Trent Reznor.

Alongside his work with King Crimson, the prog electric guitar great also carved out a prolific session career, working with a huge list of big-name artists from the likes of Paul Simon and David Bowie all the way to Tom Tom Club and Talking Heads.

His collaboration with Nine Inch Nails, though, is up there as one of his more adventurous partnerships. In the early 1990s, when Trent Reznor was putting together the project’s second record, The Downward Spiral, Belew was brought on board to provide guitars.

However, when he received the call, he needed to be convinced by his manager before he was fully onboard.

“I had no idea who Nine Inch Nails were. To be honest, my manager had to talk me into this one,” Belew remembers in an interview with Vulture. “He said, ‘No man, these guys are doing really well. They’ve got a big following. You should go check it out and talk to this guy named Trent Reznor.’

“I was in Los Angeles and had my gear, so there was no reason not to. I drove up to this house, and it was very strange-looking. It had a big electric fence around it and every single window was blacked out, but it looked like a farmhouse.”

Belew’s early reservations quickly evaporated, and before long he was deep in Nine Inch Nails territory. So deep, in fact, that he can’t recall the ins and outs of the sessions. He can’t even remember how long he was in the studio with Reznor.

“I went in and we started working right off the bat. I don’t even know how long I was there – they brought in food and we never left, we just kept plowing through music.

Trent wanted me to check out all of his songs and would ask, “Is there anything you’d like to do in this? Is anything inspiring you?” He was pretty quiet, but quietly intense. He had a group of guys around him, kind of like his own posse who did different things. That became The Downward Spiral. I later found out the place we were recording was the Sharon Tate house.”

The collaboration proved to be so effective that plans were mooted for Belew to join Reznor for a Nine Inch Nails tour: “I was going to go on tour with them, but Trent changed his mind, so that didn’t work out,” Belew reveals. “I think it was for the better. But I still love him.”

Belew’s resumé isn’t short of A-list collaborators. He also once worked on one of Mariah Carey’s Number One hit singles – but, as he once told Guitar World, he had no idea about the song’s success until a fan once asked him to sign a copy of the CD.

Nine Inch Nails have unveiled their new bass guitar player, with Stu “Bassie” Brooks making his live debut at the industrial-rock icons’ show in New Orleans last night (February 5).

Brooks comes heavily credentialed. He is the co-founder of Dub Trio, has a string of high-profile pop collaborations that include Lady Gaga, Mary J. Blige, Lauryn Hill, and 50 Cent, and he even sat in with the Saturday Night Live house band. You might also recognize him from Danny Elfman’s 2021 solo album, Big Mess.

According to Bass Magazine, he has been in rehearsals with the NIN camp for some time now, which we would imagine is a considerable undertaking.

NIN frontman/leader Trent Reznor put together an epic 21-track set for the show, opening with Something I Can Never Have on the B-stage, playing Non-Entity for the first time since 2009, and then there was hit after hit after hit (Wish, March of the Pigs, Reptile, and so on).

What can NIN fans expect from Brooks? Well, he has a reputation for having a thick, plummy, treacle-thick bass tone, pure dub on four strings. He’s also a producer, too, so he knows how to put a track together, put something down on tape.

In a 2022 interview with EarthQuaker Devices, Brooks explained how he got his sound. The bad news for those who like their bass set up all slinky is that the strings are heavy.

“My approach to getting a good dub tone has definitely changed over the years,” said Brooks. “But first, I would say get some LaBella flatwound strings. I love the La Bella 0760M Deep Talkin’ Bass 1954 Stainless Flat Wound 52-110 set. Those are heavy gauged! That’s actually the very same string set that James Jamerson used.”

Brooks described his tone as “woofy, round, and sometimes wooly” and said that he would use a Gibson EB-2 or a Höfner bass for old-school reggae – a Fender Jazz Bass set up once more with flatwound bass strings and played through an Aguilar preamp gives him a more modern dub tone.

Are the Nine Inch Nails too animalistic, too mechanistic, for recontextualizing the ür-Motown Records bass tone? Maybe. But then Brooks has the pedals to switch things up. He has form for applying them in radical ways.

With Dub Trio, he would sometimes put the front-of-house mix through an EQD Bit Commander, which strikes us as the kind of power-move that would have got Mr Reznor’s attention.

“That was one of the most brutal sounds I’ve ever achieved with a band,” he said. “It was on the song Noise off of the album IV.”

Former Poison and Mr. Big guitarist Richie Kotzen has revealed he nearly joined Nine Inch Nails after blowing Trent Reznor away during a surprise audition.

In a story that feels like an alternative reality fever dream, the guitarist – who is currently on the promo trail for his second album with Iron Maiden riff-slinger Adrian Smith – could have taken a rather different career path in the early 2000s.

“The closest band that I ever came to joining was Nine Inch Nails, and nobody knows that,” he confesses to Hot Metal.

The worlds of Richie Kotzen and Trent Reznor may feel far removed, but it turns out that bassist Jeordie White (AKA Twiggy Ramirez), who was plying his low-end trade in NIN at the time, was a mutual friend.

“He said to me, 'Listen, you've got to come down. We're having a hard time finding a guitar player,'” Kotzen recalls. “So I went down to Third Encore [rehearsal studio in North Hollywood] and spent the day.

“Trent told me, 'You're by far the best guy that we've tried. I would love to have you in the band. I'm gonna have my manager reach out to you.' And I left that day thinking, 'Wow, okay, I'm gonna join another band.”

Kotzen, however, never got that call.

“A week went by. And then another week went by,” he continues. “I ran into Jeordie and I said, 'What happened?' He said [Reznor] didn't want to open up Rolling Stone magazine and see [the headline], 'Nine Inch Nails gets former Poison guitar player, Richie Kotzen'. He didn't want the association with a hair metal band in that camp.”

Kotzen had joined Poison in 1991 and featured on Native Tongue two years later.

“You know, aesthetically, when you think about the fanbase and you think about how people would read into something... I could see the point,” Kotzen continues. “So I jokingly said, 'Hey, I'll do it under an alias,' because I wasn't doing anything at the time and I think he's a genius and I would have loved to have worked with him.

“That wasn't the first time that that stopped me going in one direction or the other,” Kotzen adds. “On the other side of the coin, I don't regret having been a part of Poison, because I think we made a really great record. And so I would much rather have that record... than have done any of the other stuff that I could have done.

“But that's kind of how the music business is. It's not just about the music, a lot of people listen with their eyes. And it's unfortunate in a situation like that. But it is a reality.”

We’ll just have to file this in the ‘What could have been’ folder, alongside former Ozzy guitarist Gus G turning down auditions for Megadeth and Machine Head, and Kiko Loureiro pushing for Marty Friedman’s return to Dave Mustaine’s band following his departure.

Meanwhile, Harvey Mandel says he nearly became a Rolling Stone, believing he was better suited to the job than Ronnie Wood, and Lita Ford nearly joined Led Zeppelin.

Lollapalooza 1991 may have been headlined by Jane’s Addiction, but every Gen Xer in attendance left the alternative festival’s first iteration with the same three words on their lips: Nine Inch Nails.

Trent Reznor’s burgeoning industrial rock outfit would take to the stage at 4pm, while the sun was still up, and tear through tracks from debut album Pretty Hate Machine, before taking out the angst accumulated throughout their set on their equipment.

By all accounts, it was a sight to behold. Dave Navarro branded their sets “one of the most exciting things that I’d ever seen”. Tom Morello succinctly summarized, “Nine Inch Nails kicked everybody’s ass.”

In this exclusive extract from Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival – the latest tell-all book from Guitar World writers and Nothin’ But a Good Time authors Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour – the full story behind NIN’s tumultuous sets is laid bare: the frantic music store dashes to buy more cheap guitars to destroy; the last-minute repairs; and that time Body Count smashed a pricey Gibson by mistake.

But as Trent Reznor observes, it’s a sacrifice worth making in the name of art.

“I am not going to be pretentious enough to say I never realized that if I break things it gets reactions. It is entertainment, right? That’s the bottom line.”

RICHARD PATRICK (guitarist, Nine Inch Nails) Job number one on Lollapalooza was to be as punk as fuck. We were absolutely dedicated to total mayhem and anarchy. Trent would tackle me several times during the show, I would throw beers at him, I would throw beers at the audience. It was the most decadent, crazy, do-not-give-a-fuck thing.

FRITZ MICHAUD (monitor engineer, Nine Inch Nails) I had to cover every single monitor wedge with Visqueen plastic wrap and duct-tape it on there every show, because Trent would throw beer and water in the crowd all day long, and he would immediately throw it right into the monitors if I didn’t cover them. Then the horns would stop working and the monitors would sound like there was a blanket over them.

JON KLEIN (guitarist, Siouxsie and the Banshees; touring guitarist, Sinéad O'Connor) They’d be filling the keyboards up with beer and smashing them, busting the guitars up…

MARK O’SHEA (tour manager, Nine Inch Nails) Trent was throwing Richard around onstage, yelling at the crowd, “Come on, you fuckers! Let’s go!” Just working the audience up.

TRENT REZNOR (singer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, Nine Inch Nails) The show developed as we got more angry at the audience and they liked it. And then it got more abusive and dangerous and they seemed to like us more.

RICHARD PATRICK My knees are still fucked up from that tour. I actually had to have back surgery because I walked with a limp for, like, ten years. Because my whole right leg was just whaled on. Chiropractors and doctors were like, “How long did you play college football?” I’d go, “It wasn’t college football. It was Trent Reznor.”

JON KLEIN They had this thing where every time they’d turn up in town, the crew would go out and buy cheap secondhand guitars and keyboards.

MARKY RAY (guitar tech, Nine Inch Nails, 1991; roadie, Ministry, 1992) So what happened was, on a day off, Mark O’Shea would give me a couple grand in cash. And we’re in the middle of America. Lollapalooza was the stay-forty-five-minutes-outside-of-every-major- city-in-America-tour, okay? So we’re at the Great Woods in Mansfield [Massachusetts]. We’re at Waterloo Village in New Jersey. We’re at Blossom Music Center outside of Cleveland, where I live.

They’d give me money and I would have to call up a pawnshop, a music store, find whatever was open. And remember, this is pre-internet. No cell phones, no anything. I’m calling on a landline using the Yellow Pages in a hotel room. I’d be like, “Do you have any…” We always needed to have a Kramer, a Schecter, a Jackson, a Charvel Charvette, some cheap student-line guitar.

MARK O’SHEA As long as we could get something with great pickups in it, which most of those guitars at the time had, we were good to go.

MARKY RAY So I’d be at a hotel in the middle of nowhere, I’d have to get to an airport, rent a car, drive into the city with my two thousand dollars in cash, find a pawnshop, and go, “How much you want for these five Charvels and a Schecter?” “Two grand? Here you go.” Then I’d take all the guitars – no cases, not even strung – throw them in the trunk, drive back to the venue, and set them up. And we had one song in the set, Ringfinger, that Trent would smash the guitar.

CHRIS HASKETT (guitarist, Rollins Band) I’d be on the bus with poor Marky Ray, who was having to rebuild guitars that Richie Patrick and Trent had smashed that day, getting them ready and working for the next day.

MARKY RAY The other thing I’d do is I’d go out there like the guy cleaning up shit after the elephants and take all the broken parts and literally put them in a trash can that Kevin Lyman and I would throw on the back of the semis at the end of the night.

