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I Think That The Current Climate Enables A Lot Of Musicians To Do Relatively Well. Twenty-five Years Ago, You Could Be A Bass Player In A Folk-rock Band And Do Pretty Well - That Sort Of Means That You're Going To Have To Go Get A Day Job. But A Lot Of My Friends Have Learned How To Write Classical Music For Movies And Produce Other People And Do Remixes, And Dj And Go On Tour, And Do All These Different Things. The More Diverse Their Approach, The Better Their Chances Of Actually Having A Career.

-Moby

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I Think That The

Moby

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I Think That The Current Climate Enables A Lot Of Musicians To Do Relatively Well. Twenty-five Years Ago, You Could Be A Bass Player In A Folk-rock Band And Do Pretty Well - That Sort Of Means That You're Going To Have To Go Get A Day Job. But A Lot Of My Friends Have Learned How To Write Classical Music For Movies And Produce Other People And Do Remixes, And Dj And Go On Tour, And Do All These Different Things. The More Diverse Their Approach, The Better Their Chances Of Actually Having A Career.

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When I Tour I'm Going To Countries To Play Music For People. My Presence In A Country Is Not An Endorsement Or A Condemnation Of That Country's Policies. My Presence In A Country Is An Effort To Connect With People Through Playing Music.

It's A Very Strange Phenomenon Being Hated By People You've Never Met. Some Journalists Just Seem To Hate Me And Everything I Do, And It's Disconcerting Because I've Never Met This Person.

We Need To Finally Accept That All Sentient Creatures Are Deserving Of Basic Rights. I Define Basic Rights As This -the Ability To Pursue Life Without Having Someone Else's Will Involuntarily Forced Upon You.

I Like Noise. It's Always Puzzled Me Why One Of The Goals Of Contemporary Recording Is To Get Rid Of Noise And To Eliminate Any Element Of A Performance.

I'd Much Rather Go To A Banksy Art Show Than A Moby Art Show. My Art Is Painfully Naive.

There Are So Many Causes. Gun Control, Climate Change, Deforestation, Animal Welfare, Human Welfare, Education. Working On The Big Issues Is Noble And Great, But Being Aware Of What’s Going On Around You Right At This Moment, Being Kind To The People Around You, Extending Compassion And Decency, Not Just To Everyone You Meet But Also To Yourself—i Think That’s One Of The Biggest Challenges Most People Face.

We Almost Need To Cultivate - I Hate To Sound New Age-y - But To Cultivate A Positive Bias, And Really Work To Focus On Those Things And Notice Those Things That Are Wonderful And Uplifting.

I Made A Record In 1996 Called 'animal Rights' That Was A Very Difficult, Very Dark Punk-rock Record. Of All The Records I've Made, It's My Favorite One. It's Also The One That Got The Worst Reviews And Sold The Worst.

I Think That Growing Up Very Poor In A Very Wealthy Town Gave Me A Sense Of Being An Outsider, And I Hated It When I Was Growing Up.

If Nirvana Had Remained A Small, Underground Punk Rock Band, Kurt Cobain Would Still Be Alive. And He'd Probably Be Living In Seattle, Getting Kind Of Fat And Balding, Be Relatively Happy And Producing Records For Other People.

There Are So Many Musicians, Friends Of Mine, Who Play Shows For Ten People A Night, Or Always Desperately Wanted A Record Contract. So Even If Every Person On The Planet Loathes Me, I Have Nothing To Complain About. My Job Is Not A Bad Job, So I Can't Complain.

The Strange Thing About Hotel Rooms Is That They Look Familiar And Seem Familiar And Have Many Of The Accoutrements That Seem Domestic And Familiar, But They Are Really Weird, Alien And Anonymous Places.

I Guess The Most Emotional Part Is When I Have That Moment When I End Up Writing Something That I Really, Really Love. So Not Only Is There The Emotional Connection With The Music That's Being Created, But There's Also The Magic Of The Fact That You're Essentially Creating Something From Nothing.

There's An Aesthetic Theme, Which Is Cities At Two O'clock In The Morning. Not Cities Packed With People Going Out To Clubs And Dancing But Desolate, Empty Streets. It's Off-putting But There's A Strange Comfort To It As Well, That Desolate Urban Environment.

There Are A Lot Of Musicians Who Are Still Desperately Trying To Pretend That It's 1998 And By Having A Huge Marketing Campaign, They Somehow Believe That They Can Sell 10 Million Records. That's Delusional. No One Sells 10 Million Records. The Days Of Musicians Getting Rich Off Of Selling Records Are Done.

