Rare photographs from Nine Inch Nails’ legendary “Self Destruct” tour will debut in the United States at special exhibitions showing in New York City and Los Angeles.
The show offers a new look at the trek, which found Nine Inch Nails touring the world between 1994 and 1996 in support of their groundbreaking second album, The Downward Spiral. The photographs were taken by Jonathan Rach, who also filmed much of the trek for NIN’s 1997 documentary/concert film, Closure.
The exhibit — spearheaded by Behind the Gallery — will arrive first in New York City, running at the Morrison Hotel Gallery Feb. 21 through 23, with an album playback event scheduled for Feb. 21 and Rach giving a talk on Feb. 22. The L.A. show will take pace March 4 through 9 at 7615 W. Sunset Blvd, with the album playback set for March 7 and Rach’s talk for March 8.
Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails performing in Australia.
As Rach told Rolling Stone, his experience of The Downward Spiral was almost exclusively through the tour, which he could tell at the time was monumental. “I knew night after night that Trent [Reznor] was doing something pretty special and they would talk about this tour for years,” Rach said. “The shows had a ferocious energy to them matched only by the crowd out front. I knew I was positioned in the middle of something that would become an important part of music history. To this day, the industry still talks about that tour and its impact.”
Rach also credited Reznor with having the foresight to bring a filmmaker and photographer along, especially at a time when “these events sometimes would go undocumented.” But maybe the biggest vote of confidence regarding the endeavor came from David Bowie, with whom Nine Inch Nails co-headlined a bunch of dates in 1995.
Rach recalled running into Bowie one night backstage: “He spotted me as I entered the packed room. He made his way over to me and said, ‘I’m smart enough to know that you just became the most important person in the room.’ What he meant was the world and all future generations just walked through the door. That’s the power of a photographer.”
The exhibit — which previously ran in the U.K. and Australia — will feature over 20 photographs, including images of Bowie and Lou Reed. There will also be additional images that Rach shot during Nine Inch Nails’ six-night run at the Hollywood Palladium in 2018.
Rach said he hopes fans can feel the “energy of the images” and “try to live in them” to get some sense of what it was like to be at that tour. He added, “I also hope the NIN community meets one another and new friendships are formed from that common bond of being fans of the music. It’s a celebration of the 30th year anniversary of The Downward Spiral and the Self Destruct tour and hopefully the experience is one to remember.”
Trent Reznor smashing a mic stand on the Self Destruct tour.
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