And yes, we learned how to fix guitar necks so they could use them the next day. And that consisted of, you take a broken neck and you throw as much wood glue as you can in there, and then you C-clamp it, and then you run drywall screws countersunk on either side of the truss rod, and then you break off the ends on the back of the neck and sand them down, and then you sit ’em overnight, and you can restring ’em just enough that they’ll hold for maybe a song. Maybe. And those would be some of the guitars I would hand to Trent to smash.

RICHARD PATRICK Trent always wanted to raise the bar higher. He would be hyper-focused on trying to figure out different ways to elevate the show. We still had the punk ethic of “Fuck you, we’ve got a lot to prove.” It wasn’t the fully realized thing that Nine Inch Nails became. We were paying our dues, but at the same time, we were very, very, very confident as to what was going on. We knew we were the shit.

MISSY WORTH (marketing consultant, Lollapalooza 1991) I was the promoter at the venue in Ohio [the Blossom Music Center], and Nine Inch Nails is from Cleveland and had not played Cleveland in forever. We all kept telling the venue, “You need more security than you’ve got.” But also, “The security has to be really cool. They can’t just go crazy.” So Nine Inch Nails starts playing… and the place goes fucking wild. Everyone from the lawn is now in the seats. Everyone is everywhere.

MARK O’SHEA Basically they came down en masse, and you could see all the ushers literally turn sideways, like a turnstile gate. They just let everybody run down.

MISSY WORTH This is mayhem that you’re not gonna fix. You lost the venue. Like, “Holy fuck!” Now all you can do is pray and hope that no one’s getting hurt. And thankfully no one did. It was probably the most fun I’ve ever had at a show. And it was my own show.

MARK O’SHEA The Cleveland show is where Eric Avery and Dave Navarro were encouraged to come out and play guitar on Head Like a Hole.

DAVE NAVARRO (guitarist, Jane’s Addiction) We smashed guitars, we did a lot of stage diving and banging into each other and just the whole thing that was going on with them at the time.

MARK O’SHEA There was this mass of people up front, so Eric and Dave smashed their guitars and then dove into the audience. Then Trent stage dives. Then Richard stage dives. Next thing you know, I’m in the audience and I’m trying to grab Richard and throw him back up onstage. When I finally pulled him out, he had nothing left but his combat boots and his tighty-whities.

MARKY RAY The Head Like a Hole thing, during the course of the shows, Fritz and I started playing on that song. I think the first time we did it was at Sandstone Amphitheater, near Kansas City. We came up onstage, and all the crews and bands lost their shit. They were like, “Oh my god, that’s so cool! You guys played live auxiliary guitar on Head Like a Hole!”

After that, it was open season. Everybody wanted to do it. The next thing you know, Eric and Dave were playing. Ernie C from Body Count. The Butthole Surfers. Ice-T would come up to me and he’d be like, “Marky Ray, I want to smash a guitar.” And I’d go, “But Ice, man, it’s the last one I got.” Then John Malm would say, “Marky Ray, give Ice-T a guitar.” I’d hand him a guitar, and he’d go out onstage and wouldn’t even plug it in. He just acted like he was playing, like blinka… smash!

JON KLEIN The last Lollapalooza show Nine Inch Nails did, Dave Navarro gave me his video camera and said, “A load of us are going to jam, ’cause they’ve invited us to smash guitars up.” And I sat on the side of the stage filming it for Dave. And what I remember is all the usual suspects come out and grab a guitar. And then one of the big Body Count geezers comes out. And it’s like, “Oh, this looks interesting…”

Zoom in on him. He wasn’t the kind of guy that you’d normally see picking up a guitar. And he walks up, walks straight past the rack of cheap guitars, grabs one of Trent’s really expensive ones and turns it into matchwood. I seem to remember it was a Gibson Explorer that he smashed up that night.

MARKY RAY Henry [Rollins] would sit there on our bus, incensed, going, “How can a guy break a fifteen-hundred-dollar Explorer? What kid wouldn’t give his right nut for something like that?”

RICHARD PATRICK We just did not give a fuck. We were just out to satisfy our animal instincts onstage. I think we spent forty thousand dollars on gear that we smashed on Lollapalooza.

Excerpted from LOLLAPALOOZA: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival by Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour © 2025 by the authors and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Press.

• Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival is out on March 25, and available to preorder from Amazon.

As musical director for Beck, one of alternative rock's most progressive acts, Justin Meldal-Johnsen was driven to master his voice as a low-end interlocutor, free to cast his wildly inventive basslines in fresh, funky tones.

Through his work with Air, Ima Robot, Macy Gray, Gnarls Barkley, Nelly Furtado, Garbage, Pink, Ladytron, They Might Be Giants, and Goldfrapp, Meldal-Johnsen has shown that his range as a bassist is rivalled only by his versatility as a player – in the broader sense – on the business side of music.

He has produced too many hip alternative acts to mention, and worked as A&R rep for Dangerbird Records, an independent label with releases from Eric Avery, Sea Wolf, and Silversun Pickups.

Back in May 2007, a serendipitous twist in Meldal-Johnsen's career took place when his fan letter to industrial music icon Trent Reznor (following Reznor's free online release of The Slip) resulted in an invite to join Nine Inch Nails. That it happened the very week he and Beck decided to suspend their longtime working relationship is fitting for a bass man who's among the busiest in the business.

“I downloaded The Slip the day it came out,” Meldal-Johnsen told Bass Player. “I got so excited about it I decided to write to Trent. I wrote something along the lines of, ‘Hey Trent – I'm Justin, bass player for Beck, and I just wanted to let you know as a peer that I'm really digging how lean and focused the album is. I like it. Thanks for the free record.’

“A few days later, Beck told me he needed to restructure his band to make it more lo-fi than what we'd been doing. Then I got a call from Trent's manager, who asked, ‘Are you at all interested in being in a big rock band?’ Then Trent called and said, ‘I've been hearing about you for years, and you come really highly recommended. I think we should meet.’

“After meeting, he emailed me a list of songs to learn, and I came in to audition. I rocked out, and they were stoked. Trent asked, ‘Who wants Justin in the band?’ and they all raised their hands. We talked some logistics and we were done. A few days later, I was digging into the setlist for a world tour!”

The following Bass Player interview took place in October 2008.

From a playing perspective, what's it like being part of a Nine Inch Nails production?

“I can't even tell you, It turns up the volume on your whole emotional landscape. I'm like a wide-eyed kid. When everybody on board is contributing to the same goal, it creates an almost military mentality. That's what I like most about touring. I like exciting large groups of people, and I like working in an army.”

What makes you the right person for this gig?

“Trent is looking to achieve a new level of musical flexibility in his band. We're going to be rendering material he's never done, and the savvy he needs spans from sensitive arco upright bass to synth programs and larger sound design. Trent needs musicianship, but he doesn't just need a great rock bass player; he needs something broader, and that's what I bring.”

“Another thing is more basic – a clear, drug-free persona, because that's the way he rolls. We're all grown men, and we want to do this really well. We're pros, you know? Punctuality, preparedness, a direct understanding of the human-to-gear interface – he needs all that.”

How did you approach designing your bass sounds in this new setting?

“Trent would give me a daily assignment of three or four songs to learn. I would go home, chart them, and play them until I didn't need the chart anymore. I would think of the tone and make notes on the chart of what I might want to drum up with pedals and amps. Then I'd come in and dial up sounds.

“Trent would occasionally make comments like, ‘That should sound zingier’, or ‘brighter’, or ‘dirtier’, and in minutes I'd have a whole different sound for him. I'd take digital photos of the settings to keep track.”

What basses do you have in your touring rig?

“I have a custom Fender Jaguar with two P-Bass pickups. I bought three Gibson Thunderbirds and modified them with new old-stock '70s pickups, Badass bridges, bone nuts, and Grover tuners. They have a twangy-ness that I love – a Rickenbacker-like sprang – and they’re woofy on the very bottom.

“The American Standard P-Bass I have has a lively sound and a lot of sustain, and the Jaguar is like a thicker Jazz Bass. For me, the sound of Nine Inch Nails comes from the Jaguar and Geddy Lee basses.”

You're playing challenging material from the instrumental Nine Inch Nails release, Ghosts I-IV.

“There are some songs we think are transcendent and interesting, and others that might not go over that great because they are dramatic in a way that might be too subtle for the audience. It's a grand experiment, and it's what gives us a lot of drive for this tour.

“When we started busting it out in rehearsal, we realized we could essentially do modern chamber music in a way that could blow some minds. I'm playing upright bass, electric bass, mandolin, electric guitar, a Guild acoustic bass guitar, and keyboards. It's kind of a new frontier, and – sink or swim – we're excited.”

How much freedom is there for you in Nine Inch Nails?

“Not a lot. In Nine Inch Nails, the bass parts are bass parts. But as the days go on, I'm adding my own personal inflection, and Trent welcomes that. It just needs to be done with taste and discretion.”

You're also singing on a lot of songs.

“Back when I first started with Beck, he asked me, ‘Do you sing?’ I said no, and he said, ‘Good. Here are the parts.’ With nearly everything I've done since then, there's always been vocals. I'm not a great singer, but I enjoy trying.

“In Nine Inch Nails there are a lot of odd times or oblique phrases in the bass, and singing over them has been a real pat-your-head, rub-your-tummy thing. It's a beast, but it's nothing people haven't done before.”

How do you view the state of the music industry and your place in it?

“Record sales are abysmal, labels are contracting if not closing, and no-one's signing any big advances anymore, things are in a poor state. But I've been doing better each year, probably by the virtue of my love for playing.”

As far as anti-heroes go, back in the '90s, Filter's Richard Patrick had it going on.

Be it his deeply brooding personality, angular approach to the guitar, or his early association with Trent Reznor through his tenure with NIN, Patrick – along with a few others – treated the guitar heroics of the '80s as nothing more than dirt on the bottom of his Doc Martens.

Records like Short Bus (1995) and Title of Record (1999) read back as classics loaded with gems that defined '90s alt-rock like few others. And, sure, Patrick is proud of his accomplishments, but that doesn't mean he's resting on his laurels.

In fact, according to Patrick, Filter's latest, The Algorithm, stands chest to chest with anything he's done prior.

"I had a lot of fun, and I think The Algorithm is right there with Title of Record, Short Bus, or The Amalgamut aka, 'the classic records'," Patrick says. "But if I had to pick my definitive statement, aside from The Algorithm, I'd pick Title of Record."

"Title of Record encapsulates everything this band is known for and can do. You've got Take a Picture, Welcome to the Fold, I'm Not the Only One, and a ton of songs that have really held up. And that's why I'm so excited about The Algorithm because, in a bunch of years, I think people will be talking about it in the same way."

Patrick's sentiments seem in line, as The Algorithm is filled with the frantic sounds that once made Patrick a staple of terrestrial radio and VH1's Pop Up Video.

A combination of cutting-edge tech and classic guitars keeps Filter's signature sound in the present, Patrick explains.

"I have a whole arsenal of stuff that I have inside my computer, like Universal Audio presets, Marshall amp simulator, and a ton of amazing plugins," he reveals.

"That stuff aside, I have a variety of guitars that I use, but my most-used is this Telecaster that I've had forever. It's got a Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis pickup in it, which, to me, is basically the sound of the '90s. It's super-high gain and pairs so well with the Bogner and Bad Cat amps that we used. But as far as writing, I try and go with stuff that sounds like it's ready and that I can record right away."

In support of The Algorithm, Filter's Richard Patrick dialed in with Guitar World to dig into his creative process, his 'punk rock' approach to guitar, and working and reuniting with NIN's Trent Reznor.

