Tour[edit]

Nine Inch Nails during the Performance 2007 tour

After taking a break from touring to complete work on Year Zero, the Nine Inch Nails live
band embarked on a world tour in 2007 dubbed Performance 2007. The tour included the band's first
performance in China.[41] Reznor continued to tour with the same band he concluded the previous
tour with: Aaron North, Jeordie White, Josh Freese, and Alessandro Cortini. The tour spanned
91 dates across Europe, Asia, Australia, and Hawaii. [42][43]
Between tour legs Nine Inch Nails gave a performance as part of the Year Zero game. A small group
of fans received fictional in-game telephone-calls that invited them to a "resistance meeting" in a Los
Angeles parking lot. Those who arrived were given "resistance kits", some of which contained
cellphones that would later inform the participants of further details. [44] After receiving instructions
from the cellphones, fans who attended a fictional Art is Resistance meeting in Los Angeles were
rewarded with an unannounced performance by Nine Inch Nails. The concert was cut short as the
meeting was raided by a fictional SWAT team and the audience was rushed out of the building. [45][46]

Release[edit]
Upon its release in April 2007, Year Zero sold over 187,000 copies in its first week.[47] The album
reached number two on the Billboard 200[48] and peaked in the top 10 in six other countries, including
Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.[49][50][51] The album's lead single, "Survivalism" peaked at
number 68 on the Billboard Hot 100, and topped the Modern Rock and Canadian singles charts.[52]
[53]
 The second single, "Capital G", reached number six on the Modern Rock chart.[52]
In a post on the official Nine Inch Nails website, Reznor condemned Universal Music Group – the
parent company of Interscope Records – for its pricing and distribution plans for Year Zero.[54] He
wrote that he hated Interscope for setting the price of the album higher than usual, humorously
labeling the company's retail pricing of Year Zero in Australia as "ABSURD", [sic] and concluding
that "as a reward for being a 'true fan' you get ripped off." Reznor went on to say in later years the
"climate" of record labels may have an increasingly ambivalent impact on consumers who buy
music.[55] Reznor's post, specifically his criticism of the recording industry at large, elicited
considerable media attention.[56] Reznor continued his attack on Universal Music Group during a
September 2007 concert in Australia, where he urged fans to "steal" his music online instead of
purchasing it legally.[57] Reznor went on to encourage the crowd to "steal and steal and steal some
more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin'." [58] Although Universal never replied publicly
to the criticism, a spokesperson for the Australian Music Retailers Association said "It is the same
price in Australia as it is in the US because of the extra packaging." [59] Due to the pricing dispute,
plans to release a "Capital G" maxi-single in Europe were scrapped. The track was instead released
as a limited-edition single, without a "Halo number", unlike most official Nine Inch Nails releases.[54]
Year Zero was the last Nine Inch Nails studio album released on Interscope. Reznor announced in
October 2007 that Nine Inch Nails had fulfilled its contractual commitments to Interscope and could
proceed "free of any recording contract with any label", effectively ending the band's relationship with
its record label.[60]

Related projects[edit]
A remix album, titled Year Zero Remixed, was released in November 2007. Due to the expiration of
his contract with Interscope Records, the album's release, marketing, and promotion were
completely in Reznor's control.[61] The album features remixes from artists including The
Faint, Ladytron, Bill Laswell, Saul Williams, Olof Dreijer of The Knife, and Sam Fogarino of Interpol.[62]
[63]
 Reznor himself strongly supports fan-made remixes of songs from the album, as evidenced by his
decision to upload every song in multi-track form to the then-newly launched Nine Inch Nails remix
website.[64] Instrumental versions of the songs on Year Zero are available at the site for download in
multiple formats, including MP3, WAV, GarageBand, and Ableton Live formats.
A planned film adaption of Year Zero became a television project in 2007.[65] Reznor met with various
writers and pitched the idea to television networks.[66] The 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America
strike affected the pre-production stage. Nevertheless, Reznor commented in 2008 that the project is
"still churning along",[67] and that he had begun working with American film producer Lawrence
Bender.[5] In 2010, Reznor started developing the Year Zero miniseries with HBO and BBC
Worldwide Productions. Reznor and Bender collaborated with Carnivàle writer Daniel Knauf to
create the science fiction epic.[68] When asked about the miniseries during an "Ask Me Anything"
session on Reddit on November 13, 2012, Reznor said it was "currently in a holding state" and
explained, "We [Reznor and Sheridan] didn't find the right match with a writer, and really have been
avoiding doing what we should have done from the beginning: write it ourselves. [...] This project
means a lot to me and will see the light of day in one form or another." [69] In 2017, during an interview
promoting new Nine Inch Nails EP Add Violence, Reznor said that "They got so far as hiring a writer
for it, but then it fell to shit because we never had the right writer. I should have just done it
[myself]."[70]

Critical reception