Interview with Moby
 
  
Dave: My name’s Dave Corey, and I’m here with Matt Hall on the Joe’s Blue Plate Special brought to you by Doctor Martin’s Footwear. Today we’re going to be dining with Moby, whose new album, Play, is marking his return to the techno world, and carries a variety of influences, everything from blues. He even does some of his vocal tracks and doing all kinds of things. To start out, just like the album, it does start out with a couple blues-influenced tracks, things that you found from early 20’s recording, from the turn of the century. Where did you find that stuff, and how did you come to decide to put that in there?

Moby: Well, I wish I had a good story or good anecdote. I wish I could tell you a story of me, like traveling Alabama or Mississippi, you know, like scouring record stores or with a dat machine recording people singing in churches or prisons or hospitals or whatever, but the truth is, I went out to dinner in Manhattan with a friend of mine a couple years ago, and he had just received this boxed set called "Sounds of the South," which is a collection of Alan Lomax recordings, of early African-American vocal recordings, instrumental recordings, from the early 20th Century, and he loaned me this boxed set, and I fell in love with it and sampled some of the vocals and wrote songs based around them.

Dave: There’s been somewhat of a return to that kind of rootsy music just in some of the popular music, for instance with R.L. Burnside and other artists like that. What do you think has brought that about?

Moby: I don’t know. I mean, my interest in, personally, I like everything. I don’t feel like this record is necessarily a rootsy record. It just incorporates vocals that were recorded a long time ago. So when I used these vocals, I wasn’t trying to pass comment on the African-American musical tradition from the early 20th Century. I was really just trying to make a record that I loved that incorporated really wonderful vocal performances.

Dave: You also do your own vocals. Is that something that is kind of a carryover from some of your other musical forays into rock and things like that?

Moby: I just, I like singing. I mean, I’m not a great singer, but there are some songs that I think my vocals work pretty well on.

Dave: I think they work great.

Moby: I know that I’m not a good singer in the traditional, in sort of evaluating my voice from a very traditional musical perspective, I don’t have a great voice, but it works okay on some of the songs, and I enjoy it, and my feeling is in putting a record together, the components that comprise the record don’t concern me too much. You know, whether it’s my vocals or someone else’s vocals or vocals that were recorded 70 years ago or sampled instruments or instruments played live or whatever, as long as the finished product has a really strong emotional quality to it. That’s really all that I’m concerned about.

Matt: The new record, the liner notes in the new record, it seems like you’ve used that as an opportunity to express kind of wide array of issues. Do you feel pretty fortunate to be in a position where, as an artist, you can publish commentary on things, and one of the things I liked about it is, it’s definitely interesting to read and educating, but in no way to me did it seem, you make a point to be nonjudgmental and that it seems like you’re not trying to push these views that you’re expressing on anyone. Do you feel fortunate to be able to express yourself through a medium like your album liner notes that may go ahead and sell thousands of copies?

Moby: Well, whenever a musician makes a CD, there’s always artwork and there’s always the CD booklet, and you have to put something in there, and as much as I love graphic design, I kind of feel like the world has enough graphic design, and if I have the ability to communicate ideas that are important to me and I have this great forum to communicate ideas that are important to me, then I should take advantage of it. I’m not really trying to convince anyone of anything, you know. As far as I know, I’m not being didactic or dogmatic. I’m just trying to put forward some ideas that I’m interested in and that concern me. But it’s also sort of the interest of creating a dialogue with the people who might be reading these essays. I would hate for someone to read the essays and change their life just ‘cause I’m the one writing the essays. You know, I’d rather just like to throw this stuff out there as fodder for people to think about, and, you know, if after reading the essays someone wants to change their life, that hopefully they’ll do it for their own reasons and not just because it’s coming from essays that are in a CD booklet.

Matt: Now, do you find that the creative freedom that you have to do something like that, to publish your ideas and things like this within the liner notes, is that something that you worked with your record label, or was that just the decision that you made and said, this is what I plan on doing. Was there any editing process?

