Interview: Jonathan Rach On The Chaos, Excitement, And Beauty Of Capturing Nine Inch Nails On Film
It’s been 30 years since Nine Inch Nails kicked off their “Self Destruct Tour” in support of The Downward Spiral, and we’re still talking about it. Fans who were there consider it peak Nine Inch Nails, while younger listeners are envious of those who experienced it firsthand. It’s infamous for its display of violence, debauchery, and destruction. It was an unforgettable experience for Jonathan Rach, who captured the tour for the documentary Closure. Though Rach admits things got out of control and were scary at times, he remembers it fondly and eagerly shares stories with anyone who asks.
Earlier this year, Rach celebrated the tour with his photography exhibit “Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral.” Showcasing the photos he took for those shows, it was an opportunity for Rach to meet fans and bond over a shared love of Nine Inch Nails. After a successful run in London, New York, and Los Angeles, Rach brought his work to Chicago as part of the “Alternative Nation: A Retrospective” exhibit. The event featured Rach’s photos along with iconic images from Joseph Cultice, Scarlet Page, Chris Cuffaro, and Kevin Westenberg. Like his previous events, Rach was there opening night, enthusing about Nine Inch Nails with fans and picking the brains of fellow photographers.
Though Rach has worked with celebrities like David Bowie, Jane’s Addiction, Lou Reed, Janet Jackson, and Neil Young, his work with Nine Inch Nails remains a highlight. It not only launched his career, it was a one-in-a-lifetime experience that proved to be invaluable. Rach sat down with GENRE IS DEAD! to share his favorite memories of the “Self Destruct Tour,” what it was like working with Trent Reznor, and his takeaways from the unforgettable experience.
GENRE IS DEAD!: You’re someone who uses visual media to tell stories. So, what is your favorite Nine Inch Nails music video?
Jonathan Rach: Oh, interesting question. I’ve never been asked that. I like “Closer” because I was there. I got to see them make it firsthand. It’s an amazing music video. I think it’s groundbreaking. They used all kinds of old cameras, and they put fog in the room, and I had a front row seat. Even if I just watched it, not having been there, it’s my favorite music video that he’s done. How about you?
GID: “Closer” is obviously the right answer, but the first video that comes to my mind is “March of the Pigs.” It’s such a simple video, but it captures a raw live performance. It’s a very striking video, everything from the simple white background to the outfit Trent [Reznor] is wearing. It’s a perfect representation of Nine Inch Nails from that era, so I have to go with that one. “Closer” is second.
JR: Yeah, he just decided to do that completely stripped down, no big production. He went in the opposite direction of a big production. He certainly could have had one of the larger budgets from his label, but he just decided to keep it extremely raw and real. No flares, just straightforward. I agree that it is a pretty amazing one. Another one I really like is “The Perfect Drug.”
GID: Another good choice! So, you’ve got this Chicago event coming up, and it kind of feels like an offshoot of the exhibit you did in New York and in LA earlier this year. This time, you’re teaming up with other prominent photographers from the era, like Joseph Cultice, Scarlet Page, and Kevin Westenberg. How did you get involved with this event?
JR: Stephen [Dallimore], who owns Behind the Gallery, wanted to put this show together, and Curtis [Duffy] offered his space [After]. As far as picking the photographers, that’s all Stephen. He just asked me if I wanted to be a part of it. And I said, yes, for sure. I have so much respect for those other photographers. Having met them, they’re great people too. So, it was a no-brainer to be a part of it.
One of the reasons I think the exhibit is so cool is that you’re face-to-face with other fans. You have that common ground and can talk to people you’ve never met. That was something I thought was really cool. I told that to Trent and he loved the idea of fans meeting each other in person. It’s cool that everyone in the room loves music. So, you’re gonna have something in common with everybody you’re talking to. The other thing is, if you walk around the room and spend time with each photograph and make a little effort to live inside the photograph and feel the energy of it, you’ve kind of been transported to those places.
So yeah, it’s the old school way of meeting people. Physically, you’re right there, so it’s easy to strike up conversations. A lot of times, I see separate groups who end up meshing together. It’s also crazy to see a lot of young people; that was the thing that threw me off. I didn’t realize that was going to happen.
GID: It’s great to have spaces for people to meet offline. That feels rare these days. The exhibit features your photographs from the “Self Destruct” tour, but you also filmed the tour and released it as Closure in 1997. The documentary is still revered by Nine Inch Nails fans and is often considered one of the best out there, as it should. How do you feel knowing this film you did 30 years ago is not only still being watched and discussed, but new generations of fans are finding it?