Tell me about Filter's latest record, The Algorithm. 

"I was calling it Rebus, which was the sequel to Short Bus, but that ended up not happening because there were some issues with PledgeMusic, who was supposed to be funding it. They collapsed, and the whole thing fell through, and then I was calling it They Got Us Right Where They Want Us, but they didn't stick, either. In the end, I spent a lot of time thinking, working on these songs via my computer, synthesizing my guitars, and basically drowning myself in this music."

What were some of the challenges of putting this record together primarily by yourself, as opposed to the '90s when you presumably had a full band behind you?

"For starters, the budgets are different [laughs]. Back in the '90s, heavy rock music was the big-selling thing, but not so much now. This was before music piracy and the absolute slaughter that happened over the last several years when budgets dried up. Now I have to be way thriftier, and I only really keep this running by doing film scores. 

"Without the side hustle, I don't know if I'd even be able to make new Filter records anymore. For example, Title of Record had a $1,000,000 budget, but with this new record, I had maybe $20,000. That's why I'm so proud of this– I made something that sits alongside those old albums and did so by overcoming the obstacle of budgetary limitations."

Is harnessing the classic Filter guitar sound on a shoestring budget difficult?

"The truth is that I've always been a cheater [laughs]. I've always used amp simulators, guitar processors, and all kinds of shit like that. I tracked everything, but was a bit too sloppy, so I had my good friend Jonny Radtke come in and re-track everything for me. He took my parts and re-recorded them in a single afternoon. Having Jonny there to clean things up was important because I've always been very punk rock and pretty sloppy."

Why do you feel you're sloppy, and how have you evolved since your heyday?

"I just think my style is so rooted in punk rock like Joe Strummer, but also heavy metal like Dimebag Darrell. I'm not saying I'm as good as either of those guys, but that's where I take a lot of inspiration from. When Filter plays live, I do this weird solo where I go bonkers, do dive bombs, and am feeding back all over the place while also fucking going crazy with the whammy bar; it's nuts. 

"I'm not a technical or amazing player, but I fucking feel it, you know? I have spirit. I like to find this out there, weird shit, and it doesn't matter if I'm a poor player or whatever; I'll take my spirit and caring about what I'm doing over being technically gifted. I've always been that way, and I don't think that will ever leave me, man."

That same spirit probably attracted Trent Reznor to you.

"Yeah, man, that's true. My ethic and ethos are deeply rooted in punk rock, but I also grabbed all kinds of crazy shit from Skinny Puppy, Dimebag, Joe Strummer, and even fucking Mick Taylor [laughs]. I'm all over the place. I'll do a dive bomb out of nowhere in the name of art, and I'm okay with that. It doesn't need to be perfect or technical; leave it alone, you know? 

I see that shit as perfect and exactly as it should be. So, my guitar playing is a lot of 'fuck you,' and that's what Trent saw in me. He loved the fact that I had that sort of attitude. He gave me a place to shine, and I felt nothing but gratitude. But I'm still all about the same craziness, feedback, and locking into some sort of fucking power groove."

You reunited with Trent and NIN in the fall of 2022. How did that come about?

"That was one of the greatest moments that I've ever had on stage in my life. The crowd was amazing and so receptive. Trent asked me to sing Eraser, and I barely got through it because I had tears in my eyes. I fought through that and started screaming the part that's at the end, and man, it was just so unbelievably overwhelming. I was so happy to be there; it was such a special moment. 

"I've always loved Trent, but I love him even more now for it. And then we did Hey Man, Nice Shot, which was fucking insane. The fact that we got up and did my song… fucking amazing. Trent gave me so much time to shine, and I'm very appreciative. It was perfect to potentially close out my life with NIN."

Does that mean it was a one-off?

"Well, it was perfect closure. I really hope it happens again, but you never know. And so, if it never does happen again, I'm totally satisfied and happy because Trent gave me an opportunity to jump on stage with NIN one last time and rock out."

What have you learned from working with Trent that you still carry with you today?

"Trent was all about that punk rock attitude, which we had in common. His ethics were totally punk rock, which was interesting because we were coming out at the tail end of fucking guitar hero, finger tapping, a million notes a second, hair metal stuff. What we were doing with Pretty Hate Machine was kinda like Joy Division, New Order, The Cure, and Skinny Puppy. 

"The way we approached the guitars was they were a means to an end. They were about making a song complete or finishing it off rather than standing out. We didn't view them as a means to make a musical statement; we were very 'fuck you' about it. It was like the total opposite... the complete antithesis of what was going on with the era."

I can still hear that in your approach to this day.

"Fuck, yeah. Trent taught me that being yourself is the most original thing you can do. And, to me, that's the most important thing. I still follow my gut, be myself, let it rip, and keep having that same fucking attitude I've always had. And I'm pumped, man. We're gonna go on tour with Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper, and Ministry; we're calling it The Freaks on Parade Tour. The record is out soon, and I've got a lot of friends I wanna go see. It's gonna be awesome."

• The Algorithm is out on August 25 via Golden Robot Records.

Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails reunited with former members during a one-off hometown show in Cleveland, Ohio at the weekend for a belated celebration of their 2020 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.

After playing a sprawling set of classics at the Blossom Music Center on Saturday (September 24) including March of the Pigs, Heresy, Closer and The Hand That Feeds, the current NIN lineup called drummer Chris Vrenna, multi-instrumentalist Danny Lohner, keyboardist/synth player Charlie Clouser and guitarist Richard Patrick to the stage, all of whom played with the outfit in its earlier days.

The collective subsequently played a handful of songs from the band’s early-’90s catalog, including Eraser, Wish, Sin and Give Up, before closing the set with Head Like a Hole.

Notably, they also performed a cover of Hey Man Nice Shot, originally by Filter, the band Richard Patrick has fronted since his less-than-friendly exit from Nine Inch Nails in 1993. 

The reunion performance came after the current and former NIN members attended a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-organized 'Nine Inch Nails Fan Day' the day before. Nine Inch Nails were inducted into the Rock Hall in 2020 in a virtual ceremony.

In a live Q&A session on September 23, Reznor reflected on the “tough decisions” that had to be made to exclude certain historical members of Nine Inch Nails from their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. He said that the most important thing was getting together “everybody that’s been a part of it and just have a minute to say, ‘Nice job.’”

“We’ve been friendly throughout the years and I thought it would be nice to have everyone come up and acknowledge and feel okay about it.”

Richard Patrick, who was not inducted into the Hall of Fame, departed NIN in the early ‘90s due to creative differences with Trent Reznor. 

“I couldn’t go on the road and be the guitar player that couldn’t write what he plays,” he told Alternative Press in 1995. “It was frustrating because I had to come to that realization. Even though Trent really did try to work it out with me, I couldn’t even face him anymore. It was one of the most difficult times of my life.”

Inducting Nine Inch Nails into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020, Iggy Pop spoke of the depth and scope of the band’s music.

“Listening to Nine Inch Nails music – which is so often called ‘industrial’ – I actually hear a lot of funk,” he said. “On top of that is a focused and relentless process of emotional destruction which paints a portrait of pain, pressure and dissatisfaction. It’s the sound of industrial and digital ambition.”

Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland has confirmed he will be performing with Danny Elfman’s band when they take the stage at Coachella 2022.

Borland replaces Nine Inch Nails’ Robin Finck, who is otherwise engaged on NIN business, and was indeed recommended for the gig as electric guitar wrangler for hire by Finck himself. 

Borland joins Elfman regular and fretboard pyrotechnician Nili Brosh, who, with Finck, helped light up Elfman’s epic solo album, Big Mess.

Elfman’s first solo album in decades, Big Mess is described by the Grammy and Emmy-winning composer as ‘chamber punk’, an anxious, industrial style that abuts metal and alternative rock. 

Written and recorded during the pandemic, with Elfman holed up in his cabin with a bunch of guitars and a laptop, it’s a tense, nervous headache of an album, with songs animated by poorly digested pandemic anxieties and the ever-roiling crises in democratic politics. 

Such is life, but it makes for great art. When speaking to GW back in June 2021, Elfman described Big Mess as a product of its time and a culmination of where his musical tastes have taken him over the past three decades.

“More and more, I tend to like extremes,” he said. “I either want to hear something strangely beautiful and abstract, atmospheric, or really intense, that just grabs me and holds me. I am a big fan of [Einstürzende] Neubauten, over in Berlin. Even though I can’t say their name properly I love their music. I love Tool. I love Nine Inch Nails.”

Elfman sees his role as writing the song and bringing noise and feedback, with Brosh and now Borland’s job to provide the technical firepower to complement it.

“If we play, Robin and Nili are great, and when you put me in it, it messes it up,” said Elfman. “That was kind of the sound I wanted. My guitar was the feedback and the messiness, and that all came out of me, and all of my vocals were recorded on this little handheld mic up in this room.”

Borland confirmed the news that he was Elfman’s Coachella pinch-hitter on Instagram, where he also shared a picture of his rig. It looks quite different to his Limp Bizkit setup, with a Diezel VH4 guitar amp and 2x12” speaker cabinet joined by a Line 6 HX Effects, DigiTech Whammy, Boss guitar tuner, and what looks like a Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor. 

He also looks to be running a pair of Boss DD-3 digital delay pedals – perhaps one short, one long – and a couple of pedals that readers with better eyesight will have to identify. You can check it out below.

Coachella takes place the weekends of April 15 to 17, and 22 to 24, and is headlined by Harry Styles and Billie Eilish.

Nine Inch Nails will be hitting the road across 2022 for a string of US shows, kicking off in Raleigh, NC on April 28. The dates represent the industrial rock icons’ first shows in almost three years.

The bulk of the new shows are scheduled to take place in September on a run that will begin with a two-night appearance at Morrison, CO’s iconic Red Rocks amphitheatre on September 2 and 3.

The band will also play the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, CA and LA’s Primavera Sound festival while Ministry and UK electronic pioneers Nitzer Ebb will provide support for their final date at the Blossom Music Center in Cleveland, OH on September 24.

NIN’s planned return to the live arena follows an aborted attempt in September 2021. At that point, the band had been scheduled to perform two shows with The Pixies in Cleveland, but ultimately decided to cancel due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

At the time, NIN said in a statement to fans, “When originally planned, these shows were intended to a cathartic and celebratory return to live music. However, with each passing day it’s becoming more apparent we’re not at that place yet. We are sorry for any inconvenience or disappointment and look forward to seeing you again when the time is right.”

Hosting the finale of the new tour in Cleveland, with an appearance from Ministry, appears to be an attempt to make it up to fans who missed out on the 2021 cancelled dates.

The band will perform at French festival Hellfest on June 24, indicating further European dates could be on the horizon.

Nine Inch Nails 2022 US tour dates

• 04/28 Raleigh, NC - Red Hat Amphitheater
• 04/30 Atlanta, GA - Shaky Knees Festival
• 05/01 Franklin, TN - First Bank Amphitheater
• 09/02 Morrison, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheatre
• 09/03 Morrison, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheatre
• 09/07 Troutdale, OR - Edgefield
• 09/09 Bend, OR - Hayden Homes Amphitheater
• 09/11 Berkeley, CA - The Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley
• 09/15 Las Vegas, NV - Zappos Theater
• 09/16-18 Los Angeles, CA - Primavera Sound Los Angeles
• 09/24 Cleveland, OH - Blossom Music Center #%

For tickets and more information on NIN’s 2022 dates, head to the official Nine Inch Nails site.