Moby: I got lucky. I’ve always had complete creative control over my records, musically and artistically and in terms of including these essays, so that’s always been part of my contracts with my different labels, so it’s never even really been an issue. And I know some people have a problem with the idea of a musician trying to do something other than just make music, but I’m a relatively well-educated person, and I think that my perspective is no less valid than anyone else’s perspective, so, as I said, I try to be very responsible in my use of this forum. I certainly don’t want to be inflammatory and I don’t want to communicate things that are irresponsible. I just want to communicate things that are important to me and that I think people could stand to think about.

Matt: I think that your goals that you’re describing here for the message that comes across are definitely met. It does seem like you are an educated person, the writing is eloquent, and the message is there. Are you reading any books right now?

Moby: Well, when I’m on tour, I mean, we’re on tour right now until January, when I’m on tour, I tend to just read undemanding, trashy fiction, stuff that when you’re finished reading it, you don’t even remember that you’ve just read the book, ‘cause a lot of times you’ll be sitting in a parking lot for six hours, and you just need to fill your time with something. So you watch crummy movies and you read crummy books, and it’s pleasant enough, but sometimes it’s hard to compel myself to actually read things of substance when I’m on tour, ‘cause, I don’t know, sometimes it’s more fun to just read trash.

Dave: As far as bands outside of, well, kind of taking a different approach to some of their political ideals, for instance Rage Against the Machine, you speak out against fundamentalism. Do you think that bands like that almost come to a body, a kind of liberal fundamentalism?

Moby: Oh, very much so. It makes me nervous whenever anyone tries to have a sort of strident and reductionist world view, and like the guys in Rage Against the Machine, I like their music, and I admire the fact that they try to instill a sort of political awareness into what they do, I find their politics to be very simplistic and old fashioned, you know. Like Marxism, I don’t know anyone that really takes Marxism seriously at the end of the 20th Century. It was very much a post-Victorian 19th Century political philosophy, and the idea of, in the sort of, like the dualistic dichotomist world that was being described by Marx and Engels, doesn’t exist anymore. The world is very complicated, and I find that a lot of times when people take refuge in Old School philosophies like Marxism or even capitalism or Communism or fascism, they’re essentially just trying to simplify what in essence is a very complicated world, so with a band like Rage Against the Machine, I admire them to an extent for trying to be political, but I just find their politics to be witheringly simplistic, especially ‘cause the world is so complicated. And then, I’ll never accuse anyone of being hypocritical, but there is some irony in them rallying against the capitalist system and their making tens of millions of dollars from Sony Records.

Dave: And doing a song with Snoop Doggy Dog.

Moby: Yeah. More power to ‘em. If they make great records, then terrific, and I’m not going to accuse anyone of being a hypocrite, I just say that it is sort of ironic, and there’s nothing wrong with having that sort of dichotomist life. You know, like on one hand, championing certain ideals but also recognizing that a lot of times human beings are fallible and we don’t live up to those ideals. Even in myself, you know, like I have lots of ideals that I hold really dear, and oftentimes I don’t live up to them. But I embrace that fallibility. Rather than trying to present myself as a perfect person, say, look, I’m flawed, and everybody’s flawed, and we just need to accept that about each other.

Dave: As far as your anti-drug and anti-alcohol feelings...

Moby: I don’t have anti-drug or anti-alcohol feelings.

Dave: But you don’t take drugs or alcohol.

Moby: I drink. I don’t take drugs, but I don’t really have a problem with drugs.

Dave: Okay. Being in the New York club scene, which was largely where you began your techno career, that to me seems to, in large cases, embody some of the drugs and alcohol issues. Is that a difficult for you to go to a club like that where those things, drugs and alcohol, are such a part of it?

