Before there was Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor played in a cheesy ’80s pop band. Reznor played an 80’s outfield called Slam Bamboo, whose music adhered to the standard 80’s pop formula of bouncy vocals and lots of electronic instrumentation.
Trent Reznor Looks Strangely Out of Place
Reznor played the keyboards and sang backup vocals while looking strangely out of place. His bandmates ran around in brightly coloured suits with perms dancing on stage, you know, the whole 80s vibe. Trent Reznor looked, well, like Trent Reznor in the background.
In one public appearance they made on TV, he’s dressed all in black and sports an unironic John Cusack-looking haircut. Joining Reznor in the band was Ron Messara, who was the original drummer for Nine Inch Nails for a brief period in 1988 during the band’s stint supporting Skinny Puppy. Messara would be replaced by Chris Morena who originally played keyboards.
Reznor Plays in Slam Bamboo While Recording Pretty Hate Machine
When did Reznor play in Slam Bamboo? He was in the band at the same time he was recording the first Nine Inch Nails record, Pretty Hate Machine.
Slam Bamboo was based out of Cleveland and Reznor had moved there at that point in time and he had already played with several Cleveland-based bands. The band did get some exposure on TV, in fact See magazine claimed that Slam Bamboo was a band that had everything to make it big.
They were featured on a local Ohio morning show called AM Cleveland in 1987 to perform their 1986 single “House on Fire”.
Reznor Play Keyboards for The Innocent
Prior to joining the group, Reznor played in several local outfits. In 1985, he joined The Innocent as a keyboardist and they released one album, Living in the Street. Reznor’s time would be short-lived, leaving the band after only three months.
Reznor Joins Exotic Birds
In 1986, he joined the band Exotic Birds and appeared with them as a fictional band called The Problems in the 1987 film, Light of Day. Reznor was even interviewed by a local TV station when he was in Exotic Birds. Here’s the interview talking about electronic music.
“… On our final edition of The Breakout, our man on music, Dave Tarbert shows you how the Exotic Birds have made modern music very popular in this area.”
“For six years, talented Cleveland-banned Exotic Birds have produced their unique electric-dance music with the aid of computers. They use a technique known as sampling, which entails programming sequences of sounds into the computer to be recalled during the performance like Thomas Dolby, the birds contend that’s for their style. The computer is an essential element of the music.”
“Our particular style of music is a very dance-oriented kind of thing that is an element of the song…” – Trent Reznor
“Our particular style of music is a very dance-oriented kind of thing that is an element of the song…” “It doesn’t make any difference how a song is played if it’s a good song, the people like the song. Whether it’s a rock and roll song, whether it’s a disco song, whether it’s you know, a polka. It doesn’t matter. We just use different instruments than other people and I refer to the computer as this instrument.”
“The misconception and the entrance feel most people have about their computer is that it creates the music itself. In fact, just like any computer, the musical computer must be programmed. It doesn’t create, it recreates. It’s only as talented as its programmer. When you mention talent and creativity, that blend equals the Exotic Birds.”
Reznor Strikes a Deal with Right Track Studio
It was around this time that Reznor, when he was in Slam Bamboo, basically got a job at Cleveland’s Right Track Studio as an assistant engineer and as a janitor. During his time there, he would form a relationship with the studio owner Bart Coaster and asked him if he could record demos for free when the studio was being unused, to which he agreed.
Reznor was unable to find musicians that he was happy with to play on his debut album, so he finally decided to pull a Prince and play all the instruments himself with exception of the drums. This is something that would become common on subsequent Nine Inch Nails records, even though Reznor would sometimes employ other musicians to help him out as well as producers.
Trent Reznor Signs with TVT Records
Reznor attracted the attention of several labels and he signed with TVT Records who would put out his first album with Nine Inch Nails, Pretty Hate Machine in 1989 and three years later he would fight with TVT records in an attempt to leave the label.
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