For their fourth studio album, If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power, chart-conquering American singer Halsey recruited the production talents of Nine Inch Nails (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross). 

On the brand-new album, just as they have in their own latter-day work, Nine Inch Nails punctuate Halsey's strong songwriting – which focuses on newfound love and their recent pregnancy – with alternately beautiful and tense synth-driven atmospherics, and aggro electric guitars that settle perfectly into the fabric of the songs they power.

If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power, which was released today (August 27), was far from just a trio effort, however. Halsey, it turns out, also recruited the likes of Dave Grohl – who turns in a relentless percussive performance on honey – and Lindsey Buckingham, who lends some gorgeous acoustic guitar work to Darling, for the LP.

Driven solely by Buckingham's circular acoustic fingerpicking – over which Halsey weaves a dreamy, captivating narrative that vividly pivots between weariness and gratitude – Darling certainly takes a few cues from Fleetwood Mac's immortal Landslide, but stands proudly on its own.

Both Halsey and Dave Grohl know how to get the masses on their feet, and the compatibility of their respective skill sets shines beautifully on honey, a propulsive, catchy rocker that basks in infatuation.

Though honey marks Grohl's first collaboration with Halsey, the Foo Fighters man had previously guested as a drummer on The Idea of You, a standout cut from Nine Inch Nails' 2016 EP, Not the Actual Events.

If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power is out today – via Capitol – physically and on all streaming services.

It is indeed that time of the week again. Though it’s not quite time to cue up Rebecca Black, you can start preparing your weekend playlist with some of the best new guitar music of recent days.

On tap this week is Billie Eilish’s stunning acoustic reinvention, a shred-heavy slice of melodic death metal from At the Gates (with a helping hand from King Diamond's Andy LaRocque), a searing protest anthem from Pussy Riot and Tom Morello and a whole lot more.

So kick your feet up and press play. Guitar innovation awaits you…

Billie Eilish - Your Power

Billie Eilish has swept music’s biggest awards show, topped the pop charts in multiple countries, written Bond themes, and generally bent or broken the rules of pop convention whenever they’ve gotten in her way. Make no mistake – naysayers abound, but she has done it all on her own terms. 

The very subject of this blurb, Your Power, has racked up 42 million views in just the week since its release. The third single from what’s sure to be a blockbuster of a sophomore album, Happier Than Ever, Your Power is another wholesale, completely seamless shift for someone who has already become one of the 21st century’s great pop chameleons.

Over light-as-a-feather acoustic strums – with the acoustic occasionally doubling her vocal melody as well – Eilish pulls no punches, laying out a tale of emotional abuse, manipulation and uneven power dynamics – and the significant, often silent and unrecognized, toll they take on victims – with laser-like precision.

Eilish uses the blissful acoustic atmospherics to disguise breathtaking lyrical knockouts (“Will you only feel bad when they find out?/If you could take it all back, would you,?” “Will you only feel bad if it turns out/That they kill your contract?”) with the sort of nonchalant brilliance only the greatest songwriters possess. And to think that she’s only 19… (JM)

Tom Morello & Pussy Riot - Weather Strike

While we’re all awaiting that first glimpse of Rage Against the Machine’s ultra-secretive, twice-postponed reunion tour, Tom Morello appears to have struck upon something of a purple patch in his own songwriting.

Last year’s Comandante EP found the maverick six-stringer on fine, mostly instrumental form, but this fresh collaboration with Russian punk outfit Pussy Riot – who Morello himself praised as “one of the most radical and important activist musical groups of all time” – contains some of the best riffs to emerge from the Morello arsenal in quite some time.

A swaggering drop-D Telecaster jam worthy of RATM’s wildest festival-field jump-a-thons, Weather Strike is also notable for Nadya Tolokonnikova’s siren-like foreshadowing of Morello’s Whammy-harmonized outro wail. There’s clear chemistry here – a full album could make for very interesting listening indeed… (MAB)

Spiritbox – Circle With Me

Following 2020’s Holy Roller and more mellow offering Constance, Canadian trio Spiritbox are back with another no-holds-barred metal cut, Circle With Me. Straight off the bat, guitarist Michael Stringer serves up a destructive, drop-tuned prog metal riff, which serves to juxtapose the more ambient and melodic verse sections in which bandleader Courtney LaPlante takes the reins.

What’s perhaps the most defining feature of Circle With Me is the band’s masterful grasp of dynamics. While its instrumental playing is, of course, impressive throughout, the track’s peaks and troughs mould it into one of the most energetic metal takes of 2021 so far.

"This song was written in the studio as a last minute addition, one of the many reasons we are so grateful to no longer be exclusively working remotely,” says LaPlante. “It captures the spectrum of emotions I’ve been feeling lately about my music. From the anxiety I feel about messing up, to a confidence meant to protect me from self doubt.” (SR)

Modest Mouse – We Are Between

"I went in to making this one with two records in mind. It’ll be released as quickly as it’s legally allowed to be. It’s a partner to this one." So said Isaac Brock of the follow-up to Modest Mouse’s 2015 album, Strangers to Ourselves… in 2015.

Though “as quickly as it’s legally allowed to be” ended up being a whole six years, all will quickly be forgiven with a spin of the restlessly inventive We Are Between, the first single from that long-awaited follow-up, The Golden Casket.

Every lesson one would learn from the Isaac Brock Guitar School is readily accessible here – the melodic single-note motifs that lodge right in your head, the twitchy, funk-gone-wrong riffing, colorful, ringing harmonics that bridge musical gaps and leap out of your stereo…

They’re not indie rock’s standard-bearers anymore – quietly leading off their debut album with one of the best songs of the 1990s or, in the early oughts, bringing “””alternative””” sounds to your grocery store loudspeakers – but Modest Mouse have nonetheless settled into a very solid groove. We’re excited to hear this LP at long last. (JM)

Haggard Cat - Quit Your Jobs

After ditching their record label, UK riff darlings Haggard Cat were approached by Adrian Bushby – Grammy-winning producer and engineer for the likes of Muse and Foo Fighters – to begin work on a fresh set of material, to capture their madcap onstage energy. And judging from this first taste, they nailed it.

Quit Your Jobs has all the grit and grind of the octave pedal-toting guitar-drums duo formula – note the triple-amp Orange/Fender rig – but Haggard Cat are altogether wilder and more unhinged than their contemporaries.

The track’s breakneck pace barely lets up, as it touches on progressive single-string riffs, post-hardcore breakdowns, and culminates in pure ’80s thrash – and this unbridled aggression, in all its forms, seems appropriate given the track’s background.

“We wrote the lyrics about an actual series of bad advice that we received from our old record label,” says Flying V-toting frontman Matt Reynolds. “They literally were sat there straight-faced refusing to work on a marketing plan with us, insisting our next move was to ‘quit your jobs’.

“Advice that also followed these pearls of wisdom was ‘fake your death’ – I know this sounds made up but it’s 100% true.” Based on these anecdotes – and the ferocity of the resultant track – we’d say you made the right decision, boys. (MAB)

At the Gates – Spectre of Extinction

With a name like Spectre of Extinction, it’s hard to imagine this track to be anything other than an earth-shattering heavy metal freight train. And while that is indeed what it develops into, there’s a gorgeous intro of nylon-string acoustic playing beforehand, which is shortly after followed by an enveloping harmonized electric guitar section.

“It is always very hard to choose which song to release to the public first,” explains frontman Tomas Lindberg Redant, “especially with this album having so many layers and textures. 

“We did feel, however, that this, the opening track of the record, represented the overall feel of the album. It has the musical depths that you would expect from an At The Gates track, and still carries that intensity and urgency that we have always tried to get across with our music.” (SR)

HEALTH, Nine Inch Nails – Isn’t Everyone

In their first new release since 2020’s DISCO4 :: PART I – an album which saw guest appearances from the likes of Soccer Mommy, Full Of Hell and Perturbator – LA noise rockers HEALTH have teamed up with industrial-rock juggernauts Nine Inch Nails on new single Isn't Everyone.

Mixed by Atticus Ross and featuring guest vocals from NIN leader Trent Reznor, the track features the same wall of gritty synths and techno-style beats that are ever-present in Nine inch Nails’ music, in addition to the odd permeating – but equally dirty – electric guitar line.

As HEALTH explain: “It’s fucking Nine Inch Nails. That speaks for itself. You don’t need a clever quote to encapsulate it.” (SR)

Brendan Byrnes - Murmurations

While King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard may have shone a fresh light on microtonal guitar playing in recent years, many of these experiments in pitch were pioneered by avant garde American composer Glenn Branca during the ’80s and beyond. And now, a former student of the guitar experimentalist seeks to carry the torch for a new generation.

Brendan Byrnes brings these microtonal approaches to a contemporary musical backdrop, conjuring otherworldly arpeggios and scale runs over a rich soundscape of glitched-out drum patterns and post-rock tremolo picking.

That might sound challenging to the untrained ear, but Byrnes allays any fears with his supreme sense of melody, which ensures those none-more-outside notes always find their way back home.

If you think instrumental guitar music doesn’t have anything new to say, you owe it to yourself to give Murmurations a spin. (MAB)

Kings of Convenience – Rocky Trail

Surprises come in good and bad varieties, but the return of Kings of Convenience after a decade-plus-long hiatus definitely falls into the former category.

Those vocal harmonies, the autumnal, playful strings, the delicious acoustic guitar interplay – equal parts classical, pop, folk and flamenco… 

A listen to Rocky Trail, the first single from the Bergen, Norway duo’s upcoming album, Peace or Love, is almost like stepping into a portal to another, rose-tinted world. It’s guitar-driven mood music and escapism of the best kind, and we didn’t know we needed it. (JM)

Oceans – Everyone I Love Is Broken (feat. Robb Flynn)

Arriving with Oceans’ brand-new EP We Are Nøt Okay, Everyone I Love Is Broken sees the German post-metallers join forces with Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn. While the track’s tastefully layered vocal harmonies take center stage, its balance of crisp clean electric guitar lines and gain-heavy riffs form the bedrock of its high-octane arrangement.

“Working with Robb and all the other amazing people that contributed to this EP was an experience I will never forget,” explains frontman Timo Rotten.

“Everyone was so positive about it and we all put so much energy into this without the slightest hint of hesitation. It’s just absolutely mind-blowing to me and I couldn’t be happier about how it all turned out. Together we can make a difference and end the stigma of mental health once and for all!” (SR)

Madi Diaz - Nervous

Since signing to ANTI- earlier this year, this Berklee-schooled, Nashville-based singer-songwriter has debuted a trio of stripped-back singles rooted in guitar-bass-drums arrangements. It’s a radical departure from the synth-pop leanings of 2014’s Phantom that harks back to her indie roots – and Nervous is evidence that it’s a sage move indeed.

Simplicity is the key to the track’s irresistibility – its hooks stem from Diaz’s double-tracked opening dyads, which, delivered via her faithful 1959 Harmony Meteor, provide the very definition of woody electric guitar tone.

Topped off with confessional, anthemic vocals, there’s a pop-punk-meets-indie-rock immediacy here, and one that has ‘summer anthem’ written all over it. (MAB)

Fresh off his dual Oscar wins, Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails have collaborated with Health on the LA-based noise rockers’ new single, Isn’t Everyone.

The dark, industrial-laced track, which is punctuated by heavily distorted electric guitar stabs, is out today via Loma Vista Recordings. You can check it out above.

