Nine Inch Nails, The Downward Spiral (TVT, 1994) Produced by Trent Reznor and
Flood
On July 4, 1992, Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor moved out to Los Angeles
with a seemingly simple plan. Instead of making his next record in a established
recording studio, he wanted to find a house where he could build his own custom facility
and work at his own pace. "I wanted to fine-tune my engineering skills," recalls Reznor.
"I figured if I had a studio around, I'd inevitably figure out how to use it. And also, for the
first time, I had the financial resources to do something right, so I ended up buying a big
console and a couple of Studer machines because it was cheaper that renting, in the long
run." After rejecting about 15 houses, Reznor settled on a place in Bel Air. The 4.9
million dollar mansion was, for his purposes, perfect - secluded, the rooms were huge and
there was a large swimming pool off the master bedroom. Reznor soon discovered that it
was also a world-famous slaughterhouse - the place where members of Charles Manson's
"family" brutally murdered five people, including actress Sharon Tate. "The first night
was terrifying," says Reznor. "I jumped a mile at every sound. But after a while I got used
to the place, which, in a way, is almost scarier." While Reznor doesn't claim that the
house is haunted, it sure seemed that way to him at times. "We had a million electrical
disturbances," recalls Reznor. "Things that shouldn't have happened did happen.
Eventually, we'd joke about it: 'Oh, Sharon must be here. The fucking tape machine just
shut down.'" Exasperated by constant equipment glitches that would render his arsenal of
keyboards and samplers useless for hours - and even days - at a time, Reznor was forced
to start writing on the three guitars he had brought with him: a white Gibson Les Paul, a
Fender Strat and an Ovation acoustic. As it turned out, switching to the guitar turned out
to be a blessing in disguise for Reznor, as it allowed him to concentrate on the
fundamentals of songwriting - something he'd been having problems with. s the song
ideas began taking shape, a theme started to emerge: Reznor was chronicling one man's
dark journey through self-examination, desolation and loss, culminating in complete
despair. While not the cheeriest subject for a pop album, The Downward Spiral became a
massive critical and commercial success. "It's the type of record that takes a little more
work on the part of the listener," explains the man who is Nine-Inch-Nails. "It gets better
the more you hear it, hopefully. But it isn't something that jumps out of your cart speakers
and says, 'This is the greatest album that's ever been recorded.' I was trying to find an
intensity though restraint rather that by smashing you over the bead with a baseball bat. If
we had 48 tracks, we wanted to bury 48 riffs that were meant to come out with repeated
listenings."