Moby: No, as I said, I drink, and drugs don’t bother me. What bothers me, and I find it very difficult to make blanket generalizations about drug use or alcohol use. It’s like, some people can take drugs, and some people can drink and it doesn’t hurt them at all. Some people can take drugs and drink, and it ruins their lives. So it’s like, especially with drug, each drug has to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. I mean, cocaine and LSD have nothing in common. LSD and heroin have nothing in common. To lump them all together under this grand umbrella of drugs seems weird to me, ‘cause chemically they’re all completely dissimilar substances. And I have lots of friends that take drugs, and it doesn’t hurt them at all. You know, it’s recreational, and they’ll take drugs maybe once a month, once every two months, and it doesn’t hurt them in the slightest, and I have other friends who’ve taken drugs, and it’s ruined their lives, so that’s why I think it’s hard to make generalizations about it. And as far as my being involved in nightlife or nightclub life, I don’t know. I mean, the fact that I didn’t take drugs sort of prevented me from getting too wholeheartedly involved in the scene, because the scene has been very much based around drug use, but nonetheless, the main reason that people are going out to nightclubs is to be around other people and for a love of culture and a love of music and a love of just gregariousness, and those are the reasons I’m there. So, although I don’t take drugs, that’s one thing I don’t have in common with people in nightclubs, but all the other basic reasons why people are there, I have that in common with them.

Dave: I notice you’re rather sensitive about people trying to capture your ideals or....

Moby: I take issue when people, ‘cause I have all these cliches that follow me around...

Dave: Yeah, I was going to ask if people had accused you of being a fundamentalist.

Moby: Well, yeah, that’s what’s frustrating. It’s like this notion that I’m some sort of like rigid, non-drinking, non-drug-taking Christian vegan, whatever. It’s like, all those things are half-true. And some of them aren’t true at all. So, my world view is a lot more flexible than I think most people might imagine. And the way I live is a lot less strident and a lot less rigid than people might imagine. You know, I love occasionally going out and drinking and being stupid, just like everybody else does.

Matt: It seems like you may have fallen victim just for being an educated person who has a belief system and speaks about it and has a forum to speak through it, rather than just being, like you said, you tend to be pigeonholed and stuff like that simply for speaking out about...

Moby: Well, people in general seem to have a hard time with ambiguity. And essentially my world view is quite ambiguous, and my musical view is quite ambiguous. I don’t neatly fit into any one category musically or ideologically, but yet there are a lot of people who are uncomfortable with that, so they’ll try and slot me into some category, and it doesn’t really bother me, because I’m just thrilled to be able to make records and go on tour and reach people, but it frustrates me a little bit because the way I perceive myself, I don’t neatly fit into any one category. I’m just a human being, and I’m trying to learn, and I’m trying to make music that I love, and trying to communicate with people, but I don’t see myself neatly fitting into any one pigeonhole or category.

Matt: I think that’s indicated, again, in the liner notes where you speak about your Christianity and then in a page of quotes, have quotes from Islamic teachings, Buddhist teachings, and things like that.

Moby: Far be it for me to judge anybody else’s religion. Like, I’m 33 years old on a planet that’s 5 billion years old in a universe that’s 15 billion years old, so it’s like, I don’t know anything. I mean, all I know is my own subjective perception of things around me, so for the most part, I never think I’m right about anything. If someone disagrees with me, that’s fine, they disagree. If I disagree with someone, that’s fine, we disagree. It’s like, I never really think I’m right and they’re wrong, especially regarding something like religious beliefs or personal beliefs. I mean, with other things, if someone out there thinks that rape is a good thing and I disagree with them, I sort of do think I’m right, because their actions are causing suffering, and I do firmly believe that if you can avoid causing suffering, you should.

Matt: Right. That’s a fairly black and white issue there, I would say. Getting back to the music, touring for this new album, do you find that the club scene has changed from years ago? Obviously it has, but between the U.S. and the U.K., what have you witnessed?

