“I don’t know if we’re going to be touring any more after this.” Trent Reznor casts doubt on Nine Inch Nails' future as a live act

Nine Inch Nails live 2025
(Image credit: Ricardo Rubio/Europa Press via Getty Images)

Nine Inch Nails leader Trent Reznor has cast some doubt on the future of his band as a touring act.

Reznor, 60, made his comments onstage during a NIN show at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Friday (February 27).

At one point during the band's show, part of their acclaimed Peel It Back world tour which started in Dublin, Ireland on June 15 last year, Reznor shared a personal memory of playing in Tulsa back in 1990 - "like 80 years ago" - supporting former Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy at the city's Cain’s Ballroom.

"We were playing Head Like a Hole," he recalled, "and I could see somebody in the back like screaming the fucking lyrics back at me, and I thought, This is all I ever wanted in life, is to connect with somebody like that dude. Anyway, that’s what I think of when I roll into Tulsa."

Reznor then added, "I don’t know if we're gonna be touring anymore after this, but I'm proud of the show that we're doing right now. And I’m fucking grateful that you've chosen to spend your evening with us tonight."

To be fair, as several Nine Inch Nails fans pointed out on Reddit Reznor has a history of suggesting that his band may be coming to the end of their time as a live act, having made such comments on almost every major tour they've undertaken since their Wave Goodbye tour in 2009.


Trent Speaks - Tulsa Oklahoma - BOK Center - Peel It Back Tour 2026 - Nine Inch Nails - YouTube Trent Speaks - Tulsa Oklahoma - BOK Center - Peel It Back Tour 2026 - Nine Inch Nails - YouTube
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Also on Friday, Reznor's band surprise released a new 44-track album featuring remixes and previously unreleased material.

The Tron Ares: Divergence album is a digital companion piece to the band's original score for Tron: Ares, which was released last September. Although Trent Reznor and his longtime NIN bandmate Atticus Ross have released numerous film soundtrack albums under their own names, winning won two Oscars three Golden Globes, a Grammy, and an Emmy for their collaborations, their Original Motion Picture Soundtrack for the third instalment of the Tron film franchise is the first to be released under the Nine Inch Nails banner.

“Music is such a big part of the Tron franchise,” said director Joachim Rønning last year in a clip accompanying the release of the soundtrack. “I knew that they were going to do the music so I’d listen to them when we were shooting to get in the groove. They’re so spot on when they’re analysing each scene It was important for Trent and Atticus, the music is in the front speakers, like you would be hearing the music at a concert.”

Paul Brannigan
Contributing Editor, Louder

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.

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