Trent Reznor IS Nine Inch Nails. At least, that's what it says in his liner notes.

And while it's true the gloom- and doom-obsessed rocker will be accompanied by a full band tonight at MTS Centre, the fact of the matter is NIN has always been Reznor's baby, and he's always been the official face of the act.

Which is not to say that face hasn't changed over the years: It has -- from that of a fresh-faced synth-popster to a demon-battling shock-rocker to a cleaned-up crusader against music industry meddlers.

That's why we had no trouble at all taking some cues from Reznor's catalogue for this refresher course on his career:

Discipline

For someone who's made a living off being a depressed, creepy dude, Reznor (now 43) enjoyed a surprisingly non-traumatic childhood in small-town Pennsylvania. Raised by his grandparents, he showed an early aptitude for piano, and after ditching his college-level computer courses, moved to Cleveland, where he played keyboards for local bands. It was there -- while working as a janitor at a recording studio -- that he cut his first demos (playing most of the instruments himself, just like early influence Prince). The tracks earned Reznor his first contract with TVT Records, and a number of revamped versions wound up on his debut.

The Line Begins to Blur

Though he's loathe to label himself an "industrial" artist, Reznor brought the genre to the mainstream with his 1989 debut Pretty Hate Machine. His industrial influences were hard to miss (he'd toured with Canuck icons Skinny Puppy, and favoured drum machines and distorted synths over guitars), though he went off-script a bit by focusing on riffs instead of repetition. Helping cement the album's status as an underground fave, Reznor also allowed his tortured personality to shine through on deeply confessional tunes like Sin, Head Like a Hole and unsung masterpiece Something I Can Never Have. Plus, all that angst and aggression dovetailed pretty sweetly with the alt-rock boom of the early '90s.

Into the Void

Following Hate Machine, Reznor busied himself with headlining slots at Lollapalooza, the Grammy-winning Broken EP, eyebrow-raising videos (some of which were suspected of being snuff pieces) and collaborations with everyone from Marilyn Manson to Tori Amos. But it wasn't until '94 that he put out his sophomore full-length The Downward Spiral, still widely considered his best. Inspired by Pink Floyd and David Bowie, the work is a concept album detailing a mental deterioration from breakdown to suicide; in other words, the perfect milieux for Reznor's futuristic soundscapes and frenzied riffing on sex, hate, God and pigs. He scored hits with lead single March of the Pigs, the stripper-anthem Closer, and electro-elegy Hurt (later covered by Johnny Cash). Oh, and while much of the mood was due the creepy videos, it didn't hurt that the disc was recorded in the same house where members of the Manson Family murdered actress Sharon Tate.

Mr. Self Destruct

The stunt with the Tate house (which even Trent admitted was in bad taste) was typical of the ensuing decade, in which Reznor -- now beset by drug and alcohol addictions -- seemed more concerned with shocking than rocking. He feuded with old pals (Manson, Courtney Love), toured with Bowie, and did some soundtrack work (Natural Born Killers, Lost Highway). Then, he followed up Spiral's success with the bloated double-disc The Fragile -- praised by critics but largely ignored by audiences.

Survivalism

Starting with 2005's With Teeth -- and continuing with 2007's Year Zero, which got big buzz from a viral marketing campaign -- a newly sober, newly buffed Reznor served notice he was back in the game, racking up a string of rock-radio hits and re-establishing himself as a force to be reckoned with. In recent months, he's taken on the record industry (a fight he's familiar with, having feuded with TVT in the '90s), criticizing Universal for its outdated pricing models and encouraging fans to steal his music online. A free agent as of last October, Reznor even opted to float his most recent works -- the all-instrumental Ghosts I-IV and The Slip, both released this year -- for free on the Internet with little fuss or promotion, proving that just as Trent Reznor IS Nine Inch Nails, Nine Inch Nails will forever be Trent Reznor's.