Isn’t Everyone was produced by Health and Nine Inch Nails and mixed by Atticus Ross.

As for the sound? “It’s fucking Nine Inch Nails,” Health said in a statement. “That speaks for itself. You don’t need a clever quote to encapsulate it.”

You can purchase or stream Isn’t Everyone here.

Glitch effects in electronic music have long transcended their original niche. These days, you can find modem-like glitches, warped samples, and machine-gun stutter in progressive metal or radio pop.

Glitchy-sounding guitar is also commonplace, but how do you go about creating futuristic guitar parts, and can they be played live? The answer is yes, they can, especially with the dizzying array of pedals available today.

Obviously, you'll have heard glitch in electronic music, from Massive Attack to Squarepusher. You'll also have heard it in the music of stadium-rock bands like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, as well as many smaller math and post-rock bands.

Here, we've run down a few of our favorite glitch guitar techniques. It's not intended to be a comprehensive list, but hopefully it will spark some creative new ideas for your compositions and riffs.

This guide to glitch guitar is brought to you by Manchester, UK's overrider – you can hear these techniques in action on new single sunjammer//system crash.

1. Beat, repeat and stutter

• For fans of: Jonny Greenwood/Radiohead, Three Trapped Tigers
• Pedals used: Boss DD-series delay, Line 6 DL4, Red Panda Tensor
• Song example: Three Trapped Tigers - Creepies

When most guitarists hear the phrase 'glitch guitar', this is likely the technique that springs to mind. Put simply, most delay pedals record a small buffer of audio. This can be triggered at the same volume as the original sound for a blizzard of repeats, often known as 'stutter', although some DAWs call it 'beat repeat'.

In the era of boutique pedals, there are many specifically devoted to the manipulation of small chunks of recorded audio. Some are unobtanium, but several are commercially available, like the Hexe Revolver, King of Glitch Feral Glitch and Red Panda Tensor. However, you can use standard Boss delays like the DD-6 that have a momentary 'hold' function to achieve this effect as well.

Johnny Greenwood uses a computer-based MAX MSP chain with an LFO controlling the sample size to create a dynamic version of stutter in the live solo for Paranoid Android. An example without the LFO changing sample buffer size would be the intro riff to UK math-rockers Three Trapped Tigers' Creepies.

2. Sampling and manipulating micro glitches

• For fans of: Tera Melos, Radiohead
• Pedals used: Two loopers, any delay, any pitch shifter
• Song example: Radiohead - Everything In Its Right Place (live)

A sampled sound is easy to manipulate further, which is why you'll often see guitarists with a looper at the beginning and end of their 'board. By placing pedals like pitch-shifters and delays after your main looper, you can achieve much wilder sounds.

For examples of this, consider the punctuation glitches in Tera Melos or Adebisi Shank songs - discussed in more detail below – or the way that Radiohead use Kaoss Pad-manipulated vocal one-shots and loops to glitch up their live performances of Everything In Its Right Place.

3. Glitching using warp markers in your DAW

• For fans of: Nine Inch Nails
• Pedals used: DAW only

Most DAWs will have tools to nudge an out-of-time take into time. By using these tools in a way other than intended, you can change the timing and phrasing of guitar parts, and create glitch effects like stutter and time warp. 

This works especially well for staccato chords, where stretching out a small part of the transient results in a distorted, garbled artifact.

4. Changing the speed of a sample buffer in-flight

• For fans of: Tera Melos, Minus the Bear, Brontide
• Pedals used: Line 6 DL4
• Song example: Brontide - Arioso

We most associate this trick with UK instrumental rock outfit Brontide, as a live version of their track Arioso was the first time our minds were blown by this technique. For many others, the loop master will probably be Minus the Bear's Dave Knudson, and his array of Line 6 DL4s. The DL4, like a lot of loopers, allows you to change the speed of a recorded sample, doubling it for a glitchy, octave-up effect.

The reverse, which can be done with the DL4 and other loopers like the TC Electronic Ditto, is to slow down a guitar part to a pad-like synth tone. Finally, some loopers and delays will let you manipulate the playback speed with a knob, giving you a sound close to auto-oscillation, which can then be tuned to a note.

5. Creating drum racks and sample banks from guitar samples

• For fans of: Nine Inch Nails, Joe Satriani
• Pedals used: DAW only
• Song example: Nine Inch Nails - The Great Destroyer

Using prepared guitar techniques, you can get interesting percussive sounds out of your guitar. You can do what Joe Satriani did for his first EP, and hit the strings with an Allen key to get drum-like sounds. He's not a fan of the results, but we think the timbres he created are interesting.

It's easy to make clicking and bleeping sounds, especially with distortion. These often remind us of the breakdown in The Great Destroyer, from Nine Inch Nails' 2007 album Year Zero, (even if that was synth, not guitar).

6. Phrasing with micro-loops - using loops as riff punctuation

• For fans of: Adebisi Shank, And So I Watch You From Afar, Tera Melos
• Pedals used: Line 6 DL4, Boss PS-5 or DigiTech Whammy Ricochet
• Song example: Adebisi Shank - Masa

In some ways, depending on what audio you capture and the size of the sample, this is a type of stutter effect.

There are two main ways that micro-looping can be used as punctuation. The first is marking the end of a phrase. In a dense guitar riff, bands like Adebisi Shank would loop a small snatch of the final note, and then manipulate it further to break the end of the riff from the next repeat, or indeed the next passage. This could be a pitch-shift down, or manipulating the speed of the playback. Elsewhere, And So I Watch You From Afar guitarist Rory Friers has long been a fan of using the ballistic mode of the Boss PS-5 pitch shifter to punctuate sections.

The second is adding articulation within a phrase. With quick footwork, it's possible to capture string sound, sliding, or muted string stabs in lightning bursts of stutter in-between notes. The result, weirdly, is a more legato sound – almost like the continuous notes of tremolo-picking, except with a more interesting timbre.

7. Playing MIDI samples of guitar parts

• For fans of: Nine Inch Nails
• Pedals used: DAW only

One of the most important things that can make a guitar part sound 'glitchy' is adding silence in a way that's unpredictable to the listener.

A good way of making an otherwise uninteresting guitar part a bit more exciting is to split it up using a sampler – in this video we use Ableton's Simpler – and then play the part back in using a MIDI keyboard. The process of re-playing parts of the original take using MIDI results in an unusual timbre, interesting artifacts and tiny moments of silence.

St. Vincent has teamed up with Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl for a cover of Nine Inch Nails Piggy in honor of the band's induction into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame on November 7.

The song was recorded as part of a series of tracks commissioned by Amazon to celebrate this years Rock Hall inductees. Take a listen to the cover below:

Written by Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor, Piggy appeared on the industrial rock titans' second studio album, 1994's The Downward Spiral. St. Vincent says its one of her “favorite Nails songs to this day”.

“I am obsessed with the slinky tambourine that is just a little lazy in feel. And when I took this song apart to cover it, it took me a long time to really understand the immensity of the groove,” she shared in a statement.

“It’s a dark, industrial reggae. Muscular, but never as distorted as you imagined it when you think of it in your head… They made a complicated thing seem easy and made big, bold sonic choices.”

The Amazon series also includes The Kills' version of T. Rex's Cosmic Dancer, Eyelids' cover of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence and Jehnny Beth's rendition of Nine Inch Nails' Closer.

The 2020 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, scheduled to take place at Cleveland’s Public Hall on May 2, has been postponed due to the coronavirus.

The announcement is the latest in a string of coronavirus-related cancellations and postponements, including, among many others, SXSW, Coachella, all of Live Nation and AEG’s current tours, and the electric guitar brand PRS’s Experience PRS 2020 festivities.

Said Rock and Roll Hall of Fame President Joel Peresman in a statement, “We are very disappointed to announce the postponement of this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.

“Our first concern is to the health and safety of our attendees and artists and we are complying to the direction of the local and state authorities and common sense. We look forward to rescheduling the ceremony and will make that announcement at the earliest convenience.”

This year’s Hall of Fame induction class includes Nine Inch Nails, the Doobie Brothers, T. Rex, Whitney Houston, Depeche Mode and the Notorious B.I.G.

No word has been given as to a potential rescheduling date for the ceremony.

For more information, head to RockHall.com.

Nine Inch Nails have premiered "God Break Down the Door," the first single from their upcoming album, Bad Witch. You can listen to it above.

The band premiered the new song today on Zane Lowe's radio show on Beats 1 on Apple Music. Reznor also sat down with Lowe for an extensive interview, which covered everything from "God Break Down the Door" to the band's unique new, in-person ticket sale policy.

In the interview, Reznor said the song came from "Seeing the untouched baritone tenor and alto sax that are sitting there [in the studio.] They’re there because they remind me that I can't play them as well as I used to be able to. For 20 years, I've been saying I’m going of really get my technique back because it would be fun to do. And there they sit taunting me in the corner."

"We pulled them out and we just started fucking around really, led with Atticus arranging," he continued. "I was just kind of going, an hour performance kind of turned into this thing that felt like we hadn't been there before and that started to reveal a whole different character. The space changed and then we felt motivated. When it came time to sing I was really just trying things out, just to see. I never had the courage to sing like that, I didn't know I could sing."

You can check out the full interview—if you have an Apple Music account—below.

Bad Witch is set for a June 22 release. You can preorder it right here, and check out its tracklist, and the band's full itinerary, below.

Bad Witch:

• 01 Shit Mirror
• 02 Ahead of Ourselves
• 03 Play the Goddamned Part
• 04 God Break Down the Door
• 05 I’m Not From This World
• 06 Over and out

Nine Inch Nails 2018 Tour Dates:

06-13 Las Vegas, NV - The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
06-15 Las Vegas, NV - The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
06-16 Las Vegas, NV - The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
06-22 London, England - Meltdown Festival
06-24 London, England - Royal Albert Hall
06-25 Paris, France - Olympia
06-27 Amsterdam, Netherlands - AFAS
06-29 St. Gallen, Switzerland - Open Air Fest
06-30 Prague, Czech Republic - Aerodrome Festival
07-02 Berlin, Germany - Zitadelle
07-04 Roskilde, Denmark - Roskilde Festival
07-06 Belfort , France - Eurokennes Festival
07-08 Werchter, Belgium - Rock Werchter Festival
07-09 Montreux, Switzerland - Montreux Jazz Festival
07-12 Lisbon, Portugal - NOS Alive Festival
07-14 Madrid, Spain - Mad Cool Festival
08-14 Bangkok, Thailand - Moonstar Studio
08-17 Tokyo, Japan - Sonic Mania Festival
08-19 Osaka, Japan - Summer Sonic Festival
09-13 Phoenix, AZ - Comerica Theatre ^
09-14 Phoenix, AZ - Comerica Theatre ^
09-18 Morrison, CO - Red Rocks ^
09-19 Morrison, CO - Red Rocks ^
09-22 San Antonio, TX - River City Rockfest
09-24 Memphis, TN - Orpheum Theater ^
09-26 Atlanta, GA - Fox Theatre ^
09-27 Atlanta, GA - Fox Theatre ^
09-29 Nashville, TN - Ascend Amphitheater ^
10-09 Washington, DC - The Anthem ^
10-13 New York, NY - Radio City Music Hall ^
10-14 New York, NY - Radio City Music Hall ^
10-19 Boston, MA - Boch Center ^
10-20 Boston, MA - Boch Center ^
10-22 Detroit, MI - Fox Theater ^
10-23 Detroit, MI - Fox Theater ^
10-25 Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom ^
10-26 Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom ^
11-23 New Orleans, LA - Saenger Theatre ^
11-24 New Orleans, LA - Saenger Theatre ^
11-27 Irving, TX - The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory ^
11-28 Irving, TX - The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory ^
12-03 San Francisco, CA - Bill Graham Civic Auditorium ^
12-07 Los Angeles, CA - Palladium ^
12-08 Los Angeles, CA - Palladium ^
12-11 Los Angeles, CA - Palladium ^
12-12 Los Angeles, CA - Palladium ^

Nine Inch Nails have announced a new EP, Bad Witch, and an extensive tour.

