“I thought, ‘Enough. I don’t know that I need this kind of thing’”: In the early 90s, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor was at war with his label – so he did the most extreme thing he could

Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor performing onstage in 1992.

It’s 1992 and Trent Reznor is refusing to put out new music. His band Nine Inch Nails is under contract with TVT Records, who are pushing for a follow up to his massively successful 1989 debut album, Pretty Hate Machine. The label wants “commercial, easily digestible” synthpop. Reznor wants a darker, more industrial metal sound. The result is deadlock.

Reznor has spent much of his career rebelling against what he calls the “greedy record industry”. When Universal reissued Pretty Hate Machine in 2011, he urged fans not to waste their money on “record label bullshit”. In 2009, he told fans where to find illegally filmed HD footage from NIN’s Lights In The Sky tour. Prior to the release of Year Zero, he used gig venues to hide USB sticks containing leaks of unrelease, unprotected album tracks. But even amid a career rich in rebellion, 1992’s Broken EP stands out as the crown jewel of mutiny.