Nine Inch Nail’s “Head Like A Hole” Has Its Origins with Ministry

Back in 1990, Ministry’s Al Jourgensen debuted his 1000 Homo DJs and released a cover of Black Sabbath’s “Supernaut”, and at the time rumours flew around that the track featured Nine Inch Nail’s  Trent Reznor on vocals, albeit highly distorted.

Recently these rumours were established as partly true—that the vocalist on the track was indeed Trent Reznor, whose label at the time, TVT, wouldn’t authorize his appearance on a Wax Trax! release, so Jourgensen processed his vocals into oblivion in post-production.

So obviously—Reznor did record a vocal which was on the Suck bootleg, and later the Black Box – Wax Trax! Records: The First 13 Years, but now we get to hear it clearly for the very first time.

Coupled with this Die Krupps remix, the track sounds eerily like the Nine Inch Nails’ single released around the same time “Head Like Hole”

And if you thought this article title was nothing but clickbait, consider that the title “Head like a Hole” comes from a sample Reznor videotaped from a Ministry concert back in 1987 and later used in the songs production. In fact, the name Nine Inch Nails was also taken from the same tape where during a portion Al Jourgensen compares Ministry to a man with a tall nail hammered into his head, creating a hole there:

“Listening to Ministry is like having a nine inch nail hammered into your head like a hole.”

This version of “Supernaut” is available for the first time exclusively on Cleopatra Record’s #Occult Box which features 5 CDs worth of material from bands like DEATHDAY, Joy Division, The Soft Moon, Vowws, CHROME,  Christian Death,Psychic TV, The Legendary Pinks Dots and many more.