During their run of shows at Lollapalooza 1991, Nine Inch Nails trashed nearly every guitar they could get their hands on. Recalling those insane festival sets in Guitar World’s upcoming book “Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival,” former NIN guitarist Richard Patrick revealed that those shows were so intense and physically demanding that he needed surgery afterwards.
“My knees are still f*cked up from that tour,” he says. “I actually had to have back surgery because I walked with a limp for, like, ten years. Because my whole right leg was just whaled on. Chiropractors and doctors were like, ‘How long did you play college football?’ I’d go, ‘It wasn’t college football. It was Trent Reznor.’”
In the book, it is explained that Reznor realized that the crazier the sets got, the more people liked it. The goal was to be “punk as f*ck,” according to Patrick.
“We were absolutely dedicated to total mayhem and anarchy,” he says. “Trent would tackle me several times during the show, I would throw beers at him, I would throw beers at the audience. It was the most decadent, crazy, do-not-give-a-f*ck thing.”
During their run of Lollapalooza shows, NIN reportedly would constantly give their tech, Marky Ray, cash to go out and find cheap electric guitars for them to play and smash during their sets. Looking back at his time with the band, Patrick estimates that on that tour they destroyed around $40,000 worth of guitars.
While they may have demolished a fair amount of equipment, they never wanted to smash anything other than the cheap instruments Ray found. Unfortunately, Ice-T’s entourage didn’t get that message and destroyed a Gibson Explorer.
Recalling Henry Rollins’ reaction to the pricey guitar being obliterated, Ray said: “Henry would sit there on our bus, incensed, going, ‘How can a guy break a fifteen-hundred-dollar Explorer? What kid wouldn’t give his right nut for something like that?’”
