Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock band, founded in 1988, of which lead singer Trent Reznor is the most consistent member. Nine Inch Nails has been a very popular group, with their album The Downward Spiral (1994) often regarded as their masterpiece. Their song Hurt was covered by Johnny Cash.
Frank Zappa
Interviewed by Paul Brannigan (8 July 2026), Reznor remembered: "And I had a life changing experience. National Record Mart was the, the store in the mall 15 minutes away from where I grew up, and I remember walking in there and hearing something that was like, What is this? And it was Frank Zappa, the Sheik Yerbouti album, filled with profanity. They'd put the cover of the album they were playing up on the counter when they're playing it, and it just felt like, I don't understand what I'm hearing, but wow, man." [1]
Interviewed by Robin Murray for Clash Music (17 December 2012), Reznor said: "I’m intrigued by technology and the follow up to not liking the iPod is that I realised after I bought one that I was listening to a much larger variety of music than I used to listen to. Going on tour meant taking a bunch of logic cases with me containing a library of CDs and vinyl every time I travelled. Now I’ve got every record Frank Zappa ever put out in my pocket – wow! I’ve never had that before. It changed the way I started to think about music."[2]
On the album Closure (1997), Nine Inch Nails covered Frank Zappa's Broken Hearts Are For Assholes. [3]
In Confessions of a Metalhead (1998), Moon Zappa said she got into listening to Nine Inch Nails and closed off: "I've got my eye on you, Trent".