God Has Taken His Chosen People, The Problem Being You Are The Only Non-chosen Person.

I Have Actually Found Myself Buying Up More And More Old Analogue Gear. I Have This Strange Obsession With Old Drum Machines.

I'm A Weird, Bald Musician Who Makes Records In His Bedroom And Lives In The Lower East Side.

My Goal With Everything That I Do Is To Present Things In A Way That I Would Want To See If I Was In The Audience Or Buying The Record.

I Always Feel Kind Of Absurd And Presumptuous Presenting A Speech.

I Feel Like Someone Who's Meditating Could Possibly Benefit Their Meditation Practice And Their Well-being Just By Sitting Down And Thinking About Things That They Love For Ten Minutes.

I'm A Terrible Cook, So I Usually Eat Out With Friends.

In A Perfect World, I Would Be 6-foot-3 And Have A Perfect Head Of Hair And Look Like Orlando Bloom.

Better A Loving Single-parent Family Than A 'conventional' Family Where The Parents Hate Each Other And The Father Is A Demagogue.

I Like Singing, But It's Certainly Not My Strong Point.

I Won't Complain About Touring, Because I Really Do Believe That A Public-figure Musician Complaining About Being A Public-figure Musician Is Just Absurd. Like, 'boo Hoo Hoo! I Have To Stand On Stage And People Pay Attention To Me!'

Since I Stopped Drinking My Love Life Has Taken A Really Serious Hit. Romantic Encounters That Seemed Like A Really Good Idea At Three O'clock In The Morning On The Lower East Side? Less So In Sobriety.

Moby Lives The Simplest Of Any Person I Think I Know.

We Hope That As A Species We're Capable Of Dealing With Environmental Catastrophe Before It Actually Does Collectively Kill Most Of Us.

But When A Man’s Religion Becomes Really Frantic; When It Is A Positive Torment To Him; And In Fine, Makes This Earth Of Ours An Uncomfortable Inn To Lodge In; Then I Think It High Time To Take That Individual Aside And Argue The Point With Him.

When I Was Growing Up, Albums Were My Closest Friends, As Sad As That May Sound - Joy Division's 'closer,' Or Echo And The Bunnymen's 'heaven Up Here'... I Had A More Intimate Relationship With Those Records Than I Did With Most Of The People In My Life.

Intimate Relationships

I Remember I Went To Berlin Right After The Wall Came Down. I First Went To East Berlin, And All The Buildings Were Old And Falling Down, And Now When You Go Back To Berlin, You Know You're In The East Because All The Buildings Are Brand New And Very Tall.

I See 'ahab's Wife' As Offering An Alternative Vision To

I Love Nyc. It's The City Of My Birth And Probably The Most Amazing City On The Planet.

All Human Belief Systems Are Inherently Flawed.

I Truly Believe, As An Institution, Most Major Labels Should Just Die.

Nothing Can Stop Us Now 'cause We Are All Made Of Stars.

There Is A Dysfunctional Strangeness To Los Angeles That Doesn't Exist In Any Other Western City. The Roads Are Crumbling, No-one Knows What They're Doing, The City Government Barely Works.

A Great Song Is A Great Song, Whether It's On Vinyl Or Cd Or Cassette Or Reel To Reel Or Mp3. Then Again, That Might Be An Overly Optimistic View, But I Do Think That Great Music Will Transcend The Medium In Which It Is Delivered.

I've Made Records That Everyone Has Hated And I've Loved, And Made Records That Everyone Has Loved And I've Deemed, At Best, Mediocre.

That’s Why I Make Music. When I Listen To My Favorite Music Made By Other People, That’s What It Does To Me. So As A Musician, I’m Just Trying To Do The Same Thing With Music I Make. Sometimes It Works, Sometimes It Doesn’t. But When Someone Comes To Me And Says The Music I’ve Made Has Affected Them Emotionally, That’s The Most Gratifying Part Of My Job.

There Are Viable (and Usually Better) Alternatives To The Use Of Animals For Food, Sport, Clothing, & Experimentation. I Beg You To Discontinue Any Actions That Might Cause Or Condone Animal Torture, Abuse, Or Destruction.

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One Of The Central Flaws In The State Of Contemporary Music Is That The Major Record Companies Have Failed To Incorporate That Simple Fact Into Their Business Plans. They've Come Into An Industry That's Based On Idiosyncratic Artists And Tried To Erase Every Idiosyncratic Aspect Out Of It.

I Feel Like The Vast Majority Of The World's Problems Would Disappear If Suddenly Everyone On The Planet Were Relatively Self-aware And Capable Of Honest Self-love And Compassion.

