Nine Inch Nails Posing Many "?"s With Recent Photos

Trent Reznor, you tease.

There's no word on what his plans are, but Nine Inch Nails' frontman has spent the last four weeks or so whetting the appetite of his devout fans with photos.

And no, they're not nude pictures.

It began on Feb. 9 and has continued every few days since, with Reznor or somebody near him posting a photo on the band's website of different studio equipment, computers and him strumming guitars.

No clues are given, and each picture is simply titled with a "?."

The first picture was of various plugs and wires and resembled a telephone operator's equipment from the pre-historic, pre-cell phone days of party lines. Yet a concept album on Alexander Graham Bell is a long shot. But could it be a concept album based on the iPhone?

Hours later, Reznor posted another photo of a computer keyboard and mini-piano keyboard, which thus far has received nearly 300 replies/comments from fans.

On Feb. 11, a shot of a sound board with a blurred person nearby appeared, and the person in question was reportedly producer/musician Atticus Ross (Bad Religion, Rancid). He's worked on Nine Inch Nails' With Teeth, Year Zero, Ghosts I-V and The Slip, which are all the band's most recent releases. Hmm...

On Feb. 22, things became a bit clearer with another picture of a notepad with 12 things (songs?) listed with "Riff 3...." written below it.

Is Reznor working on new songs? Or is he composing 12 possible theme songs for Conan O'Brien's new late night show? Could he end up replacing Max Weinberg?

A new picture each day was placed on the site from last Monday (Feb. 22) to Friday (Feb. 26), including someone strumming an electric guitar in the final shot.

The latest photo, which was posted on Monday (March 1), features a shot of Reznor clearly singing into a microphone.

Reznor waved goodbye to fans and touring for an extended period last year. He's said Nine Inch Nails will continue making and releasing music, but he'll no longer follow the standard album release format.

At this point, the only known fact is that Reznor (or someone in the NIN camp) likes to post pictures for fans to habitually wonder what deeper meaning coloured wires and plugs hold. But to the layman, it seems something is happening in NIN land.