Nine Inch Nails live performances contrast with the recorded output of the Nine Inch Nails discography. In the studio, most if not all of each Nine Inch Nails release is performed entirely by Trent Reznor. On stage and on tour, Reznor has typically assembled groups of backing musicians to interpret the songs in a live form.

I could have just gone out with tape machines or 50 keyboards or whatever and recreated the sound of the record, but I'm much more interested in the challenge of having 4 musicians interpret what was initially composed by one person on a computer. This way, I'm not bored, there's a lot of interaction and it's a unique interpretation of my music. The record and the shows are quite different.

—Trent Reznor, in a 1991 interview

Years	Members
1988	Ron Musarra - drums, samplers Chris Vrenna - keyboards, samplers
Skinny Puppy tour Asked to leave after 10 dates
1989 - 1991	Richard Patrick - guitars Chris Vrenna - drums (beginning of tour) Jeff Ward - drums (remainder of tour) David Haymes - keyboards (part of tour) Nick Rushe - keyboards (part of tour) Lee Mars - keyboards (part of tour) James Wooley - keyboards (remainder of tour)
Pretty Hate Machine Pretty Hate Machine promo tour The Jesus and Mary Chain support tour Peter Murphy support tour Hate '90 Lollapalooza '91 European 1991 mini-tour
1994 - 1995	Robin Finck - guitars, synthesizers Danny Lohner - bass, guitars, synthesizers Chris Vrenna - drums James Woolley - synthesizer (1994) Charlie Clouser - synthesizer, drums on 5 songs during Dissonance (1995) Sean Beavan - sound board, backing vocals on 5 songs
The Downward Spiral Further Down the Spiral Closure Self Destruct tour Woodstock '94 Further Down the Spiral tour Dissonance side of David Bowie's Outside tour Club tour with Helmet
1999 - 2000	Robin Finck - guitars, synthesizers Danny Lohner - bass, guitars, synthesizers Jerome Dillon - drums Charlie Clouser - synthesizers, theremin
The Fragile Things Falling Apart And All That Could Have Been Fragility v1.0 Fragility v2.0 European mini-tour
2005 - 2007	Aaron North - guitars Jeordie White - bass, guitars, synthesizers Alessandro Cortini - synthesizers, guitars, bass Jerome Dillon - drums (beginning of tour) Alex Carapetis - drums (part of tour) Josh Freese - drums (remainder of tour)
With Teeth Beside You In Time Year Zero Live: With_Teeth club tour International tour Arena tour Amphitheatre tour

Source: Wikipedia