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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.

-Moby

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Over Time, I Started

Moby

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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.

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

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.

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.

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

In The Past I've Had Public Feuds With People, And I Have Really Not Benefited From Any Of Them. The Feud With Eminem Did Kind Of Torpedo My Career In The United States, But It Also Introduced Me To Middle America In A Way I Never Could Have Conceived Of.

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.

I Honestly Just Love Being In My Studio Working On Music. That's All The Inspiration I Need. And I Don't Write With An End Result In Mind, I Just Write For The Simple Love Of Writing.

There's Something About The Human Brain, That It Actually Has A Predilection Towards Negativity, Which Served Us Really Well When We Lived In An Environment That Was Very Threatening.

A Few Years Ago, Before I Stopped Drinking, I Was Feeling Very Sorry For Myself And Very Drunk, And I Googled 'moby Sucks'. In Less Than One Second Something Like 20 Million Responses Came Up... Yeah, There Has Been A Lot Of Loathing Directed Towards Me, And It Used To Drive Me Crazy.

That Is Not All I Need. I Need Dogs. A House Filled With Dogs And A Smart, Funny, Kind, Loving Girlfriend Or Wife.

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

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.

To Paraphrase Paul From The New Testament, He Has A Great Soliloquy About Love, Where He's Basically Saying, If I've Figured Out The Secrets Of The Universe But I Don't Have Love, Figuring Out The Secrets Of Universe Means Nothing.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 Just Want To Try - On A Daily Basis Keep Trying - To Make Music That I Really Love.

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.'

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.

What Sounds Good On The Radio Is Really Loud Kick Drums And Loud Snare Drums, When Everything's Bombastic And In Your Face. It's The Equivalent Of A Houseguest Who Screams All The Time.

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.

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.

When I Was A Drunk, New York Was The Greatest Place In The World. You Walk Everywhere, Everything Is Open Until Four In The Morning, And People Go To New York Looking For Debauchery.

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

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.

I Like My Coffee Like I Like My Romantic Partners: Cold And Bitter And Prone To Giving Me Anxiety Attacks.

Growing Up In Connecticut, All The Colonial Houses Looked Alike. In Los Angeles, The Diversity Is So Extreme, It's Baffling.

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.

When Public Figures Think They Can Open A Business Even Though They've Got No Business Experience, It's A Bad Idea.

Over Time I Just Realised The World Is A Very Complicated Place, And There Is Not A Single Structured Belief System That Adequately And Comprehensively Describes Every Aspect Of Our Existence. So That Is My New Approach To Life And Spirituality - I Don't Know Anything, Except On A Very Naive And Subjective Level.

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.

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.

This Whole World Is Run By Brutes For The Common And The Stupid.

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.

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

For His Sake I'm Sorry That Robert Johnson Sold His Soul To The Devil, But For Our Sake And The Sake Of Music I'm Glad He Did.

As Music Became More Profitable In The 1990s, It Seemed Like It Attracted A Lot Of People Who Were Just Interested In The Financial Aspect Of It, Which Is Depressing.

If Someone Writes A Nice Review Of My Record, I Feel Like I Should Take Them Out To Dinner Or Go Over And Clean Their Apartment.

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.

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.

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

I Joined Facebook Purely So I Could Play Online Scrabble. You Have Eight Tiles Instead Of Seven, So You Tend To Have Higher Scores. I'm Somewhere Between 400 And 500.

Sometimes People Will Think, I Need To Have Pre-sanctioned Spiritual Joy. Getting Joy From My Contemplative Meditation Practice Or Getting Joy From Reading Thich Nhat Hahn Books. Those Things Can Be Joyful But I Think It’s The Small, Simple Joys Of Playing With Dogs Or Having Sex With Someone You Love Or Going For A Walk Outside, Stuff That We Tend To Ignore.

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.

Maybe It's A Form Of Overcompensation, But Whenever I've Toured, I've Always Needed A Huge Performance Component.

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.

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.

I'd Strike The Sun If It Insulted Me.

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 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 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.

When You Look At The Consequences Of Climate Change, At Rainforest Deforestation, At Antibiotic Resistance, These Are Not Necessarily Political Issues, But Rather Issues That Have The Ability To Threaten Our Species.

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

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.

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

I Find Myself For Whatever Reason Unable To Live In The Apartment I Renovate And Have To Sell.

Without David Bowie, Popular Music As We Know It Pretty Much Wouldn't Exist.