JR: I appreciate that. When we first started to do the exhibit, I was very surprised at how many young people came out. I actually told Trent there are a lot of 20-year-olds and teenagers coming out. It’s interesting how sometimes you connect more with somebody from 20 years ago than you do with someone current. I’m a kid from the ’80s, so you go 20 years back, and that’s the ’60s. So, I remember and connected with a lot of artists from that era. I was obsessed with Pink Floyd, and it had been out for 15 years at that point. But I was connecting with that more than something that was current. I think it transcends. If there’s something that’s resonating, it doesn’t matter what time it originated, what generation, or what decade.
When I was putting Closure together in the editing room, I started to realize Nine Inch Nails fans were going to see it. Then I realized some pretty high-profile musicians were going to see it, and I thought Wow, there’s going to be an audience that sees this documentary who are some people I view as icons. And I did have well-established artists come up to me since its release and say how great they think it is. It’s really cool and satisfying to know people are seeing it and resonating with it. I was in my late 20s at the time, and trying to think about what I really liked. I liked Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains the Same. There were no interviews, so the stuff I was fixated with was all the behind-the-scenes stuff, like watching them walk backstage. So, I thought if I captured everything and was in the room almost invisible, that’s what I would like to see. You’ve got to remember this is before the internet. Now, you see everything. It’s almost too much now. Back then, you weren’t going to see it anywhere, so it was very exciting to know it was going to be seen because people were very excited about Nine Inch Nails. And then to have it do so well and resonate is obviously satisfying. I think it’s raw and unpolished. It’s like a home video, like if you were filming your buddy’s band and just had all this footage, and you put it together. And Trent played a big role in guiding it to what it became.
GID: That rawness is what makes the film so special. I also love behind-the-scenes stuff because it feels like you’re getting a glimpse of a world you’re not meant to see. One of my favorite scenes in Closure is when Trent is working on a song in his hotel room hours before a show. That feels so cool because you’re seeing a process you’re not supposed to see.
JR: Yeah, he was actually working on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack. He was extending “Something I Can Never Have” for a remix. We were in Berlin, and that’s my hotel room. I got a phone call, and it was like, Hey, we need to set up keyboards. Of course, they’re not going to set it up in any of the band members’ rooms. I think it’s set up on my bed, and [engineer] Charlie Clouser came in and they’re in my room recording. I thought, well, let me grab my camera. I remember filming it and going, Oh, wow, this is so cool because it’s just so simple. He’s just playing one or two notes. I remember filming outside the window where you could see the streets of Berlin, and then coming back in the room to draw it all together, that Trent’s in a hotel room working on a song. It’s a really cool moment.
On a funny note, as you know, when you’re on tour, you play jokes on each other. So, in the ’90s, you could set your TV as your alarm clock. It would go off when you decided you wanted it to. When I left my room, they set it for four in the morning at full volume and hid the remote. So, at four in the morning, the TV comes on as loud as possible. I’m going crazy. I can’t find the remote (laughs). So yeah, that’s how I got rewarded for supplying the room for them to record that.
GID: Another interesting thing is how you didn’t approach Trent to film the tour. You didn’t even have a background in filming or photography. You did stage design and submitted something to Trent that he liked. He then invited you to film them on tour for the next three years. During that time, photographer Anton Corbijn told you to get a camera and start taking pictures. Was it challenging to take on these roles you didn’t originally sign up for?
JR: Yeah, so Anton Corbjin recommended picking up a still camera, and I did. Then I learned my lesson quickly: for an event, you have to pick one or the other. When I first started, I thought I would have my still camera around my neck and my video camera in my hand. You can capture things that way, but I found it diluted the filming and the photography. So, I had to learn that lesson. There wasn’t a lot of pressure because I was on the whole tour, so I had multiple nights to get it right. If somebody had said you have one show to capture everything, that would’ve been a lot of pressure. But I could sort of mess up and figure out how to capture it. I was also learning the show and traveling with them. There were five band members, a bodyguard, a tour manager, and me. That was it. So, it was eight of us traveling together for years. So, I knew the energy because I was living it.
I had a lot of opportunities. A lot of photographers only get the first three songs, and that’s very limiting. There was also more control over visuals back in the day. They wanted to control the photographs; they wanted to control the audio. Now with cell phones, it’s a free-for-all. You can’t control anything. You’re not going to ask concert goers to leave their phones at a booth. You have to just realize you’re going to get filmed; you’re going to get photographed, you’re going to get recorded, and there’s going to be a thousand things out there. But I had full access multiple nights. That access is half the battle, which I had, so I never felt pressure.
GID: It must’ve been thrilling to have a front row seat for those shows. Nine Inch Nails are amazing live, and their current tour is fantastic. Yet, it’s the “Self Destruct Tour” that’s still revered by the fans who were there and the ones who wish they had experienced it. What about that tour makes it so notable for fans?