Moby: Well, I’ve been playing music for 25 years. I started playing guitar when I was eight years old. So I’ve been involved in so many different types of club scenes. I mean, in the early 80’s, I was sort of involved in the hard core punk scene, and then as the 80’s progressed, I was involved in the New York club scene, and the New York club scene in the mid-80’s and late 80’s was interesting, ‘cause it was black and Latino and gay and just filled with artists, and it was a genuine counterculture. And obviously things have changed an awful lot since then. I’m not saying things have changed for the worse. I think things are just different. I mean, the tour that we’re doing is more, it’s theaters, and it’s more concert-based as opposed to playing in clubs. I mean, I still occasionally go out to clubs and go dancing and occasionally I go out and DJ, but as long as people are going out and dancing and respecting one another and having a nice time, I think there’s nothing to complain about, and I think that that’s wonderful. I think it’s a lot better, you know, people going out and dancing and getting covered in sweat and having transcendent, epiphanous experiences, rather than staying home and watching ESPN.

Matt: In terms of the club scene becoming commercialized or maybe the mainstream having finally come into the club scene, do you see a spot where the counterculture is now gravitating towards where the true counterculture is now, since the mainstream has kind of overtaken....

Moby: Well, it’s interesting, ‘cause I’ve spent a lot of time over the last ten years in Europe, and the European electronic scene is interesting, ‘cause it’s the most commercial thing in the world, but it’s also the most underground thing in the world, and it encompasses both. You can have really, really commercial dance records that get played on the radio 8 million times a day, and then you can have really obscure dance records that never get played on the radio and only ten people in the world know about. And I think electronic music is such a broad umbrella, it can encompass so many different things. I mean, essentially electronic music encompasses Bjork and Afex Twin and the Chemical Brothers and Massive Attack and Tricky and Portus Head and The Prodigy, and it’s like it’s a very, very broad umbrella. I mean, even Nine Inch Nails I would put under there. It’s like, these are all records that are for the most part made electronically as opposed to the conventional guitar-bass-drums route, so it’s a big umbrella, and it can encompass commercial and uncommercial scenes.

Dave: I wanted to ask you more specifically about your involvement in that scene. With your forays into recording other music after doing a bunch of techno records, you’ve kind of gone back now with this record, Play, to electronic music. What was the reason for that, and how do you feel about, are you going to continue to do other types of music?

Moby: Well, I never really saw it that way. I mean, even in the early 90’s, when I was known specifically for making techno records, I was still playing drums in a hard core punk band and still writing classical music for movies, and when I made Animal Rights, which most people think of as a rock record, I also made a record under the name Voodoo Child, which is a very quiet, electronic record, and this new album, Play, I wouldn’t know where to classify it. I mean, ‘cause some of the songs are all acoustic. Some of the songs are all electronics. Most of the songs are a hybrid of the two. I wouldn’t call it a techno record. I guess I’d be just happy to put it under that, once again, that broad umbrella of electronic music even though there’s a lot of acoustic guitar on the record and a lot of acoustic piano and....

Dave: And bask in your ambiguity?

Moby: Yeah. When I make a record, I’m not really thinking about genre. I’m thinking about trying to make a record that I think is effective and that hopefully I love and that over people will love as well, and to specifically work within one genre seems arbitrary.

Dave: Why don’t we do a couple id’s, and then I’ll try to come up with some other questions and...

Moby: You’ve got a lot of stuff there.

Dave: Yeah, we do have a lot of stuff. We’ve got some good stuff. Yeah, if you want to grab....

Moby: It’s Joe’s Blue Plate Special?

Dave: Wow. How’d you know that?

Moby: Hi, this is Moby, and you’re listening to Joe’s Blue Plate Special.

Hi, this is Moby, and you’re listening to Joe’s Blue Plate Special.

Dave: Alright. You’ve been listening to the Joe’s Blue Plate Special interview segment here. We’ve been dining with Moby. Moby, thanks a lot for coming on the show, and we really appreciated having you.

Moby: My pleasure.

Dave: The questions that we kind of ask about that specifically are, I know with you it hasn’t been as much of an influence because you have always had contracts with major labels that allow you to maintain your creativity.....no?

Moby: If you knew how many years I spent trying to get a record deal. The first band I was in that I tried to get a record deal with was 1983 and ended up pressing our own records. Well, I was in a hard core band called the Vatican Commandos, then I was in a sort of like obscure new wave band called AWOL and we used to make our own records, and we’d always dreamed about getting record contracts, so for years and years and years, I would make music and think to myself, how do I get a record contract. And I had no idea. And now that I’ve had a record contract for ten years, I know what’s involved in getting a record contract. And it’s not as difficult as you might think.

