Behold Trent Reznor’s pre-Nine Inch Nails pop music past with this TV clip from the 80s
Before he conceived of Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor was in a bunch of New Wave-y/mainstream rock bands: Option 30, The Innocent, Exotic Birds, Slam Bamboo, and Lucky Pierre. A few of them made records but none of them had any kind of success beyond a little regional notoriety. (Exotic Birds can be seen and heard playing a Buddy Holly song as The Problems in the background in the 1987 Michael J. Fox movie, Light of Day. And no, their performance is not on the soundtrack.)
This pre-NIN video is making the rounds. Slam Bamboo hired Trent as a touring keyboardist and it was during his tenure that the group appeared on the local morning show AM Cleveland. This is from 1987.