The new EP is out June 22, and follows 2016's Not the Actual Events and 2017's Add Violence. You can examine its tracklist below.

The band's fall trek through North America—which the band are calling the Cold and Black Infinite tour—will feature The Jesus and Mary Chain as openers. Notably, tickets for the shows will be sold only in person at venue boxes in what the band are calling "The Physical World Presale."

"The promise of a world made better by computers and online connectivity has failed us in many ways, particularly when it comes to ticketing," the band said in a statement about the policy on their website. "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. We’re hoping many of you will be happy with the results, while some may do what they always do and bitch about it."

"You (an actual human being) show up at the box office, interact with the ticket seller (another actual human being) and purchase up to four tickets that will actually be handed to you on the spot," the statement continues. "The tickets will not be available online or anywhere else before or during that day. All seats (including the best seats) will be available first come, first serve. You may actually encounter other actual human beings with similar interests likely wearing black clothing during the process and potentially interact with them."

You can check out the band's full itinerary below. Preorder Bad Witch here.

Bad Witch:

• 01 Shit Mirror
• 02 Ahead of Ourselves
• 03 Play the Goddamned Part
• 04 God Break Down the Door
• 05 I’m Not From This World
• 06 Over and out

Nine Inch Nails 2018 Tour Dates:

06-13 Las Vegas, NV - The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
06-15 Las Vegas, NV - The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
06-16 Las Vegas, NV - The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
06-22 London, England - Meltdown Festival
06-24 London, England - Royal Albert Hall
06-25 Paris, France - Olympia
06-27 Amsterdam, Netherlands - AFAS
06-29 St. Gallen, Switzerland - Open Air Fest
06-30 Prague, Czech Republic - Aerodrome Festival
07-02 Berlin, Germany - Zitadelle
07-04 Roskilde, Denmark - Roskilde Festival
07-06 Belfort , France - Eurokennes Festival
07-08 Werchter, Belgium - Rock Werchter Festival
07-09 Montreux, Switzerland - Montreux Jazz Festival
07-12 Lisbon, Portugal - NOS Alive Festival
07-14 Madrid, Spain - Mad Cool Festival
08-14 Bangkok, Thailand - Moonstar Studio
08-17 Tokyo, Japan - Sonic Mania Festival
08-19 Osaka, Japan - Summer Sonic Festival
09-13 Phoenix, AZ - Comerica Theatre ^
09-14 Phoenix, AZ - Comerica Theatre ^
09-18 Morrison, CO - Red Rocks ^
09-19 Morrison, CO - Red Rocks ^
09-22 San Antonio, TX - River City Rockfest
09-24 Memphis, TN - Orpheum Theater ^
09-26 Atlanta, GA - Fox Theatre ^
09-27 Atlanta, GA - Fox Theatre ^
09-29 Nashville, TN - Ascend Amphitheater ^
10-09 Washington, DC - The Anthem ^
10-13 New York, NY - Radio City Music Hall ^
10-14 New York, NY - Radio City Music Hall ^
10-19 Boston, MA - Boch Center ^
10-20 Boston, MA - Boch Center ^
10-22 Detroit, MI - Fox Theater ^
10-23 Detroit, MI - Fox Theater ^
10-25 Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom ^
10-26 Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom ^
11-23 New Orleans, LA - Saenger Theatre ^
11-24 New Orleans, LA - Saenger Theatre ^
11-27 Irving, TX - The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory ^
11-28 Irving, TX - The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory ^
12-03 San Francisco, CA - Bill Graham Civic Auditorium ^
12-07 Los Angeles, CA - Palladium ^
12-08 Los Angeles, CA - Palladium ^
12-11 Los Angeles, CA - Palladium ^
12-12 Los Angeles, CA - Palladium ^

^ with the Jesus and Mary Chain

Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of the latest episode of String Theory, starring Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails.

A web series created by Ernie Ball, String Theory explores the sonic origins of influential and innovative musicians. In the episode, Finck discusses his beginnings with music and guitar, his love of playing, and his relationship with Ernie Ball.

Below, you can find five facts revealed in the episode.

1. He started playing guitar in second grade (2:30): “My introduction to playing the guitar was in second grade. I was seven years old. I graduated from my wooden tennis racket and half-empty box of blood capsules to my dad’s garage sale special, which was a neglected nylon string guitar that he kept in a pleather, vinyl zipper bag.”

2. He reached a new level of guitar playing after moving to a new town as a kid (4:30): “My family moved from the North to the South on the East Coast the summer before my high school freshman year, and I didn’t know anybody then. I was pissed. I didn’t want to be there, and I didn’t want to meet anybody. I sat in the basement, and just played guitar all summer long. I kind of excelled that summer more than I ever have in my life.”

3. He’s played Ernie Ball strings for the majority of his career (5:40): “I probably started playing Ernie Ball strings when I started changing the whole set, instead of just the one broken string. And that would’ve been the summer of 1986.”

4. Finck was originally drawn to Ernie Ball strings because of the artwork, but knew he’d made the right choice once he saw the list famous players on the back of the pack (6:18): “I pointed at the pack that looked like it could maybe be stapled to a telephone pole, you know. And once I had it in my hand [and saw] Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Metallica, Steve Vai—that was impressive.”

5. To him, playing in Nine Inch Nails is similar to playing in an orchestra (9:07): “Playing with Nine Inch Nails is more akin to a position in an orchestra as apposed to, you know, a jam band or some kind of improvisational trick. It’s meticulously schemed, devised and executed.”

Of course, these are just five facts pulled from the clip. Be sure to watch the entire episode below.

For the latest on Ernie Ball, visit ernieball.com.

Last week, Nine Inch Nails announced a new EP, entitled ADD VIOLENCE.

With their announcement came the release of "Less Than," an ADD VIOLENCE track that, with its warped New Wave synths and hard-driving chorus, brings the band's heyday to mind.

Now, the group has unveiled a second track from the EP, which is set to drop this Friday. The nightmarish, dirge-like "This Isn't The Place" is as confrontational and twisted as "Less Than" is accessible and straightforward. You can give it a listen below.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has announced its nominations for its Class of 2016.

The list includes Chicago, Cheap Trick, Deep Purple, the Cars, Nine Inch Nails, Los Lobos, Steve Miller, the Smiths and Yes.

Other hopefuls include Janet Jackson, N.W.A, Chaka Khan, Chic, the J.B.'s and the Spinners. The top vote-getters will be announced in December, and they'll be inducted in April 2016 in New York.

Once again, the public will have the opportunity to vote alongside the more than 800 artists, historians and music industry insiders of the Rock Hall voting body. Through December 9, fans can vote at RockHall.com.

The top five acts will comprise a "fan's ballot" that will count as one of the ballots that determine the class of 2016.

In order to be eligible for this year's ballot, artists or bands need to have released their first single or album in 1990 or earlier. Some of the nominees have appeared on previous ballots, but this is the first appearance for Chicago, Cheap Trick, the Cars, Chaka Khan, The J.B.'s, Janet Jackson, Los Lobos and Steve Miller. This marks the third time Deep Purple and the Spinners have been on the ballot.

The Class of 2015 included Green Day, Lou Reed, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble and Ringo Starr as a solo artist.

Whether it be for a video or live, many bands perform covers of artists they admire as a way to pay homage or share their love of a song with the audience.

Sometimes the band chooses to play it exactly like the record, and if it's a tricky song it's all the more impressive. If I saw a random bar band flawlessly pull off Joe Satriani's “Satch Boogie” or any Periphery song note for note, I'd be blown away.

Other times it's a cover of something simpler like Bob Dylan's “Don't Think Twice It's Alright,” or in this case, “Find My Way” by Nine Inch Nails. It's easier and more exciting for the band to put their unique twist on the song and try to make it their own by using different techniques and textures.

Here's a guide as to how we made a cover song a band and fan favorite.

First, it's important to check if there are other versions of the song out there. Trent Reznor included remixes with the album, so we decided to start the song with the chord used on the "Oneohtrix Point Never Remix." That's about the only similarity, but it's still a shout-out to that version. We make that section our own by having electronic drums come in and having a “turnaround,” per se, as a way to end the section.

Then here comes guitar! I wanted the guitar pattern to mimic the drums in the original song. It's tough to make a guitar part percussive with alternate picking, especially if you're not playing loud. A way I found to achieve that is courtesy of Tosin Abasi of Animals As Leaders, who uses a double-thumbing technique. I imagine seeing him play is similar to seeing Eddie Van Halen use tapping for the first time.

Using that technique, I was able to make a part that was a bit more bouncy while outlining the E major chord. As the chorus returns, everyone in the band does as well and for the rest of the song, although still not at 100 percent volume yet.

In the final verse, the bass uses a unique tapping lick, as the guitar line is already keeping a thumping pulse. This is why it's important to be a bit curious about the various techniques of guitar playing. Because although they may not necessarily come up in a cover band setting, they can really make a cover song very creative and unique. The more you have to work with, the better.

In the final chorus, we go from electronic drums to real drums, and that's when the song gets to 100 percent. That's a definition of a slow burn and a wonderful payoff for the band and the audience.

Watch/see it here:

Elliott Klein is a New York City-based guitarist/singer/songwriter who plays in Bright and Loud, Party Lights and many more.

Nine Inch Nails are streaming another new track from their upcoming Hesitation Marks album, which will be released September 3.

The new song, "Everything," premiered earlier today on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 show.

"Everything" follows the recent premieres of "Copy of A" and "Came Back Haunted."

Check out the song below (via Antiquiet) — and be sure to tell us what you think in the comments! If you'd like to backtrack, you can check out "Copy of A" here and "Came Back Haunted" here.

Although several fan-filmed videos of Nine Inch Nails performing their new song, "Copy Of A," have surfaced online, the band have released the official studio version of the track, and you can check it out below.

The band premiered "Copy Of A" and another new song, "Find My Way," at Fuji Rock Festival on July 26. "Copy Of A" has since become their set opener on their US dates.

All these tracks — plus two another new ones fans have had a chance to sample, "Disappointed" and "Came Back Haunted" — are from Nine Inch Nails' upcoming album, Hesitation Marks, which is set for a September 3 release.

The new album, the followup to 2008's The Slip, features guest appearances by bassist Pino Palladino, Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and guitarist Adrian Belew, who was even a full member of NIN for a little while (More on that here).

Take a listen — and be sure to tell us what you think in the comments!

Nine Inch Nails continue to break out the new tunes on their current tour.

Below, check out a fan-filmed video from the band's weekend show at the Ansan Valley Rock Festival in South Korea. The clip, which was posted July 29, features two tracks — "Copy of A" and "Disappointed" — from the band's new album, Hesitation Marks.

The album (which features guitar work by Lindsey Buckingham and Adrian Belew) will be released September 3. You can see the album's complete track list below and hear "Came Back Haunted" at this location.