Dave: Well, shed light on this subject. Tell me how I can get one.

Moby: Well, there’s basically two different types of record labels in the world. There are independent labels and major labels. Major labels, it’s very difficult getting access to the A&R staff at a major label company. If you send them a tape, they won’t even open it. It has to be, I guess what they called "solicited." Either they have to ask you for it, or it has to go through a manager that they respect, or a lawyer, or some of these channels to get into the major label A&R people. But in the independent labels, and independent labels are all desperately hungry, and there are big indies, like Creation or Mute or, I can’t even think of some of the other bigger indies, and then there are...

Dave: Epitaph?

Moby: Yeah, Epitaph. And those are almost like major labels, where if you send them a tape, it won’t get listened to. But my advice to any musician who’s interested in getting signed, is very simply go through your record collection and figure out what labels you respect, and then contact someone at that label. Call them up or write them and then go and visit them if possible. Like go and try and meet with them whenever possible, which is difficult, ‘cause a lot of these labels are far away from where the musicians are. But there’s so many labels that are hungry to sign people, and if you’re good, you will get signed, you just have to aggressive and constantly be trying. And then there’s the whole world of publishing, which I didn’t know anything about before I started making records. And just in case some people don’t know what publishing is, when a song gets recorded, it exists in two different forms. It exists in the form of the recording, and it exists in the form of the song, which is like the intangible, unrecorded entity. Which is why, Like if you cover a Beatles song, you’ll keep the money, you record a Beatles song and you sell the record, you keep the money from the record sale, whereas the Beatles publishing gets the money from the publishing. So publishing covers all that, and it covers getting played on the radio, getting ___________ commercials, and you should hold onto your publishing and never give it away when you sign a record deal. Never, ever, ever. Because, for example, I was signed to this small label in New York, an independent label, and they asked me for my, they wanted to do a publishing deal with me. And they offered me $2,500 for a ten-year publishing deal, and they would keep 50% of it, and I would keep 50% of it. At that time, I really needed the money, but luckily I said no, and six months later, I did a publishing deal where I kept 75%, the other company kept 25%, and I got a $300,000 advance. So publishing can be, that’s really where bands make money. ‘Cause a record deal, you don’t make money off of a record deal. You use the money from a record deal to pay for your recording, but a publishing deal, you can make astronomical amounts of money, and I can really, if you’re a band and you’re trying to survive and you’re trying to eat and you’re trying to pay your rent. Your record deal isn’t going to do that for you. It’s your publishing deal that will do that for you. And then maybe a merchandising deal, which is like t-shirts and stuff, but that’s further down the road.

Dave: Alright. Well, that pretty much covers advice for other bands.

Matt: As far as bands struggling to come up right now or who are trying to make it, well, first, are you into any bands that have yet to break right now or DJ’s or artists anywhere that you’d like to kind of...

Moby: I hear lots of stuff when I’m traveling. I don’t remember names is the problem. So you do hear a lot of different things. So I can’t think of anything that I’ve heard that really stood out, but I know it’s out there. My other advice to unsigned bands or to any musician or any writer or any artist is to work as hard as you possibly can. Don’t be satisfied with your work until everyone you know absolutely loves it. Don’t be complacent. Don’t watch T.V. Don’t play video games. And every minute you spend watching T.V. or playing video games, you could be perfecting your craft. Every minute you spend hanging out with your friends, you could be perfecting your craft. The people I know who are successful over a long period of time are people who work harder than other people. You know, one of my best friends in New York is a painter, and he’s very successful, and the reason he’s successful is ‘cause he works hard. I’ve never known anyone who doesn’t work hard who’s been successful for a long period of time. I mean, sure, you can have these fly-by-night alternative rock bands that show up, have a hit single, and six months later they disappear, but if they worked harder, they’d still be around.