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

There's Really No Reason For Any Musician, Writer, Actor To Ever Take Themselves Seriously. If You Work In A Needle Exchange, Take Yourself Seriously. You're Doing Good Work. If You're Involved In Hostage Negotiations And Saving Lives, You Can Have A Sense Of Entitlement.

'arbitrary' And 'odd' Are The Words Which Best Describe The Pattern Of My Career. I'm Perpetually Baffled By The Whole Thing.

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

When You Say 'failure,' That Seems Really Dramatic, But A Lot Of Failure Is Just Really Depressing And Mundane. I Remember The First Time I Ever Played A Concert In Italy. I Played A Venue That Held 900 People, And I Think Five People Showed Up. It Wasn't A Big, 'john Carter Of Mars' Type Failure. It Wasn't Dramatic; It Was Just Depressing.

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.

The Good Thing About Working Alone Is I Get A Lot Done And I Can Experiment More. The Bad Thing Is I Miss Out On The Gregarious, Social Way That Most Musicians Work.

The Aggressive, Energised, Political, Or Even Politicised, Culturally Aware Music Hasn't Really Existed [recently].

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

I Taught Bible Study, And There Was Period Where I Thought All Of My Beliefs Were Right, And Everybody Who Disagreed With Me Was Wrong.

Scotland Is One Of My Favourite Places To Perform: It's Really Something Special. Scottish Audiences Are Just So Enthusiastic; Their Approach To Dance Music Just Feels Similar To My Own Somehow.

You Know, If You Love Something, You Should Love It Regardless Of Whether It Costs Five Dollars Or 500 Or 5,000 Dollars. Unfortunately, That's Not The Way Our Culture Works, And We Do Collectively Buy Into This Idea That Things That Are More Expensive Probably Have More Value.

As An American, No One Expected Donald Trump To Ever Be A Serious Candidate For President. I Don't Think He Even Expected To Be A Serious Candidate. He Wanted The Free Media He Would Get.

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.

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.

The Moment That You Impose Your Will On Another Person Or Animal, That's When We Are Allowed To Say You Have Committed An Ethical Breach.

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.

I'm Sure Most People Have This Experience: When You're Young You Drink, You Do Drugs, You Stay Up Late, And There Are No Consequences.

You Make Mistakes And You Learn From Them.

Making Mistakes

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

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.

Lord, I Want To Be Up In My Heart.

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 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.

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.

My Biggest Concern Is Trying To Keep Crazy Republicans Out Of Office.

When Famous People Are Nice To Me, It Feels Good, So I'm Happy To Hang Out With Them. It's Better Than Being At Home, Depressed, Reading 'the Hobbit.'

If A Musician Is Making A Mediocre, Self-indulgent Body Of Work, They Have To Know That, For The Most Part, People Aren't Going To Be Interested.

Music Can Always Serve A Role In People's Lives When It's Emotional And Warm And Inviting And Beautiful.

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

My Secret Is Being Not Terrible At A Lot Of Things.

The Young Have To Kill The Old. The Young, If They Want To Achieve Their Own Platform, Have To Diminish The Reputations Of The Ones That Have Gone Before. That's How Life Works.

It's Better To Sail With A Moody Good Captain Than A Laughing Bad One.

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.

There's Nothing In The Actual Bible That Limits A Christian In Their Appreciation Of Or Interest In Science. Anti-science Is Purely A Function Of Ignorant Fundamentalism.

My Interest In Gospel Music And Liturgical Art And Biblically-inspired Literature Has Nothing To Do With Organised Religion And Everything To Do With Human Beings Trying To Figure Out Their Place On This Planet.

To Quote Homer Simpson, Alcohol Is The Cause And Solution To All Of Life's Problems. I Don't Think There's Anything Wrong With Drinking And Drug Use, If People Can Do It And Not Hurt Themselves. But It Got To The Point Where I Was Really Hurting Myself.

I Have No Patience For Anyone Who Thinks They've Figured Things Out, No Patience For People Who Think They're Right At The Expense Of Everyone Else. The World Is Too Connected And Too Complicated To Conform To Any Of Our Rigid Ideas Of What It Should Be Like.

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

All Human Belief Systems Are Inherently Flawed.

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

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

I've Done The Performing Monkey Stuff And Massive Breakdowns, It's Just They Weren't Documented.

Have I Dated A Supermodel? Of Course Not. I'd Look Ridiculous.