Hesitation Marks Track List

• 01. "The Eater of Dreams"
• 02. "Copy of A"
• 03. "Came Back Haunted"
• 04. "Find My Way"
• 05. "All Time Low"
• 06. "Disappointed"
• 07. "Everything"
• 08. "Satellite"
• 09. "Various Methods of Escape"
• 10. "Running"
• 11. "I Would for You"
• 12. "In Two"
• 13. "While I'm Still Here"
• 14. "Black Noise"

Nine Inch Nails have posted a new music video for "Came Back Haunted," a track from their upcoming album, Hesitation Marks, which will be released September 3.

The video, which you can see below, was directed by filmmaker David Lynch.

The album, which features guest appearances by bassist Pino Palladino and Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, is the band's followup to 2008's The Slip.

Speaking recently to CBS, Reznor came clean about the band's ever-shifting lineup (King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew announced he was quitting the band earlier this month), admitting it had been "disruptive."

"You can spend a lot of time hypothesising, imagining and projecting what it’s gonna be with this chemistry and this recipe of people in a room playing music, and in reality it rarely is that," he said. "It's felt like a wrench in the works at times, but at the same time it's made me rethink a lot of how we put this together, and I think where we're ending up at is a place that’s much truer to what Nine Inch Nails should be and better in the long run," he added.

WARNING: This video has been identified by Epilepsy Action to potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised.

As we reported earlier this month, King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew recently quit Nine Inch Nails, posting the following note via Facebook:

"hey folks, before this goes too far let me say this: I greatly respect trent and the music he makes. no one is at fault. we both agreed it just was not working. I’m sorry to disappoint anyone. that really hurts. but NIN will do an amazing show and I am back where I belong: creating FLUX."

Belew was the second member of NIN to quit in less than a month; bassist Eric Avery announced his departure May 15, saying he felt "overwhelmed" by "the intensity Nails demands."

Speaking recently to CBS, Reznor came clean about the shifting lineup, admitting it had been "disruptive."

"You can spend a lot of time hypothesising, imagining and projecting what it’s gonna be with this chemistry and this recipe of people in a room playing music, and in reality it rarely is that," he said.

"It's felt like a wrench in the works at times, but at the same time it's made me rethink a lot of how we put this together, and I think where we're ending up at is a place that’s much truer to what Nine Inch Nails should be and better in the long run," he added.

The new Nine Inch Nails album, Hesitation Marks, will be released September 3. It was produced by Reznor, Alan Moulder and Atticus Ross. In a statement about the album, Reznor wrote: "I've been less than honest about what I've really been up to lately. For the last year I've been secretly working non-stop with Atticus Ross and Alan Moulder on a new, full-length Nine Inch Nails record, which I am happy to say is finished and frankly fucking great."

Hesitation Marks Track Listing:

• 'The Eater of Dreams'
• 'Copy of A'
• 'Came Back Haunted'
• 'Find My Way'
• 'All Time Low'
• 'Disappointed'
• 'Everything'
• 'Satellite'
• 'Various Methods of Escape'
• 'Running'
• 'I Would for You'
• 'In Two'
• 'While I’m Still Here'
• 'Black Noise'

Last night, guitarist Adrian Belew announced he was quitting Nine Inch Nails.

Belew, noted for his work with Talking Heads and King Crimson, posted the following note on Facebook, via Consequence of Sound:

"hey folks, before this goes too far let me say this: I greatly respect trent and the music he makes. no one is at fault. we both agreed it just was not working. I’m sorry to disappoint anyone. that really hurts. but NIN will do an amazing show and I am back where I belong: creating FLUX."

That post, which has since disappeared from Belew's page, was replaced by the following sentence:

"concerning me being part of the 2013 Nine Inch Nails band: it didn't work."

FLUX, by the way, is Belew's solo project. It also describes the state in which Nine Inch Nails' lineup has found itself in 2013. Bassist Eric Avery left the band in May. A week later, former NIN guitarist Robin Finck rejoined the band.

It should be noted that Belew played an important part in Nine Inch Nails' recent reformation. As Reznor explained in a press release earlier this year, "I was working with Adrian Belew on some musical ideas ... which led to the decision to re-think the idea of what Nine Inch Nails could be."

And let's not forget the quote that appears in the photo below, which is from Belew's official website:

Check out "Came Back Haunted," the first song to be released from Hesitation Marks, the upcoming new album by Nine Inch Nails.

Hesitation Marks will be released September 3 by Columbia.

“I’ve been less than honest about what I’ve really been up to lately," said NIN frontman Trent Reznor in a press release. "For the last year, I’ve been secretly working non-stop with Atticus Ross and Alan Moulder on a new, full-length Nine Inch Nails record, which I am happy to say is finished and frankly fucking great.

"This is the real impetus and motivation behind the decision to assemble a new band and tour again. My forays into film, HTDA and other projects really stimulated me creatively and I decided to focus that energy on taking Nine Inch Nails to a new place. Here we go!”

The current touring lineup of Nine Inch Nails features Reznor, Adrian Belew of King Crimson and Josh Eustis of Telefon Tel Aviv, as well as previous NIN collaborators Robin Finck, Alessandro Cortini and Ilan Rubin.

Besides the new song, Reznor & Co. also have announced a 31-date North American tour that kicks off September 28 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Tickets go on sale June 14 through Live Nation. Be sure to check out the complete itinerary below the Soundcloud player.

"Came Back Haunted" is already available on iTunes. Stay tuned for more Nine Inch Nails updates!

Nine Inch Nails Tour Dates:

• 9/28 St. Paul, MN – Xcel Energy Center
• 9/30 Kansas City, MO – Sprint Center
• 10/1 St. Louis, MO – Chaifetz Arena
• 10/3 Montreal, QC – Centre Bell
• 10/4 Toronto, ON – Air Canada Centre
• 10/5 Cleveland, OH – Wolstein Center
• 10/7 Auburn Hills, MI – The Palace of Auburn Hills
• 10/8 Pittsburgh, PA – Petersen Events Center
• 10/11 Boston, MA – TD Garden
• 10/14 Brooklyn, NY – Barclays Center
• 10/15 Newark, NJ – Prudential Center
• 10/18 Washington, DC – Verizon Center
• 10/19 University Park, PA – Bryce Jordan Center
• 10/21 Raleigh, NC – PNC Arena
• 10/22 Nashville, TN – Bridgestone Arena
• 10/24 Atlanta, GA – Philips Arena
• 10/30 Sunrise, FL – BB&T Center
• 10/31 Orlando, FL – Amway Center
• 11/5 San Antonio, TX – AT&T Center
• 11/8 Los Angeles, CA – Staples Center
• 11/9 Phoenix, AZ – US Airways Center
• 11/11 El Paso, TX – Don Haskins Center
• 11/13 Broomfield, CO – 1stBank Center
• 11/15 Las Vegas, NV – The Joint
• 11/16 Las Vegas, NV – The Joint
• 11/18 Portland, OR – Rose Garden Arena
• 11/19 Spokane, WA – Spokane Arena
• 11/21 Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena
• 11/22 Seattle, WA – KeyArena
• 11/24 Edmonton, AB – Rexall Place
• 11/25 Calgary, AB – Scotiabank Saddledome

Trent Reznor has announced that former Inch Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck is back in the band.

"I am proud to announce that the tour lineup now includes the incredible Robin Finck," wrote Reznor on the band's Facebook page. "The addition of Robin to the mix of players I’ve assembled makes this band incredibly powerful and versatile. We are deep in the rehearsal process and it feels exciting and great to be back at this. Lots of information, surprises and sweat headed your way. Stay tuned!"

Last week, Nine Inch Nails bassist Eric Avery announced said he was leaving the band because he was feeling a bit "overwhelmed" after a recent tour with Garbage.

"It's with very mixed emotions I tell you all that I'm pulling out of NIN," wrote Avery, a founding member of Jane's Addiction. "I know. It's been a tough call and I don't know if it's the right one. But I really want to focus on my musical life here in LA, on film work in particular. As the tour dates kept growing … I just got overwhelmed."

Finck can be heard on several Nine Inch Nails albums, including Closer to God (1994), Further Down the Spiral (1995), And All That Could Have Been (2002), The Downward Spiral (2004) and The Slip (2008).

Nine Inch Nails are scheduled to play Lollapalooza in Chicago and Jay-Z's Made In America Festival in Philadelphia this summer, with more tour dates to be announced soon.

Nine Inch Nails have posted a documentary about their Self Destruct tour, and you can check it out on the Vimeo player below.

The 75-minute film chronicles the band's tour from 1994 to 1996 and features appearances from David Bowie and Marilyn Manson. The footage was originally only available on 1997's Closure video.

Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor recently announced that NIN are alive and kicking in 2013. Tours are planned for this summer and fall. The new lineup includes Reznor, Eric Avery of Jane's Addiction, Adrian Belew of King Crimson and Josh Eustis of Telefon Tel Aviv, as well as previous NIN collaborators Alessandro Cortini and Ilan Rubin.

"I was working with Adrian Belew on some musical ideas, which led to some discussion on performing, which led to some beard-scratching, which (many steps later) led to the decision to re-think the idea of what Nine Inch Nails could be, and the idea of playing a show," Reznor said. "Calls were made to some friends, lots of new ideas were discussed, and a show was booked - which led to another, which somehow led to a lot of shows.

"The band is reinventing itself from scratch and will be comprised of Eric Avery, Adrian Belew, Alessandro Cortini, Josh Eustis, Ilan Rubin, and me. The first shows will begin this summer, followed by a full-on arena tour of the US this fall, and lots of other dates worldwide to follow through 2014."

Nine Inch Nails: "Closure" part one: Self Destruct (1997) from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

How to Destroy Angels have released a dark new video for their track "Ice Age," off the group's new An Omen EP. Watch the John Hillcoat-directed clip below.

The band — which features Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor, his wife Mariqueen Maandig and longtime collaborators Rob Sheridan and Atticus Ross — are set to follow up their latest EP with a full-length album slated for a 2013 release. Reznor has also stated in recent interviews that something will likely happen in the near future with Nine Inch Nails, who have been largely dormant in recent years while Reznor has explored other projects.

It was also recently revealed in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) session that he was "helping out" with a track for the new Queens of the Stone Age album, which will feature Dave Grohl on drums.

How to Destroy Angels, the new project from Nine Inch Nails mainman Trent Reznor, are now streaming their new EP, An Omen online. Listen via the SoundCloud player below.

The band — which also feature's Reznor's wife Mariqueen Maandig, along with frequent NIN collaborators Atticus Ross and Rob Sheridan — will release their debut full-length sometime in 2013 on Columbia.

While he has undoubtedly been busy with his soundtrack work and How to Destroy Angels, Reznor went on record recently assuring fans that there would be new material from Nine Inch Nails in the near future. "There will be new music," he told Rolling Stone. There are some things in the works."

Reznor also wouldn't rule out live dates for NIN, who many fans had presumed retired from live performances. "Yeah, if it feels right, it's a possibility," he said. "I never said that that wasn't going to happen, just that it couldn't go on as it was. Having a few years doing other things, I've enjoyed [them] and I'm enjoying doing How to Destroy Angels, and there will be a place for stuff that falls in the Nine Inch Nails column of things. It's a different kind of work."

An Omen is out November 13.

Dave Grohl has released another teaser video for his upcoming Sound City movie, a documentary he's both directing and producing about the legendary Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California.

In the below clip, Tom Petty, Trent Reznor, John Fogerty and Butch Vig all talk about what made Sound City — and in particular the studio's Neve 8028 recording console — so special.

