Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Nine Inch Nails will perform live in St. Paul for the first time in a dozen years when they headline Xcel Energy Center on Aug. 17. Tickets go on sale at noon Jan. 29 through Ticketmaster. Founded by Trent Reznor in 1988, Nine Inch Nails blossomed into the biggest industrial rock band around in the ’90s thanks to 1994’s Grammy-nominated album “The Downward Spiral” and its singles “March of the Pigs” and “Closer.” The group also toured heavily, including a star-making spot on the the first Lollapalooza festival in 1991, which hit St. Paul’s Harriet Island Regional Park that August. In the years since, Reznor has used various Nine Inch Nails lineups to record and tour, while taking extensive breaks between albums. The band played Target Center in 1995, 2000 and 2008 and Xcel Energy Center in 2005 and 2013. The latter was in support of NIN’s eighth album “Hesitation Marks.” Nine Inch Nails returned to the road in 2017 and 2022, although neither tour had Twin Cities stops. In 2010, Reznor collaborated with Atticus Ross to write the score for David Fincher’s film “The Social Network” and won an Oscar in the process. The pair have since written music for several Fincher films (“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” “Gone Girl,” “Mank,” “The Killer”) as well as other movies and television projects. Ross became an official member of NIN in 2016. Reznor and Ross are currently working on the score for “Tron: Ares.” Reznor married singer Mariqueen Maandig in 2009 and the couple has five children together. In a 2023 podcast interview with producer Rick Rubin, he suggested he was keeping NIN on ice for the foreseeable future: “I don’t want to be away from my kids. I don’t want to miss their lives to go do a thing that I’m grateful to be able to do, and I’m appreciative that you’re here to see it, but I’ve done it a lot, you know? I don’t really want to do that right now.” Related Articles Music and Concerts | Israeli pianist Roman Rabinovich joins St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for a pleasurable debut Music and Concerts | Country band Old Dominion to open the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand season Music and Concerts | Opera review: Charming ‘Christmas Spider’ has room for improvement Music and Concerts | Concert review: Cantus makes Christmas merry and bright, a capella style Music and Concerts | Rock and Roll Hall of Famer James Taylor to play Xcel Energy Center in June