Somehow, Magically, I've Become An Electronic Musician, And I Have A Recording Studio That Looks Like The Bridge Of The Enterprise.

There's A Fairly Extensive Network Of Musicians On Tour Who Are All Trying To Stay Sober, And We Generally Reach Out To Each Other And Offer Support When And Where We Can.

If Someone Is Cynical And Doesn't Vote And Ends Up With A Crummy Job In A Crummy Country With A Decimated Environment, They Only Have Themselves To Blame.

Honestly, The Most Vulnerable Part Of My Life Is Probably Just Honest Expression, As Cliché As That Might Sound.

Success Usually Breeds A Degree Of Hubris.

The World Is Experiencing Great Change, But You've Got Loads Of People Terrified Of This Change And The Donald Trumps, The Boris Johnsons Making Utterly Simplistic, Reductionist Policy Proposals That Are Unrealistic But Then People Buy It Up.

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I Believe That The Role Of Limited Government Should Be Looking After The Needs Of Veterans, The Elderly, Children And Those Institutions That Improve The Quality Of Life For Struggling Families - I Don't Believe That Government Should Bend To Serve The Needs Of Subsidized Multi-national Corporations And Entitled Billionaires.

All I Want To Do With My Life Is Try And Make Music That I Really Love, And So Every Day I Try And Work On Music.

And If We Obey God, We Must Disobey Ourselves, And It Is In This Disobeying Ourselves, Wherein The Hardness Of Obeying God Consists.

In 1992 I Was Doing One Of My First Ever Tours And I Was In Heathrow Airport And I Saw These Middle-aged Musicians Who Had Clearly Been On Tour For Decades, And They All Looked Haggard And Unhappy And Unhealthy. I Vowed To Myself That I Would Never Be That Person. Flash Forward 20 Years And I Found Myself In Heathrow Looking Haggard And Unhappy And Unhealthy. I Decided I Would Rather Spend My Time Staying Home Working On Music And Making Dinner With Friends, Instead Of Spending Six Months In A Hotel In A State Of Depressing Suspended Adolescence.

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People Assume That Somehow Fame And Wealth Will Keep Mortality At Bay.

One Simple Word: Ugh. Is Something Still Considered A Conspiracy If It's Played Out Right Under Our Noses?

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What I Love About Making Albums In The 21st Century Is That So Few People Buy Albums! I Can Make An Album Without Any Commercial Concerns Whatsoever.

As Time Passes And The More Advanced Science Becomes, The More Interesting It Becomes.

Musicians, Actors, Writers - We're All Neurotic, Odd People Who've Lucked Into Accidental Careers. So I Just Don't Like Being Around Public Figures With That Sense Of Entitlement, It Just Seems Unhealthy, And It Strips So Much Potential For Them To Develop As A Human Being.

I Would Drink And Drink And Then At 3 O'clock In The Morning Take Anything That Was Put In Front Of Me. And I'd Sometimes Be Disappointed When Conventional Things Were Put In Front Of Me. Like, I'd Do A Line Of Something And Be Disappointed To Find It Was Just Cocaine.

When Playing Big Festivals, I Tend To Play Big, Over The Top Techno Tracks, Like Hands In The Air Songs That Make Sense Being Played In Front Of 30,000 People. I Steer Away From Subtlety In The Interests Of Big Bombastic Dance Music.

The Moment A Career Is On A Quantitative Downswing, Your Loathsomeness Is Sort Of Attenuated.

Ketamine's Such A Waste Of Time Drug. All You Do When You're On Ketamine Is Go: 'oh, I'm On Drugs. I Don't Feel Good, I Don't Feel Bad, I'm Just On Drugs...'

Punishing People For Listening To Music Is Exactly The Wrong Way To Protect The Music Business.

Luckily Almost No One Buys Music Anymore, So Selling Music Doesn't Really Affect Any Of My Professional Decisions.

Every Single Day The World Seems Like It Is On The Brink Of Falling Apart. But Then I Look Outside My Window, And Things Look About The Same As They Did A Week Ago. It's Almost A Form Of Cognitive Dissonance.

I’ve Never Seen The Need To Choose One Type Of Music At The Exclusion Of Another. That Would Feel Kind Of Sad And Arbitrary.

But On A Utilitarian Level, I Realize That To Try To Accomplish The Greatest Good For The Greatest Number Of People, Sometimes We Have To Become Salesmen For What We Believe, And Part Of Being A Salesman Is Being Effective.