"The Neve has incredible character," said Vig, "probably too much character."

Grohl's directorial debut about "America’s greatest unsung recording studio" still has no firm release date, but is tentatively expected later this year. For more on the film, check out soundcitymovie.com.

Nine Inch Nails mastermind and Oscar-winning film composer Trent Reznor has written the theme song for the upcoming video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

"There is a lot of reservation and angst and sense of loss and regret and anger bubbling under the surface," Reznor told USA Today of his latest soundtrack work. "So it didn't make sense to have a gung-ho patriotic feeling kind of theme song. It has to feel weighty."

Call of Duty: Black Ops II is set for a November 13 release.

Perhaps even more interesting for fans is the fact that there's plenty of new music coming from Reznor in the near future.

"We have a finished album," Reznor said of How to Destroy Angels, his band with his wife Mariqueen Maandiq and Atticus Ross. "It's been finished for a little while. We're doing a little bit of tweaks on it. The record will be out soon."

Reznor also promises that new Nine Inch Nails music is in the works and that the band is in its "gestation period."

"Many years ago, a young and naive Nine Inch Nails were asked what TV shows they'd be interested in appearing on," Trent Reznor wrote yesterday via Twitter, "As a joke (and likely drunk), they thought of the most absurd choice they could come up with at the time. They were then informed their bluff had been called and were actually booked on said show."

Reznor is referring to the surfacing of a hilariously dated bit of footage that just appeared online of Nine Inch Nails on Dance Party USA back in the late '80s. You can watch the clip below.

Reznor continued on his self-deprecating Twitter rant, saying, "They hopped in their Honda Civic touring vehicle (hatchback) and travelled many miles to (I think) NJ for the big show. They had a laugh making fun of the people, their fashion choices and hairstyles. Life was good. Years later, the internet is discovered... There's a moral in there somewhere."

He would later add: "Come to think of it, Skrillex may indeed owe me some publishing on that hairdo..."

Someone stop giving Trent Reznor awards to he'll make another Nine Inch Nails album.

Kidding aside, the NIN mastermind along with his writing partner Atticus Ross have been nominated for yet another Golden Globe, this one for their work on the soundtrack to the upcoming film, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Reznor and Ross won the Golden Globe for Best Original Score - Motion Picture last year after being nominated for The Social Network. The pair would eventually win an Oscar for the score.

In what I'm sure is an equally important honor to Trent, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo soundtrack also made it onto my list for the best albums of 2011.

December 9 saw the release of the soundtrack for the upcoming film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo written by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Among the tracks is a collaboration between Rezor and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O, a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song."

While the song debuted online months back, there's now a video for the track -- an eerie clip put together by director David Fincher (Fight Club, The Social Network) for the film's title sequence. You can check out the video below.

After turning his attention to film scoring for a couple of years -- and winning a freaking Oscar in the process -- Trent Reznor will focus on Nine Inch Nails in the new year.

Speaking to The Sun, Reznor dispelled any rumors that Nine Inch Nails was done, saying, "Nine Inch Nails is not dead by any means, but all the touring and record writing has been thrown off for a little bit. I highly expect that to be the focus of 2012 in terms of writing and we may see a full-length release even."

And indeed you can't criticize Reznor for making poor career moves. The NIN frontman has made sure his band -- along with Radiohead -- has become the epitome of a band working in a post-label world. Reinvention isn't an idea that Reznor had all on his own though, it's a cue he takes from one of his heroes, David Bowie.

"It started to feel like if I didn't force myself into a change I would regret it," said Reznor. "It's a fear of not wanting to try things because you're in a comfort zone. I always think about my hero David Bowie and his fearlessness to destroy something that isn't ready to break yet and start something new. He'd throw out an identity, confuse his audience and it's a great risk career-wise. But he had the balls and didn't milk it out to the last drop."

Nine Inch Nails last full-length album was The Slip, which was released back in 2008.

Reznor and Atticus Ross released their official soundtrack to the film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo earlier today.

Y2K bugs notwithstanding, 1999 was a payoff year for patient music fans.

Several artists made comebacks -- perhaps fearful they had only a few months before computer systems would revert back to 1900 -- and CD players would explode.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers rang in the summer with Californication, but the big news for fans was the return of guitarist John Frusciante, who had not played with the band in eight years. Californication went on to sell more than 13 million copies.

Later in the year, the rock world saw Trent Reznor release The Fragile, Nine Inch Nails' first album in five years. And then there was Peace, Eurythmics' first album in 10.

But ,of course, the comeback king of 1999 was Carlos Santana. The legendary guitarist had begun the decade with dismal record sales and eventually found himself without a contract. By the end of the Nineties, at the recommendation of Arista Records' Clive Davis, Santana recorded Supernatural, with a star-studded cast of musicians including Eric Clapton, Cee-Lo Greene and Dave Matthews. The first single, "Smooth," recorded with Rob Thomas on vocals, spent 12 weeks at Nol. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 -- Santana's first No. 1 single -- and won three Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year.

Carlos Santana was again the force to reckoned with that he was in the Seventies. But there were other artists pushing for their spot in the limelight in 1999. See who found some in this week's gallery of GW covers from 1999.

Oscar-winning film composer -- and also Nine Inch Nails head honcho -- Trent Reznor has announced the release date for his upcoming film score for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. The soundtrack will be released on December 2 through Null in North America, and through Mute Records overseas.

Trent Reznor and longtime collaborator Atticus Ross won an Oscar and Golden Globe for their film score to last year's The Social Network, which was directed by David Fincher. Fincher is also directing The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

The cover art for the album was also revealed on Nine Inch Nails' official website and can be seen below.

As previously reported, Nine Inch Nails are one of the many bands that took part in a tribute to U2's seminal 1991 album Achtung Baby, which was put together by the UK’s Q Magazine. You can now stream Nine Inch Nails' cover of "Zoo Station" below.

Nine Inch Nails are currently on a bit of a break as frontman Trent Reznor continues his foray into film music. The Oscar-winning composer is currently at work on the film-score for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. You can check out the latest trailer for the film, which features music from Reznor and frequent collaborator Atticus Ross, over here.

Q Magazine is putting together an all-star tribute album to celebrate the 20th anniversary of yet another classic record, U2's Achtung Baby.

One of the early artist to sign on was none other than Jack White, whose spin on "Love is Blindness" can be heard below.

Meanwhile, the latest band to jump on board may come as a bit of surprise, given a recent period of inactivity, Nine Inch Nails. NIN will contribute a cover of "Zoo Station" for the tribute album, which hits newsstands October 25.

AHK-toong BAY-bi Covered Track List:
01. Nine Inch Nails – Zoo Station
02. U2 (Jacques Lu Cont Mix) – Even Better Than The Real Thing
03. Damien Rice – One
04. Patti Smith – Until The End Of The World
05. Garbage – Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
06. Depeche Mode – So Cruel
07. Snow Patrol – Mysterious Ways
08. The Fray – Trying To Throw Your Arms Around The World
09. Gavin Friday – The Fly
10. The Killers – Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
11. Glasvegas – Acrobat
12. Jack White – Love Is Blindness

With Nine Inch Nails on ice at the moment, NIN fans can at least be reassured that Trent Reznor is keeping busy making new music. Most of the new music we've heard from Reznor lately has come in the form of film scores -- one of which, The Social Network, won a freakin' Oscar -- so it's no surprise that the new music we're bringing you today comes from his latest film project, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. You can check out the trailer below.

Reznor once again collaborated with his longtime partner in crime Atticus Ross for the David Fincher-helmed adaption of the popular novel by Stieg Larsson.

An earlier red band trailer for the film also featured Trent working with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O on a cover of Led Zeppelin's "The Immigrant Song," which you can listen to here.

Trent Reznor -- or rather, Oscar-winning film composer Trent Reznor -- has just posted a sample of his score for their upcoming movie, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, online. You can hear it below.

The below clip marks the second piece of music to emmerge from the score, the first being a cover of Led Zeppelin's "The Immigrant Song," features the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O on vocals. You can hear that here.

The movie, based on the popular novel by Stieg Larsson, marks Reznor's second collaboration with director David Fincher (Fight Club.) The first was The Social Network, which nabbed Reznor and collaborator Atticus Ross the Oscar for best motion picture score.

• Click here to listen to Reznor and Karen O's cover of "The Immigrant Song"
• Reznor Tells Fans Not to "Waste Money" on Pretty Hate Machine Reissue

The film, a remake of an earlier film based on the same novel, stars Daniel Craig and is expected to be released late this year.

Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor has long had a love-hate relationship with Twitter, with his account often going dormant for months on end. Not so today, with Reznor initially posting a message inviting fans to use his few Spotify invites, then tearing into his old record label, Interscope/Universal, for their recent reissue of Nine Inch Nails' debut album, Pretty Hate Machine.

"NIN fans, don't waste your money on this version of [Pretty Hate Machine] that was just released," he wrote. His next post added, "A record label bullshit move repackaging the old version. Ignore please."

Nine Inch Nails released a remastered version of Pretty Hate Machine this past fall featuring new artwork from long-time NIN art director Rob Sheridan.

Reznor has been a particularly vocal critic of the record industry, including how his own labels have handled his music. After seeing the prices of his albums in Australia, Reznor told his Australian fans to "steal" the music during a live concert. It's also widely believed that the leak of Nine Inch Nails' last studio album for a major label, Year Zero, was perpetrated by Reznor himself.

Nine Inch Nails have since successfully released two albums, Ghosts I-IV and The Slip (which was offered as a free download, and only later saw a physical release), without any record label help.

Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor has recently recorded a cover version of the Led Zeppelin classic, "The Immigrant Song," with help from Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer Karen O. The song was recorded for Reznor's score of the upcoming movie, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara. You can listen to Trent's version of "The Immigrant Song" in the video below (Red Band trailer, may be NSFW.)

The NIN frontman, who recently won his first Oscar for the film score for The Social Network, is providing the score for the movie based on the popular Stieg Larson novel. This is his second collaboration with director David Fincher (Fight Club.)

Further details of Reznor collaborators on the score have not yet been revealed.

Nine Inch Nails has confirmed 10 final dates, after which the NIN live experience will go on indefinite hiatus.

As always, a significant percentage of the best tickets for the shows will be reserved for exclusive pre-sale on nin.com. In this case, nin.com pre-sale will include every ticket for the most intimate farewell shows at New York's Bowery Ballroom and Webster Hall and Los Angeles' Henry Fonda Theater and Echoplex.

nin.com pre-sales will begin July 17 with general on-sales following July 31.

The Horrors will support the August 22, 23 and 25 New York dates. Mew will support August 28 in Chicago and September 2 and 3 in Los Angeles. Support for the remaining dates will be announced at a later date.

A full itinerary is listed below. For further information, visit nin.com.

Dates:

8/22/09 NY, NY Bowery Ballroom *Tickets available exclusively at nin.com
8/23/09 NY, NY Webster Hall *Tickets available exclusively at nin.com
8/25/09 NY, NY Terminal 5
8/26/09 NY, NY Terminal 5
8/28/09 Chicago, IL Aragon Ballroom
8/29/09 Chicago, IL Aragon Ballroom
9/2/09 Los Angeles, CA Hollywood Palladium
9/3/09 Los Angeles, CA Henry Fonda Theatre *Tickets available exclusively at nin.com
9/5/09 Los Angeles, CA The Wiltern
9/6/09 Los Angeles, CA Echoplex *Tickets available exclusively at nin.com