Matt: I think there may be a general misconception about that, that people involved in the arts, the ones the general public is familiar with, they were inherently born with this talent and either someday were discovered or they just popped in front of me on my T.V. screen and that in effect, like you’re saying, the hard work is akin to what you’d put in if you were wanting to make CEO of your large corporation or something like that.

Moby: Yeah. It might be a really bad analogy, but if you want to be a great athlete, you practice. If you want to be a great musician, you practice. If you want to be a great writer, you practice. There has been good, lazy art made in the history of art and music, but no one’s had a long career based on being a lazy artist. No one. You have to work very, very hard, and you have to be very flexible and open-minded. So if you’re working on something and everyone around you tells you that it sucks, there’s a good chance that it sucks and you should maybe change your approach. I mean, I’d advise people to stick to their guns. You know, if you’re doing something and you 100% believe in it, then stick with it. But a lot of times, your friends, if they don’t like what you’re doing, there’s a good chance no one’s going to like what you’re doing. I know that’s really rough, but I’ve found that in my case, that’s often been the case. Like I’ll be working on music, and the stuff that my friends like tends to be the music that does well and actually makes it onto the record. I can’t stress it enough. Just hard work and be open-minded and be flexible and don’t be obstinate and pigheaded.

Matt: Yeah. Listen to people with sensibilities you respect, I guess.

Dave: Alright. I’m gonna ask you one more question. Having been on both a major and an independent label, and probably having done it on your own, do you think that it’s becoming more viable for independent artists to make it into the spotlight or possibly even for artists such as Ani DiFranco, who have made it basically on their own, even MTV nowadays is saying that possibly independent artists are going to be the hope for the future...

Moby: I think that it depends on what time you’re talking about. I mean, there have been times when major labels were very viable. Like Warner Brothers in the late 80’s, they had Primal Scream and REM and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Eco and the Bunnyman and on and on....there have been times when major labels have been great. This is not one of those times. Major labels in the end of the 90’s are awful, and I’m thrilled to not be on a major label. I’m signed to Mute Records in Europe, and V2 Records for North America, and one thing that major labels do really well is sell records. So I’m lucky ‘cause I’m on V2 for North America, which is an indy label, but they’re distributed by BMG, which is a major distribution company, so I have the best of both worlds. If I was a musician and I was looking for a record deal, the only way I would sign to a major label would be if the type of music that I was making was the sort of stuff that got played on the radio 800 times a day, then sign to a major label. But if you’re in any way different or idiosyncratic or whatever, major labels are not the place to be. Major labels only know, at this point in the end of the 90’s, they only know how to develop and sell lowest common denominator stuff, like alternative rock bands that just are generic and sound like every other alternative rock band. So if you’re doing that kind of music, great, sign to a major label, but if you’re not, stay away from major labels as much as you possibly can.

Matt: What do you think is going to buck that trend of the majors doling out this disposable singles and things like that?

Moby: It’s a complicated issue, but all the major labels are owned by multinational corporations now, and multinational corporations are looking for quarterly results to keep their shareholders happy, and the way that they get that is by the major labels putting out music that sells really quickly. But at some point, the people at these multinational corporations are going to say, look, we’re spending all this money to generate quarterly profits, but these bands are disappearing, so all our investment just goes away. The classic example would be Bruce Springsteen, who, his first couple of records didn’t sell very well, but he went on to make Columbia and Sony hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, whereas if he was signed now, he’d get dropped after six months. So the labels are going to realize that, and they’re going to say that unless we actually start developing artists who are substantial and putting out music that lasts longer than six months, then, I think, then things will change. And also I just hope that at some point people get sick of disposable music. You know, alternative rock bands that are around for two weeks and pop groups that are around for a month or so. There’s nothing wrong with disposable music, but it needs to be balanced by music of substance, and I think in the contemporary music climate, it’s just too heavily weighted towards disposable pop music and disposable alternative rock, and no one needs that.

Matt: Well, thank you for your insight on a lot of different things today, Moby, and I think we’ll wrap this up here.

Dave: Yeah, thanks a lot.