At The Risk Of Sounding Pedestrian, I'll Be Completely Honest: The First Thing I Do In The Morning Is Check Google News, Partially Because It Seems Sort Of Random And Unbiased And Partially Because I Tend To Stay In Hotels That Don't Necessarily Have The Fastest Internet Connections.

Old People Go To The Polls Because They Can't Get Erections, Young People Stay Home, Do Drugs And Have Sex.

I Look Back And Think Of All The Times I've Had To Let Things Go In The Past, And How Traumatic It Seemed While It Was Happening, But How My Understanding Of It Changed As Time Passed - And Oftentimes Things That Seem Really Difficult And Traumatic In The Short Term Seem A Lot Less Difficult And Traumatic In The Long Term. So I Remind Myself Of That.

An Artist In 2014 Who Is Thinking About Album Sales Is Either Sadly Deluded Or Has To Make So Many Commercial Compromises That It Sort Of Takes The Joy Out Of Making Music.

If We Base Our Belief Systems On The Humble Assumption That The Complexities Of The World Are Ontologically Beyond Our Understanding, Then Maybe Our Belief Systems Will Make More Sense And End Up Causing Less Suffering.

I Wanted To Have A Title That Wasn't In English So That Someone In France, For Instance, Could Ask For 'dix-huit' Or The Someone In Japan Could Ask For 'juhachi.'

When I Was Growing Up, All I Wanted To Do Was Fit In, But If You're Perpetually An Outsider, It Gives You A Perspective That Might Have A Little More Objectivity Than People Who Really Feel Connected To Their Social Environment In Which They Grow Up.

It Takes A Unique Woman To See Me As Any Sort Of Catch.

The Worst Case Scenario Is You Really Like Someone's Work, Then You Meet Them And They're A Self-involved, Entitled Douchebag.

Worst Case Scenario

I'm Envious Of People Who Can Sleep As Long As They Want. I Have The Circadian Rhythm Of A Farmer.

I've Been An Animal Rights Activist And A Vegan For 28 Years. The Entire Time, I've Asked Myself: How Do I Best Advance An Animal Rights Agenda?

When I Was Growing Up, I Was The Most Pretentious Person I Have Ever Met. I Only Read Obscure Books And Watched Obscure Movies And Only Listened To Obscure Music.

Never Have Public Feuds With Anyone Who's Surrounded By People Who Carry Guns.

It's Heartbreaking That So Many Hundreds Of Millions Of People Around The World Are Desperate For The Right To Vote, But Here In America People Stay Home On Election Day.

I've Never Seen Friends; I've Never Seen Seinfeld. I've Heard People Reference These Things But I've Never Seen Them.

For My Most Of My Career I've Been A Falling-down Drunk. Most Of My Interviews Were Done Hungover, And For A While It Was Great.

I Have Nothing Against Bombastic Music, But When It Comes To Making Albums, I'd Prefer To Make Music That Has A Sort Of Vulnerable Subtlety To It.

In An Odd Way, Donald Trump And Maybe Brexit Is Gonna Be Great For Inspiring A New Wave Of Socially Conscious Political Music.

If You Look At The History Of Popular Music, The Most Successful Musicians Have Started Out Being Really Marginal And Esoteric. The Beatles And The Rolling Stones. Madonna. Prince. Bruce Springsteen. Fleetwood Mac. David Bowie. Public Enemy. Nirvana.

Dogs Have Boundless Enthusiasm But No Sense Of Shame. I Should Have A Dog As A Life Coach.

I Change My Mind About Things - For A While I Was Punk Rocker, And If You Weren't A Punk Rocker You Were An Apostate. Then I Was A Dance Music Enthusiast, And If You Weren't A Dance Music Enthusiast, You Were An Apostate. I Was Carnivore, And If You Were A Vegan, I Didn't Want To Talk To You. Then I Was Vegan, And If You Were A Carnivore I Didn't Want To Talk To You.

I Had An Epiphany A Few Years Ago Where I Was Out At A Celebrity Party And It Suddenly Dawned On Me That I Had Yet To Meet A Celebrity Who Is As Smart And Interesting As Any Of My Friends.

I'd Much Rather Go Out And Have Music Randomly Presented To Me By Different Djs Than Stay Home And Discover It On My Own.

I Was On Food Stamps Until I Was 18 And Became An Adult.

So Man's Insanity Is Heaven's Sense, And Wandering From All Mortal Reason, Man Comes At Last To That Celestial Thought, Which, To Reason, Is Absurd And Frantic; And Weal Or Woe, Feels Then Uncompromised, Indifferent As His God.

