The first single off Pretty Hate Machine, Nine Inch Nails' first album, was 'Down In It,' and according to Mental Floss, Trent Reznor hired visual artists Benjamin Stokes and Eric Zimmerman to make a video for it. The concept: Reznor is pursued through Chicago, and he falls off a building and plays dead on the ground, splattered in blood.
- Michael Trent Reznor (born May 17, 1965) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and composer. Reznor serves as the lead vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and principal songwriter of the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, which he founded in 1988 and of which he was the sole official member until 2016. The first Nine Inch Nails album, Pretty Hate Machine (1989), was a.
- Nine Inch Nails singer Trent Reznor has a long and storied history of criticizing MTV. According to Revolver, Reznor was interviewed back in 1990 by VidMag Media — which you can find on YouTube — and discussed hiring the Chicago art collective H-Gun Labs to supply the visuals for his songs 'Head Like a Hole' and 'Down In It.' Reznor enjoyed H-Gun's video for Ministry's song 'Stigmata.
'Driver Down' is the 22nd song on the Lost Highway soundtrack, clocking in at 5:18. It is one of only a few tracks to ever be credited to Trent Reznor. When asked about this in an interview, Reznor stated it was credited to him because 'it was a transition, because members of my band had left.'[1]
The track is titled 'Driving Theme' in the movie's ending credits, and it features Reznor's first recorded saxophone performance with NIN since 'Purest Feeling'. This may have been influenced by Reznor's saxophone playing on 'Subterraneans' during the Dissonance Tour with David Bowie two years prior.
- 2Appearances
- 3Versions
Song Credits
- Additional drums: Chris Vrenna
- Assistant engineer: Brian Pollack
- Additional guitar: Danny Lohner
- Additional producer: Peter Christopherson
- Writing, arrangement, production, mixing, saxophone: Trent Reznor
Appearances
Other
- Lost Highway soundtrack
Versions
Driver Down
The only available version of the piece, it begins with a percussion loop bearing resemblance to those from 'The Becoming' and 'The Way Out Is Through' and is joined by layers of other percussion parts. Sludgy distorted guitars soon enter and the song weaves through several waves of rhythm changes and fuzzy guitar loops, eventually fading out and culminating with a repeating piano line and saxophone, which end abruptly.
Live
'Driver Down' has never been played live.
External Links
Nine Inch Nails singer Trent Reznor has a long and storied history of criticizing MTV. According to Revolver, Reznor was interviewed back in 1990 by VidMag Media — which you can find on YouTube — and discussed hiring the Chicago art collective H-Gun Labs to supply the visuals for his songs 'Head Like a Hole' and 'Down In It.' Reznor enjoyed H-Gun's video for Ministry's song 'Stigmata,' which he described as being 'anti-MTV.'
He then went on to say he hated MTV and its commercialism, grousing 'Someone said, 'Name your five favorite videos,' and I can't name two that are good...It's gotta be mindless and dumb and promote the product.'
Of course, he'd appeared on MTV's 120 Minutesin 1989, decorating a Christmas tree with host Dave Kendall, promoting the video for 'Down In It' — which MTV obviously had no problem playing — and discussing the then-upcoming single 'Head Like a Hole'; the song, of course, went on to be one of Nine Inch Nails' most iconic, thanks in part to its popular music video receiving heavy airplay on — you guessed it — MTV.
Mind you, MTV did later find Reznor too controversial for broadcast, although the issue was with a live performance, rather than a music video.
Did Trent Reznor bite 'The Hand That Feeds'?
In 2005, Nine Inch Nails was scheduled to perform its latest single at the MTV Video Music Awards. It was a big year for Trent Reznor; per MTV News, he'd spent several years battling a drug addiction before putting out his first album in 6 years, With Teeth, which sold 272,000 copies in its first week to take the No. 1 spot on Billboard. Fans were likely excited to see Reznor back on stage, but the performance wasn't meant to be.
Trent Reznor 2020
Nine Inch Nails had planned to play 'The Hand That Feeds' in front of a large backdrop featuring then-President George W. Bush. With lyrics like 'Inside your heart it is black and it's hollow and it's cold...There's a price to be paid for the blood on which we dine/Justified in the name of the holy and the divine,' the performance was obviously intended as a critique of Bush, an idea that didn't sit well with MTV.
'While we respect Nine Inch Nails' point of view, we were uncomfortable with their performance being built around a partisan political statement,' an MTV spokesperson told Rolling Stone.
After network personnel discussed their concerns with the band, they opted to cancel the performance rather than get rid of the backdrop. Reznor was apparently happy to bite the hand that had fed him in the past and got the last laugh on the Nine Inch Nails website.
Trent Reznor Quake
'Apparently the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me,' Reznor said.