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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.

-Moby

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In 1992 I Was

Moby

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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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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.

There's Not A Lot Of Precedent For Weird, Bald Musicians In The Lower East Side Making Records In Their Bedrooms And Going On To Sell A Lot Of Copies Of The Record. Especially If You Look At The Pop Climate.

I Honestly Haven't Thought Much About What To Play And Where, Perhaps I Should...it Seems Like Most Musicians Are Better At That Than I Am.

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

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

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

I Grew Up Obsessed With Science Fiction, And When I Was Really Young, I Wanted To Be A Scientist.

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

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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.

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I Find The Fact That So Few People Buy Albums To Be Strangely Emancipating. There's Absolutely No Reason For 99% Of Musicians Making Albums To Think About Actually Selling Albums. So As A Musician You Can Just Make An Album For The Love Of Making Albums.

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.

You Could Spend Every Waking Moment Online And Still Only Experience One-trillionth Of What's Out There. I Find That A Little Overwhelming.

New York Has Inspired More Remarkable Music Than Any Other City I Can Think Of.

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.

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

The Demise Of The Monolithic Record Industry Has Been, For A Lot Of People, Really Liberating And Emancipating.

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

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My Uncle Is From Argentina, So I Grew Up Hearing Spanish. My Spanish Isn't Very Good, But My Pronunciation Isn't Terrible.

I Still Never Get Recognized. Small, Bald White Guys Like Myself - We All Kind Of Look The Same.

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.

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.

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

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As Long As The World Continues To Be Strange And Interesting, I Still Want To Take Pictures Of It.

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.

You Can't Find An Uglier Urban Environment Than The Centre Of Hollywood, But Then You Go To Griffith Park, You Go To The Beach, You Go To The Mountains, And It's Rural. I Live Up In The Hollywood Hills And I Have Frogs, Owls, Coyotes, Mountain Lions - But I'm Ten Minutes From The Centre Of The City.

Hollywood Hills

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I'm Like A Bad Musical Cliche Because I Bring My Guitar On The Road And Try To Write Songs In Hotel Rooms.

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The Term 'renaissance Man' Is Always Bandied About. I Don't Think That Applies To Me. You Think About Leonardo Da Vinci, And He Was A Painter And A Physicist And An Architect, And That Is A True Renaissance Man.

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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.

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In The Long, Nonillustrious History Of White People Pilfering African American Culture, Have I Just Perpetrated That? I'm Motivated By A Love For The Music And By A Love Of The Performances, And I Really Hope I Haven't Done Anything Bad.

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I Don't Think There's Anything Wrong With Not Knowing How To Play An Instrument, But The Rise Of The Non-musical Producer Has Done Away With Musicianship And Focused Attention Purely On The Song's Hook.

When 'play' First Came Out, Journalists Didn't Review It; It Didn't Get Radio Play. And Then It Became This Big Successful Record And, I Hate To Admit This, I Found Myself Liking The Fame. I Bought Into It.

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.

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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.

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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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The Only Sort Of Descriptive Adjective Or Catch Phrase For My Music Would Be 'eclectic.'

For Years, My Mom Dated A Man Who Was Really Active In The Baptist Church In The Town Next To The Town I Grew Up In, And So He Used To Drag Me To These Baptist Church Services That Lasted Forever. I Remember That I Didn't Like The Church Services, But I Really Liked The Music.

I Realized The Universe Is 15 Billion Years Old And Unspeakably Complicated. I Still Love The Teachings Of Christ, But I Also Believe That The Human Condition Prevents Us From Having Any True Objective Knowledge And Understanding Of The Universe.

Can't Do Any Work With A Rock Star; You Have To Go Through Their Lawyers And Their Agents And Their Managers And You Have To Book Them Hotel Rooms. When You Work With Your Friends, You Just Call Them Up And They Come Over And You Record And Then You Go Out To See A Movie.

How Wondrous Familiar Is A Fool!

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I Remind Myself That The Universe Is 15 Billion Years Old, And I'm Only 46 Years Old, So My Perspective Is Sort Of Limited And Fear-based And Skewed. So I Sort Of Turn Things Over To Whatever You Want To Call It - Whether It's God, Or The Universe Or The Spirit Of The Universe - And I Just Sort Of Turn Things Over To God And Hope That This Spirit That Has Been Around For 15 Billion Years Will Have A Better Understanding Of How Things Should Be Than I Do.