I Remember New York In The '80s As A Place With Vacant Lots That Would Eventually Give Over To Nature. Weeds Would Grow Up, Squirrels Would Move In. That Entropy Is Gone Now. It's Too Expensive To Let A Vacant Lot Go Natural.

There Is A Long And Interesting Tradition Of Really Marginal Left-field Music That Becomes Commercially Successful. And I Will, For A Brief Minute, Fit Into That Tradition.

I've Dated Attractive People And I Don't Find A Correlation Between Amorous Enthusiasm And Beauty And Public Figure Status.

A Part Of Me Wants To Sort Of Try And Sound Cool And Feed This Myth That I'm Some Sort Of Glamorous Lothario, But I Was Raised By Women - My Mother And Her Mother And My Aunts - And As A Result, Most Of My Friends Have Always Been Women.

Everyone Feels Awkward, Everyone Feels Uncomfortable, Everyone Gets Older, Everyone Gets Lonely, Everyone Gets Sick, Everyone Eventually Dies.

I Was Never Encouraged To Believe Anything. I Was Brought Up In A Profoundly Agnostic Or Pantheistic Community.

I Love The Idea Of Making Records That People Can Use, Records That Have A Sense Of Utility.

Factory-farm Lobbyists Are So Powerful And So Well Funded And They Do Everything In Their Power To Hide The Truth About Farming. They Keep The Farms And Slaughterhouses In Places That Most People Never Visit; They Execute Huge Marketing Campaigns In An Effort To Make Animal Production Look Like A Happy, Nice, Benign Institution.

I Think We’re Like Farm Animals Before An Earthquake.

There Might Be A Lot Of Difference Between Republicans And Democrats On Key Social Issues Like Women's Rights And Health Care. But When It Comes To Taking Corporate Cash, They're Pretty Much The Same Beast.

God Took His Chosen People And We Are What's Left. He Looked At What's Left And Thought: I Could Kill You All, But Let's See What Happens. A Little Social Experiment.

I'm Actually Cautiously Optimistic That Donald Trump Will Be So Bad That He Will Force America To Wake Up And Realise That Forcing America To Vote For Right Wing Republicans Is Always A Terrible Idea. It's Never Been A Good Idea, But What Happened Here Is You Have A President Like Obama Who Gives You Eight Years Of Relative Stability And Prosperity, And People Forget That Republicans Are Just Terrible, Not Just For The Country But For The Planet. Maybe This Is America's Equivalent Of Bottoming Out, Like A Crystal Meth Addict Going On One Last Big Run Before They Have To Get Sober.

I Feel Like People Might Be Slightly Less Inclined To Hate Me As Much As They Did In The Past, And I Think Part Of That Is Selling Fewer Records.

When I Was Very Young, I Played In A Punk-rock Band, But I Also Studied Music Theory And Classical Music.

My Goal Is To Make One-not A Hodgepodge, But Just The Sort Of Record That I Would Want To Listen To.

When I Say, 'i Love Christ And Love The Teachings Of Christ,' I Mean That In The Most Simple And Naive Way. I'm Not Saying I'm Right.

When I Listen To Gospel Singers Pouring Their Heart Out To God, It's The Act Of Pouring Their Hearts Out That Interests Me.

I Can't Think Of Any Musician Or Producer Who Has Influenced Me More Than Brian Eno. From When He Was In Roxy Music, Producing Devo, The Talking Heads And My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts.

For Me My Biggest Inspiration Is Trying To Make Music That Effects Me As Much As The Music Made By My Heroes.

I Think A Lot Of Self-importance Is A Product Of Fear. And Fear, Living In Sort Of An Un-self-examined Fear-based Life, Tends To Lead To Narcissism And Self-importance.

If You Look At The History Of Demagoguery And Fascism, It Always Happens When There Are Two Things. It Requires A Gentle Populace To Allow It To Happen, Whether Through Laziness, Ignorance Or Ineptitude, But It Also Requires A Very Angry, Dissatisfied Section Of The Populace Who Want Egregiously Simple Answers To Very Complicated Problems.

One Of The Problems With Being Relatively Conscious And Human, Is That You Want To Help Everybody.

When I Dj At Big Venues I Try To Play Tracks That I Would Want To Hear If I Were E'd Up In A Field With 50,000 Other People.

People Don't Truly Respond To Something Until They See The Direct Consequences.

If You Don't Want To Be Beaten, Imprisoned, Mutilated, Killed Ot Tortured, Then You Shouldn't Condone Such Behaviour Towards Anyone, Be They Human Or Not.

It's Sometimes Too Easy To Point Fingers When Circumstances Dramatically Go Awry, But As An Addict, I'm Ultimately Responsible For My Own Decisions, No Matter How Benign Or Tragic The Consequences.

