Nothing Records was an American record label specializing in industrial rock and electronic music, founded by John Malm Jr. and Trent Reznor in 1992. It is considered an example of a vanity label, where an artist is able to run a label with some small degree of independence within a larger parent company, in this case the larger company being Interscope Records.
Nothing Records went largely defunct in 2004, after a lawsuit by Reznor against John Malm. The label became inactive as a whole following several further releases; 2007's Beside You in Time music video was the label's final release.
Background
Nothing Records is most famous for its two original signings, Trent Reznor's own band Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson.
The label gained semi-iconic status within the industrial rock scene, and even acquired its own online-fanzine in Sick Among the Pure, although this later became a more general industrial fanzine, and ceased to exist at all in 2005. The Nothing label would often reward its fanbase over the Internet — one form of this outreach was Radio Nothing: an exclusive collection of free MP3 music streams, compiled by Nothing label artists, producers and fans.
In September 2004, coinciding with Trent Reznor leaving New Orleans for the west coast, the Nine Inch Nails website announced "nothing studios: 1994-2004", suggesting that Nothing Studios was closed. This later proved to be the end of the associated record label as well. Speculation among listeners that the label could continue ceased when Reznor successfully sued co-founder John Malm for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty (amongst others), ensuring that the Nothing era was over.
In a May 5, 2005 post to nin.com, Trent wrote, "To be clear: my involvement with Nothing Records is over. Is Nothing Records alive or an entity? You'd have to ask John Malm (we're not really speaking that much these days) ... Nothing studios is still in New Orleans and I'm not sure what I'll do with it. I'll figure that out when I finish touring."
While With Teeth and its following singles carry the Nothing Records logo, Reznor has publicly stated that this was at the insistence of John Malm.
Beside You In Time (February 2007) was the last release to carry the Nothing Records logo on its packaging. The logo also appears in the end credits.
The "Survivalism" single is the first Nine Inch Nails release not to be released with the Nothing Records logo.
Since early 2004, the official website, NothingRecords.com, has been closed down.
Artists
In addition to Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson, the label also signed and released albums from 2wo, Pig, Pop Will Eat Itself, Prick, 12 Rounds, Einstürzende Neubauten, The The, and Meat Beat Manifesto. Additionally, Coil was under contract for a record but it was never delivered (though some of the songs from the slated Nothing album appeared in reworked form on The Ape of Naples and The New Backwards). The album Backwards was eventually released in 2015 by Cold Spring Records. John Bergin was also signed briefly under the name Trust Obey, but the album he recorded ("Hands of Ash") was instead released in 1996 on Fifth Colvmn Records with a sticker that quoted Reznor's reaction to the completed work: "Not a great commercial potential."Nothing also distributed music from Warp Records, Sheffield, England's venerable electronic music label, under an exclusive license in the U.S., with albums by Autechre, Plaid, and Squarepusher (although Warp's Aphex Twin appeared on the Further Down the Spiral release, he was already under a contract with Sire Records in the U.S. at the time). This distribution deal ended when Warp expanded operations into the U.S. market in 2001. Nothing also managed to secure the U.S. release of two albums from England's Blue Planet Recordings. The two albums were slightly different than the UK releases. Plug's "Drum and Bass for Papa" included an extra disc of tracks from earlier EPs, and The Bowling Green's "One Pound Note" omitted one track from the UK release due to problems with sample clearance.