Michael Trent Reznor was born in
Mercer, Pennsylvania, halfway between
Pittsburgh and
Cleveland, to Michael Joseph Reznor and Nancy Lou Clark. Reznor was called by his middle name to avoid confusion with his father. After his parents divorced, he lived with his grandparents, while his sister Tera lived with their mother.
Reznor began playing the
piano at the age of five and showed an early aptitude for music. In a 1995 interview, his grandfather, Bill Clark, remarked, "Music was his life, from the time he was a wee boy. He was so gifted." His former piano teacher Rita Beglin said "Reznor always reminded me of
Harry Connick, Jr." when he played.
Reznor has repeatedly acknowledged that his sheltered life in Pennsylvania left him feeling somewhat isolated from the outside world. In a 1994 interview with
Rolling Stone, he makes reference to his choices in the music industry. "I don't know why I want to do these things, other than my desire to escape from Small Town, U.S.A., to dismiss the boundaries, to explore. It isn't a bad place where I grew up, but there was nothing going on but the cornfields. My life experience came from watching movies, watching TV and reading books and looking at magazines. And when your fucking culture comes from watching TV every day, you're bombarded with images of things that seem cool, places that seem interesting, people who have jobs and careers and opportunities. None of that happened where I was. You're almost taught to realize it's not for you." However, Reznor later confesses, "I don't want to give the impression it was a miserable childhood."
At the Mercer Area Junior and Senior
High Schools, Reznor learned to play the
saxophone and
tuba. He was a member of both the
jazz and
marching bands. Former Mercer High School band director Dr. Hendley Hoge remembered Reznor as "very upbeat and friendly." Reznor also became involved in theater while in high school. He was voted Best in Drama by classmates for his roles as
Judas in
Jesus Christ Superstar and Professor Harold Hill in
The Music Man.
Reznor graduated from this high school in 1983 and enrolled at
Allegheny College, where he studied
computer engineering. He also joined a local band called
Option 30 and played three shows per week with them. After a year in college, Reznor dropped out to pursue a full-time career in music.
Reznor moved to
Cleveland, Ohio. In 1985, he joined a band named
The Innocent as a
keyboardist. They released one album,
Livin' in the Street, but Reznor quit after just three months. In 1986, Reznor joined the local band
Exotic Birds. He also appeared with them as the fictional band The Problems in the film
Light of Day.
He got a job at
Right Track Studio (now known as Midtown Recording) as a handyman. Studio owner Bart Koster later said Reznor "is so focused in everything he does. When that guy waxed the floor, it looked great." Koster allowed Reznor to use the studio during off hours, which he used to record demos for songs that ended up on Nine Inch Nails' first album,
Pretty Hate Machine. These demos were later released as a bootleg under the name
Purest Feeling.