There's No Wrong Way To Meditate. And Meditation Should Never Be A Difficult Practice That Leads To Self Criticism.

I Don't Have Children, But I Imagine If Parents Are Really Pushed On The Subject, They Probably Have Favorite Children.

You Could Almost Say That Throughout Human History There Are People Who Can Either Foresee Consequences Or Who Are Capable Of Looking For Information And Predicting The Consequences Will Happen, But The Vast Majority Of People Won't Respond To Climate Change Until Their City Is Underwater, Food Supply Is Disrupted Or Everyone Around Them Is Dying Of Zoonotic Disease. It's Almost Like Someone Dealing With An Addiction, Like You Hope That The Person Can Overcome The Addiction Before The Addiction Kills Them.

Up Until I Started Working With Him, I Had Thought That Music Was A Nice Thing That I Enjoyed And Liked Making, But It Wasn’t A Serious Healing Modality. What Dr. Sacks Has Proven Is That Music Is Actually A Quantifiable, Profound Healing Modality.

We Live In This Culture Where There Are So Many Things That Want Us To Pretend That We’re Not Truly Human. That We Can Be Exempt From The Human Condition, Either Through Intelligence Or Accomplishment Or Success Or Humor. Bu Biologically We’re All The Same. We All Get Sad, We All Get Happy, And We All Die. Anyone Who Pretends That That’s Not The Case Is Either A Sociopath Or Utterly Delusional.

The Progressive Movement Needs More Crazy And Amoral/immoral Right-wing Politicians And Pundits Like Tom Delay And Newt Gingrich And Ann Coulter And Sean Hannity.

I Don't Think Of Myself As A Singer; I Usually End Up Singing When I Can't Find Anyone Better To Sing, Or When I'm Too Lazy To Find Someone Better.

Since I Was Really Little, I've Just Always Had An Obsession With, Not Just Science Fiction, But Science And Space. And Also Because As Time Passes And The More Advanced Science Becomes, The More Interesting It Becomes.

No One Drives In Manhattan - In Fact, Many Of The Folks Who Live In Manhattan Don't Even Have Driving Licenses!

There Is Nothing Terribly Wrong With My Face, Even If Some Of Its Parts Aren't Very Inspiring.

It Will Be Interesting To See What The Long Term Fruits Of Our National Apathy Will Be, 'cos So Far They've Been Pretty Foul.

I Love That Vinyl Is Actually Growing In Popularity, And That There Are So Many Great Record Stores.

People Have Always Been Resistant To Change. If You Go Back To The 17th, 18th Century, Playing Guitar Was Frowned Upon. When Rock N' Roll First Started, No One Took It Seriously.

I'm Obsessed With Politics, And I Talk About It Any Chance I Can Get. I Have Strong Opinions About How The World Should Be Run.

I've Been Making Music For Thirty-six Years And, You Know, I'm Still Just As In Love With Working On Music Now As I Was Thirty-six Years Ago.

I Think It'd Be Great If Prince Made An Album Of Just Romantic, Slow Ballads.

In 1991 I Did An Interview Wherein I Described Myself As A 'teetotal Christian,' Which Was An Exaggeration, Although I Do Like Tea And Christ.

I Like Being Vegan, I Think It's Good For My Health.

I Will Be Very Sad When Global Warming And Toxins Kill Off All The Toads And Frogs And Salamanders. Here's Hoping We, As Humans, Figure Out A Way To Be Less Stupid.

I Truly Don't Judge Other People's Actions. But I Think That Factory Farming Is An Abomination.

To Truly Live A Creative Life Means That You Will Need To Experiment In As Many Different Fields As Possible.

In Some Ways It's Hard To See Electronic Music As A Genre Because The Word "electronic" Just Refers To How It's Made. Hip-hop Is Electronic Music. Most Reggae Is Electronic. Pop Is Electronic. House Music, Techno, All These Sorts Of Ostensibly Disparate Genres Are Sort Of Being Created With The Same Equipment.

I'm Not Catholic But The Virgin Mary Fascinates Me Because She's Like A Folk Hero.

It's Enshrined In Our Constitution That An Individual Has A Right To Release Information And Disseminate Information That Makes The Powers That Be Uncomfortable.

My Mother And I Were On Welfare And Food Stamps Until I Was 18, So I've Always Had This Ethos Of, Like, 'try And Make A Little Bit Of Money Now Because You Don't Know What's Going To Happen Tomorrow.'