JR: Well, I’ll reverse engineer the answer. If Trent was doing what he did back then now, it would seem out of place. He’s older. He’s different. He’s grown as an artist. It wouldn’t make sense today for him to have violence and chaos on stage because artists grow. But back then, I think it was a form of rejecting everything. This is bullshit. I’m going to tear it all down. I’m going to destroy it all. Trent was in his 20s, and when you’re in your 20s, things are a lot more raw, and the energy is more intense, and it all means so much more. Just by nature of age, it’s all turned up a volume. The crowds showed up just as raw, and the musicians on stage were equally raw, and everything was so intense with dynamics. It could be a wall of sound that was so intense. At other times, it was sparse, almost empty, and sad. Something about it was just frightening in its velocity and its energy. That’s what’s exciting about it, even to this day.
The show was tapping into something that was going on for those kids at that age. It resonated with me because [I realized] it’s okay to be depressed. It’s okay to be mad. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to kick something. It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to feel all these things you try so hard to hide. You were able to express it, get it out of your system, and not be judged or feel like an outcast. So, you invited the emotional roller coaster. You wanted to feel like it was out of control, and it was at times. It was blowing people away.
The destruction of instruments never felt like it was for the sake of sensationalism. It was to accent the emotion of that moment. The destruction felt like an extension of the expression. I remember sitting in a cafe with Trent and [producer] Flood, and he was like, I don’t know if I like the idea of destroying instruments on stage. I just said, Oh, I disagree (laughs). I’m out in the crowd with the camera, and when [Trent] does that, the crowd roars. He took that crowd where they wanted to go. That was pretty special about that tour. I think that’s why Trent’s a true artist and resonates with people as he goes through every phase of his expression, because it’s real. It’s something he’s dealing with and going through. There’s a truth in it that resonates.
GID: That’s why those shows resonated with me as a teen when I discovered Nine Inch Nails. But thinking about the current shows, they’re a testament to Trent’s talent and what a great performer he is. Now, he’s not throwing keyboards across the stage, yet it’s an amazing show. You can still feel all that sadness, anger, and pain, even though he’s not destroying his instruments.
JR: Good point. I never looked at it that way. The fact that it’s still great without all that means it was great back then. It wasn’t about the destruction; it was just an accent to the song. The last time I saw them live was in 2018, and afterwards, I was in the dressing room with the band. Some of the original guys wanted to know what I thought because they knew I was there in the early days. They were interested to hear my perspective on the current shows. I thought it was intelligent and very smart. It’s still tapping into things that you have issues with the status quo. But those early shows do have a reputation (laughs).
GID: Looking back at the work you’ve done with Nine Inch Nails and that period when you were filming them, photographing them, and being a part of the crew, what’s something you’ve learned from that experience you feel has helped you throughout the rest of your career?
JR: That’s an interesting question. For career or in life? For career, there’s a bunch of technical things you would learn from something like that to get the final product, but in life, I think your generation has already learned the lesson I did when going through that. What I learned from the intimacy of traveling with eight guys for many years was to take ego out and be a great listener. I always think my generation doesn’t listen; your generation does. Our generation talks too much, and your generation seems to really get clarity and prefers to hear what you’re saying. I also learned how to fit in. When you’re put into an intense environment like that, you have to learn to fit in.
When David Bowie entered the vibe, it was like, holy shit, it’s David Bowie. How do you act around him? You have to be professional, but you’re also a fan, and you’re working with him. You also want to treat him like a human being. So, the job taught me how to be an observer and just be in the room. Now, I like to go places and listen and hear what everyone’s saying to try to understand who they are. That’s a lot of fun. Even in arguments, when someone comes at me, I think Where are they coming from? Why do they think this? I want to try and understand them and where they’re coming from, as opposed to defending my ego right away.
GID: That’s a great takeaway and one that’s easy to forget, especially if you spend any time online. Sometimes it’s best to sit back and listen. Once the exhibit wraps up, what’s next on the horizon?
JR: I’ve been doing film lately. I’m working on a couple of scripts and directing, things like that. For music, I don’t really have any tours lined up or anything like that. As far as what’s next, I have a horror film I’ve been focused on lately. I’ve written a comedy horror before, but this is the first actual horror film I’ve made. I’m writing it for a director. What I like about writing horror is that you don’t have to explain everything. A lot of times, you’ve got to tie up loose ends and all that. Not doing that sometimes adds to the horror, especially if you’re doing something supernatural. It feels like there’s a lot more freedom in writing a horror film than you would find in other ones. When I was writing it, I was thinking about what scares the shit out of me. I started incorporating some of that in there, like exorcising your own demons and things that scare you, and having fun with it. I was pleasantly surprised to see how fun it is to write horror films compared to other genres.
Follow Jonathan Rach on Instagram and visit his website here. Find and purchase Rach’s prints and browse Behind The Gallery’s catalog via their website.
