While living in Cleveland in 1987, Trent Reznor played keyboards in the Exotic Birds, a synthpop band managed by John Malm Jr., with Malm informally becoming his manager when he left to work on his own music. At the time, Reznor was employed as an assistant engineer and janitor at Right Track Studios, and studio owner Bart Koster granted Reznor free access to the studio between bookings to record demos, and as he was unable to find a band that could articulate the material as he desired, he was inspired by Prince to play all instruments himself, except for the drums which he programmed electronically. In November 1988 Reznor used his free studio time to record nine demos, some of which would later be re-recorded for Nine Inch Nails' debut album 'Pretty Hate Machine'. The first Nine Inch Nails performance, featuring Reznor and Chris Vrenna on drums, took place at the Phantasy Theater in Lakewood, Ohio, on 21 October 1988, with the band later supporting Skinny Puppy, after which Reznor aimed to release a 12-inch single on a small European label, having signed to TVT Records after several labels responded favourably to the demo material. After six of the demos were released in revised form on Nine Inch Nails' first studio album 'Pretty Hate Machine' in 1989, the original demo recordings appeared on a number of unofficial CDs in 1994, released in Germany, Italy and the US. The overall sound of the demos is lighter than that of 'Pretty Hate Machine', with several songs containing more live drumming and guitar, as well as a heavier use of film samples, and both 'Sanctified' and 'That's What I Get' could be considered better versions that those that were officially released. 'Twist' is an early version of 'Ringfinger', featuring different lyrics and less use of sample loops, and some of the songs re-recorded for 'Pretty Hate Machine' had lyrics cut from them, but Reznor chose to print the full lyrics in the 'Pretty Hate Machine' booklet to retain some of the original meanings of his songs. Because of the differences between these demos and the eventual sound of Nine Inch Nails, fan's opinion is divided over them, but newcomers should find them a good introduction to the band, while hard-core fans can now hear Reznor's original vision of his songs before they were re-imagined for official release.
Track listing
01 Slate (Intro)
02 Sanctified
03 Maybe Just Once
04 The Only Time
05 Kinda I Want To
06 That's What I Get
07 Purest Feeling
08 Twist
09 Down In It