I've Worked With All Sorts Of Random People - Everybody From Metallica To Britney Spears To Ozzy Osbourne To Michael Jackson To The Beastie Boys. I've Got A Really Strange Cv. It's Interesting - I Work With A Lot Of These Disparate, Different People To Learn What It's Like To Work With Random People.

A Lot Of People Have Realized That A Good Spiritual Practice And A Good Meditation Practice Have Real Benefit. It’s Not Just Something Nice To Do To Make The Universe Happy.

One Problem With A Lot Of Musicians Is That They Remove Themselves In A Studio And Make A Record And Assume People Are Going To Pay Attention To It Just Because They've Made It.

Keep Your Weather Eye Open, And Sing Out Every Time.

I'm Not Sure How Healthy It Is To Shoot Police Helicopters With Bazookas.

Shaving Your Head Is Acceptable. It's When You Start Wearing Toupees And Brushing Your Hair Over That Things Go Wrong.

A Lot Of My Friends Who Grew Up In Manhattan Have A Strange Phobia About Brooklyn. It's Big And Scary And They Get Lost.

The Solution Probably Doesn't Look Like The Problem. If We Have This Propensity To Worry, To Be Anxious, To Be Depressed, To Be Angry - Focusing On The Worry, Anxiety, Depression, And Anger? Probably Not Gonna Be The Solution.

Nasa Is An Utterly Fascinating Place, And The Fact That The Buildings Look So Anonymous Almost Make It More Fascinating. You Walk By A Generic Office-park-looking Building, And You Have No Idea What's Going On Inside.

What Makes Me Vulnerable Is Any Genuine Expression Of Emotion In The Presence Of Another Person. It Makes Me Vulnerable And My Inclination Is, Of Course, Immediately To Back Away From Anything That Makes Me Vulnerable.

I'm Like A Monk With A Taste For Hookers.

When I Was Growing Up, I Fetishised New York City. It Was The Land Of Lou Reed And The Velvet Underground, It Was Where Leonard Cohen Wrote 'chelsea Hotel', It Was Cbgbs And All The Punk Rock Clubs. Artists And Musicians Lived There, And It Was Cheap And Dangerous.

Biologically We’re All The Same. We All Get Sad, We All Get Happy, And We All Die. Anyone Who Pretends That That’s Not The Case Is Either A Sociopath Or Utterly Delusional.

Every Time You Read An Interview With A Supermodel, They're Always Like, 'oh, I Was A Such Nerd.' I Resent That A Little Bit. I Was In The A/v Club. I Used To Eat My Lunch In A Closet.

I Run Into A Lot Of People Who Are Instantly Filled With Ridicule At The Idea That Someone Wouldn't Eat Meat.

I Wish I Could Sing. I Don't Technically Have A Terrible Voice, But It's Certainly Not As Good As Most Of My Friends. Whenever I Hear Myself On A Record, It Just Reminds Me I'm Not A Very Good Singer.

You Have Climate Change And Antibiotic Resistance Which Are Two Of The Biggest Horses Of The Apocalypse, And They're Basically Breathing On Our Necks, And There's No Political Will Or Effort Being Expended To Deal With Them.

I Have No Perspective As Regards My Work. One Reason I Put Out Records And Books Is People Respond To It, And It Enables You To Actually See The Work More Clearly. It's A Form Of Therapy For Me. Sometimes Abusive Therapy.

I Think There Are Two Types Of Photographers, Those Who Want To Document The World And Those Who Want To Create Their Own World. I Am More Interested In Documenting The World And Presenting It To People With The Question Attached, 'does This Make Any Sense To You?'

If You're Inclined To Dismiss L.a. As A Place Of Unrelenting Vapidity And Generic 1980s Architecture, Then You're Doing Yourself And L.a. A Huge Disservice, And You're Just Not Looking Hard Enough.

My Reason For Becoming A Vegetarian Was Simple: I Loved (and Love) Animals

I Don't Think I'm A Particularly Good Writer, And I'm Not Terribly Insightful.

I Think That Eminem Is Very Talented And Remarkably Bright, And I Actually Do Like A Lot Of His Music.

Whereas For Me, Touring Tends To Be A Very Strange And Isolating Experience.

When I Saw Music As A Means To An End - More Fame, More Money, Dating Celebrities - That's When Things Have Gone Terribly Wrong. Now My Life Is Focused On Just Trying To Keep Making Music. Because When It's Really Good, It's Just The Most Remarkable Feeling On The Planet.

One Can Only Snort So Many Ants And Have So Much Sex Before One Starts To Long For The Comfort And Companionship Of A Good Book.