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

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

I Walk Out My Front Door In New York And I'm Out On The Street And There Are People Everywhere. L.a. Is So Much More Spread Out, So It's Really Easy In L.a. To Have A Little More Isolation And To Just Not See As Many People.

I'm Straight, But I Love Going To House Music Clubs And Flirting With Women And Gay Men.

If I'm Walking Down The Street And Someone Stops Me And Says, "oh! A Song That You Wrote Meant A Lot To Me, And I Listened To It After I Went To My Sister's Funeral," That's When It Hits Me.

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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.

Let Peace And Beauty Reign.

I'm Just Fascinated With The World That I Can See, But I'm Even More Fascinated With The World That I Can't See.

I Love It When Celebrities Fall Apart, You Want Them To Fall Apart Like Charlie Sheen.

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Research Performed On Animals Is, By Definition, Scientifically Unsound.

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I Always Just Made Music That Resonates With Me Emotionally.

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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.

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By Being Vulnerable, Either With Yourself Or In The Presence Of Another Person, That’s Where All Growth And Ultimate Well-being Comes From.

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

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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.

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

One Of The Nice Things About Licensing Music To Movies Or Advertisements Is You Can Reach A Lot Of People Who Normally Wouldn't Hear Music.

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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.

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Congratulations

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.

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...'

If You And I Become Vegans, The Global Consequences Aren't Going To Be That Much. But If We Can Get A Few Hundred Million People To Become A Little More Aware And Cut Back On Their Animal Consumption, The Consequences Will Be Great.

I Love Going On Tour And Playing Music For People.

I Buy Things With The Best Of Intention Of Living In Them And Then Life Intercedes.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Used To Have A Lot Of Envy For Those Musicians Who Have Been Universally Loved.

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

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

For Better Or Worse, I'm Interested In Just About Everything: Every Different Type Of Music I Can Imagine. I Can Never See A Reason To Choose Just One Type Of Music At The Exclusion Of Everything Else. Different Types Of Music Are Capable Of Being Rewarding In Different Kinds Of Ways.

Call Me A Nerd If You Like, But I Do Find It Hard To Leave Home Without My Laptop And A Good Book.

I Love Thich Nhat Hahn. One Of My Favorite Quotes Of His (and I’m Paraphrasing), He’s Talking About Cultivating Happiness, And He Was Saying, At The Very Least, Just Be Happy You’re Not At The Dentist Right Now. He Was Talking To Someone Who Was Having A Really Hard Time Finding Joy.

As Far As I'm Concerned, The Whole Point Of Making Music Is To Get It Heard By As Many People As Possible.

I Think The Ideal Job In That Alternative Universe Would Be To Lead Whitewater Rafting Trips Through The Grand Canyon. So Maybe I'd Be A Guy Leading Whitewater Rafting Trips At The Grand Canyon. Or Maybe A Professional Skydiver.

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.

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.

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.

Oftentimes Things That Seem Really Difficult And Traumatic In The Short Term Seem A Lot Less Difficult And Traumatic In The Long Term.

I Love It When Celebrities Fall Apart.

I Just Have To Remind Myself That My Daily Quotidie In Life Has Almost Nothing To Do With Any Aspect Of My Professional Life As A Public Figure.

Professional Life

I'd Rather Be Around Broken People Who Have A Degree Of Humility, And Just Get On With Their Work.

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

Many Of My Friends Back In New York And Elsewhere Have A Glib Or Dismissive Attitude Toward Los Angeles. It's A Place Of Strip Malls And Traffic And Not Much Else, In Their Opinion.

The Idea Of Feeling Old Is Much More The Worry Of A Slightly Younger Person. When You Are Getting Old, That Becomes - Psssh - Completely Secondary To The Absolute Understanding Of How Short Your Life Is.

Lord, I Want To Be Up In My Heart.

Basically We Should Stop Doing Those Things That Are Destructive To The Environment, Other Creatures, And Ourselves And Figure Out New Ways Of Existing.

The Way I Work On Music Is That I Go Into My Studio, And I Start Playing Music, And I See What Happens, And... I Never Think About It.

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

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Henry Louis Gates

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