Beyond hurt

When he returned to New Orleans after the tour, he thought his career was over. "I hated making music," he recalled. "From a commercial standpoint, 'Fragile' was a failure. The record company seemed to abandon us. My manager and I weren't getting along. I didn't feel like I could write anymore, and I couldn't even stop drinking." (Reznor and his former manager have sued each other, each claiming to be owed millions of dollars by the other.)

Eventually, Reznor -- seeing how tenuous life is after a friend in New Orleans was killed in an apparently random shooting -- got the strength to check himself back into a rehab center in New Orleans. It was a cold-turkey experience that still makes him shudder.

"Imagine being put in a locked room where you feel you've got the worst flu you can imagine and your skin feels like it's on fire and you have to vomit constantly," he said.

Reznor said he hasn't had a drink in nearly four years.

Still, his reentry into the pop world has been slow. To avoid opening himself up to old temptations and insecurities, he pretty much kept to himself in New Orleans, working on a few side projects but not ready to tackle his own album until moving to Los Angeles early last year. He even cut himself off from his record company for months at a time.

Rick Rubin, the producer who suggested to Cash that he sing "Hurt," is one of Reznor's closest friends in the record business, but he too lost touch with him during those dark years.

"Trent's music is a very, very personal, intimate thing," Rubin said. "He doesn't edit himself in any way. He's very much of an open book in his music and in his dealings with people. He's always pure and he's honest, and that's a very vulnerable place to be, so he probably learned the best way to protect himself is to just disappear if he's not ready to deal with things. But he's great again."

As to whether there's a big audience waiting for Reznor's music, Rubin said, "I think so, definitely. He kind of carved out a niche, and even though he hasn't always been there to push the niche forward, no one has come and taken that space."

Jimmy Iovine, the Interscope Geffen A&M Records chairman who signed Nine Inch Nails to Interscope, is also thrilled with Reznor's recovery. "To me, Trent is one of those incredible talents that comes along every 10 or 20 years," said Iovine, who as a producer or engineer worked with such major figures as John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen and U2. "I never think his talent went away."