Moby: Music, fame and loneliness

Moby's album Play sold 12 million copies worldwide in 1999, making it the biggest selling electronic record ever.

At first Play did not sell at all and the first time Moby played it on stage 40 people turned up and he was seriously considering another career away from music.

But his management came up with the idea of licensing the album's songs for use in films, TV and adverts.

After that enormous success came along with more lauded music and crusades on behalf of veganism, animal rights and humanitarian aid projects along with some years of personal and sometimes public turmoil.

Moby, whose real name is Richard Melville Hall, is 57 now and does not need to make music for the money. On his new album, Resound NYC, he has reimagined and orchestrated 14 of his best-known tracks. With celebrated guest vocalists including Gregory Porter, Ricky Wilson (Kaiser Chiefs), Margo Timmons, and Amythyst Kiah alongside less familiar names: Moby discovered P.T. Banks singing in a wedding band in Texas, while the father of Danielle Ponder joins her on the remake of 'Run On'.

In his new Moby Pod podcast he is joined by Lindsay Hicks and shares his insights, experiences, and offers a unique perspective on music, animal activism, and beyond.

He talked to Jim Mora about the album, about getting older and his love of orchestration.

The calming attributes of music

Moby said he makes a lot of things including the recent album Ambient 23, as well as just releasing the first film that he has written and directed, a documentary called The Punk Rock Vegan Movie.

Moby said during the pandemic he realised that he loved just staying home and working and since then he had not changed his schedule and found that it gave him a lot of time to work and that he got a lot done.

"And then also, I've found that as the world feels more and more apocalyptic, I personally take great refuge in being in a recording studio and working or being in an editing suite and working - these feel like sanctuaries to me."

The world is at best a very confusing place right now, at worst it's a disastrous place, he said.

Moby said he made the album Ambient 23 because he likes making and listening to quiet pretty music.

"But also ... releasing it in the hope that anyone who needs to feel a sense of calm can maybe find it through this, you know the music that I've made."

Moby said growing up he played obscure music and never expected to have a record contract or an audience, but commercial success started to happen in the 1990s.

"I had a period where I thought I needed to try out the things that successful people seemed to enjoy -  you know which was going on vacation to fancy places and going to Burning Man and going to red carpet events - and so you know I gave everything a try - but I learnt pretty quickly I don't actually like any of it."

It was easier to stay home and work and occasionally go hiking in the mountains, but to stay away from "the trappings of cliched traditional success", Moby said.

After a friend described him as being like a secular monk, Moby wanted to push back.

"But then I took a step back and I was like well, let's see, I'm a vegan, I'm sober, I meditate and do yoga and I don't date - so I was like 'yeah I guess' to sum it up I am an accidental secular monk."

Moby explained what he described as his loftiest ambition which he acknowledged sounded reductive and simplistic.

"It is to simply to try to get humans to stop doing the things they know are wrong because if you think about it, the culture in which we live, all of the problems we're beset by are problems that we know about and that we create and sustain."

That included things like using fossil fuels, using animals for food or not having adequate gun controls in the United States, he said.

Despite knowing their actions were disastrous and destructive people kept doing them, he said.

Success does not equal happiness - Moby

Prior to his success, Moby said he had the same assumption as most people that if you were given wealth, fame and rock star success that happiness would ensue.

"But then I found myself with ridiculous levels of success and validation and material wealth and the happiness didn't follow."

People often felt even after reading about people such as Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse and Ernest Hemmingway that they would be happy if that had that level of success, he said.

"But I felt like, I learned first hand, luckily without going down too tragic of a route, that no being given all those things does not create happiness."

Moby said he was grateful to have gone through the highs and lows of his career because it meant that he had seen that the values glorified by our culture ultimately do not work.

Fame was not just shallow but also destructive, he said.

"The evidence is everywhere. I mean, look at Donald Trump, if fame and wealth made you happy he would be the happiest person on the planet and I guarantee you there's probably almost no one on the planet angrier and less happy than Donald Trump."

We live in a culture where algorithms play a major role in determining news, Moby said.

"At least in some of the bigger outlets, it's all algorithms, it's not values, it's not principles, it's just simply engaging in clicks because obviously that's what generates ad revenue.

"When you look at the way some of the outlets prioritise content, while ignoring say climate change or attacks on democracy or ocean acidification or the ridiculous amounts of plastic, microplastic, non-microplastics that are floating in the ocean.

"It's pretty depressing when you look at where the attention actually goes and where it doesn't go."

'A lot of modern music is so bland'

Moby prefaced his comments on contemporary music by saying that a 57 year old's opinion about contemporary music was inherently suspect given that they were not the target audience.

He said music in the past carried a lot of meaning, he said, citing songs such as 'Let It Be' by The Beatles, 'Strange Fruit' by Billie Holiday and Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On'.

"I don't trust my perspective on it but it does seem to me as if a lot of contemporary music has become just so ... I can't even figure it out, when I do try to listen to it it just sounds like it's background music for people on TikTok while they're playing World of Warcraft and DMing their friends - like it doesn't seem like anyone's actually paying attention to it."

Moby said a lot of his friends with kids were offended by their children's music because it was so boring.

"A lot of modern music is so bland ... I hope that history will prove that modern music has validity, but I'm a little doubtful."