In A Way I Almost Feel Like The Election Of Donald Trump Has Inspired Democrats And Progressives And Punk Rockers In A Way That Hasn't Been Seen Since Vietnam.

Sit Down, Close Your Eyes, And Think About Dogs For Ten Minutes. On A Very Clear, Physiological, And Neurochemical Level, Your Body Is Changed By These Really Positive Thoughts.

If You Make A Record, You Should Ask Yourself, 'did It Make Someone Cry, In A Good Way, Not A Bad Way?' There Should Almost Be Subjective Emotional Criteria For Evaluating Work, Instead Of Just Profitability.

If I Was A Sex Symbol, I Would Be Getting Laid A Lot More Than I Am Now.

We Do All, Myself Included, We Tend To Hold Ourselves To Pretty Low Standards. But When It Comes To Judging Public Figures Or Politicians Or People We've Never Met, We Tend To Hold People To Very High Standards, And, If We Held Ourselves To Those Standards, We'd Always Fall Short.

Over Time, I Started Becoming More And More Aware Of The Vastness And Complexity Of The Universe, Which Led Me Away From Any Sort Of Conventional Christianity.

If I Had To Label Myself Now, I'd Call Myself A Taoist-christian-agnostic Quantum Mechanic.

I've Experienced Tons Of Failure. I've Been Making Music For 30 Years, And I'd Say Failure And Success Have Happened In Equal Measure.

Success And Failure

What Fascinates Me About Addiction And Obsessive Behavior Is That People Would Choose An Altered State Of Consciousness That's Toxic And Ostensibly Destroys Most Aspects Of Your Normal Life, Because For A Brief Moment You Feel Okay.

Personally I Find The Democratic Chaos Of The Internet Fascinating, And For The Most Part Really Benign.

How Wondrous Familiar Is A Fool!

There Are A Lot Of Great Animal Rights Organizations Who Save Dogs And Save Cats, But The Humane Society Is Actually Really Good At Working With Congress And Getting Legislation Actually Passed.

I Stopped Drinking And Realised New York Still Has A Lot Of Charm, But It Has Become So Bourgeois And Affluent - And I Can't Really Complain Because I'm Sort Of Bourgeois And Affluent Myself, But I Like Living In A Place Where Artists And Musicians And Writers Can Actually Pay The Rent.

I'm Offended By The Is-ought Fallacy, Which Has Been Used To Justify Slavery, Women Not Being Allowed To Vote, Children Working In Factories.

That's The One Thing You Wake Up With Every Day: How Long Have I Got Left? And That's The Saddest Thing In The World, Because You Have This Absolute Realization That Everything You Love You're Going To Have To Let Go Of And Give Up. I Look At My Daughter And I Think, There's Going To Be A Point Where I'm Not Going To Be Around For Her. Even The Thought Of That Breaks My Heart.

If You Look At Someone Like Joe Strummer Or John Lennon, When You Heard Their Music You Knew That They Wrote It And They Cared About It.

I Feel Like Sometimes We Have To Be A Little Less Inclusive And Tolerant If Other People's Opinions Could Lead To The Destruction Of Our Species.

Sometimes I Love The Marriage Of Art And Commerce; I Love Donna Summer; I Like The Rolling Stones.

Once The Pathological Low Self-esteem Goes, That's When Things Go Downhill.

Now Small Fowls Flew Screaming Over The Yet Yawning Gulf; A Sullen White Surf Beat Against Its Steep Sides; Then All Collapsed; And The Great Shroud Of The Sea Rolled On As It Rolled Five Thousand Years Ago.

The Main Thing That Excites Me And Makes Me Want To Get Out Of Bed Is The Thought Of Being Able To Go Into My Studio To Work On Music.

I Met Elton John At An Interview Dinner, And We Just Sort Of Became Friends. He's Got Such A Wicked Sense Of Humor.

I Can Spend Years Studying And Being In Therapy And Having A Very Analytic Spiritual Meditation Practice, But Without The Emotional Component, Without The Softening That Comes With Love And Vulnerability, Everything Else I Do Is Really Just Surface.

Meditation Practice

There Are A Lot Of Public Figures Who, Before They Take A Stand On A Issue, They Talk About It With Their Publicist And They Figure Out How It's Going To Affect Record Sales. Life Is Really Too Short To Worry About That Sort Of Thing.

When I Do Have Time To Work On Music, I'm Kind Of Selfish, And Would Rather Work On My Own Stuff Than Someone Else's.

Who Wakes Up When They're Worth £120million And Says, 'i'm Unhappy Today But If Only I Had An Extra £2million!'

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