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

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.

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.

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

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 Think The Most Exciting Thing Is Access To Information. People's Ability To Document Things And Expose Things That May Have Not Otherwise Been Documented And Exposed. All The Information You Want Is Available Instantly, Which Is Overwhelming, But I Think Can Have A Positive Change On The Political Process And Accountability For Leaders And Corporations.

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

Sacha Baron Cohen Is One Of My Heroes.

I Find London Really Exciting But There's A Lot Of Vicious Success Here. Like New York, There's A Lot Of Incredibly Successful People Who Feel Incredibly Entitled, Perhaps Justifiably, But I Don't Want To Be Around Viciously Entitled People.

I Love Lots Of Different Types Of Music, But It's Music That Has This Up-swelling Of Beauty And Emotion That Is Most Important To Me.

Everyone Feels Awkward, Everyone Feels Uncomfortable, Everyone Gets Older, Everyone Gets Lonely, Everyone Gets Sick, Everyone Eventually Dies. You’re At The Aspen Ideas Fest, And You Have These Really Smart, Really Accomplished People Who Pretend Like They’ve Somehow Figured Out A Way To Bypass The Human Condition. We Live In This Culture Where There Are So Many Things That Want Us To Pretend That We’re Not Truly Human.

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

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.

It’s Perfectly Natural For Me To Sit Down And Talk About Meditating And Spiritual Practice With My Friends. But Then I Realize, How Would It Sound To A Drunk Cynical Guy In London?

To Me, One Of The Easiest Ways Of Addressing Climate Change And Potentially Remedying Climate Change Is To Stop Subsidizing Animal Agriculture.

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.

If I Found Myself Married With Children And Had Tons Of Puppies And A Fun Place To Live, I Imagine I'd Be Happier, But I Kind Of Like Being A Little Bit Isolated And Lonely.

I Have To Say That Being A Vegan In 1986 Or Whenever Was A Lot Different Than Being A Vegan In 2012. You'd Go To Health Foods Stores And Basically Your Choice Was Between Mung Beans And Nutritional Yeast, And That's About It.

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.

Actually, The Most Entitled People I've Met Are Indie Rockers And Indie Actors, Because They Really Believe Their Press.

Music Is Just Air Moving Around.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I Found It Incredibly Disheartening That In The Late '90s, Suddenly Pop Culture Became Even More Misogynistic And More Homophobic, And So I Criticized Eminem For Having Lyrics That Were Egregiously Homophobic And Egregiously Misogynistic.

This Isn't Like Naming Your Dog Spot.

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.

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

People Love Their Favorite Records. And I Aspire To Make A Record Someone Might Be Able To Love In That Way.

I've Been Friends With Madonna For Ever. In Fact She Was At My 3rd Solo Performance In 1990, And There Were Only 10 People In The Audience.

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.

Should The Progressives In Germany In The 30s Have Tolerated The National Socialists? Of Course They Shouldn't Have.

I Think That, For A Lot Of Us, The Closer We Get To Showing People Who We Really Are, That's Where We Feel The Most Uncomfortable, The Most Vulnerable. But It's Also Where The Healthiest Growth Comes From. Like When I Can Really Open Myself Up To Someone And Show Someone Who I Really Am, It's Amazing When It Happens.

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.

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

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?'

When You're Signed To A Big Label You're Always In The Position Of Convincing Them, Especially Now Because Labels Are Barely Keeping The Lights On, So Getting Them To Spend A Little Bit Of Money Is Really Hard.

How Do I Transform Pain. I Guess The Number One Way In Which I Do That Is By Working On Music, But Also It Can Be Anything From Just Talking About It With Other People Or Doing Kickboxing Or Meditating Or Running Around With Dogs. Or Just Simply Trying To Sit With It And Be Mindful And Be Aware Of It.

You Can Sit Down With Reason Or Ableton And Literally In A Couple Of Hours Make A Very Good-sounding Record. But Then A Lot Of People Become Contented With That, Rather Than Pushing Themselves To Making Something That Sounds Great.

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 Was Raised With This Idea That We're Supposed To Be Tolerant Of Other People's Opinions, But Then What Happens If Other People's Opinions Are Racist And Hateful And Wrong?

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

As A New Yorker You Can't Help But Be Proud Of The Fact That So Much Music And Culture Started Here. Punk Rock, Jazz, Hip-hop And House Music Started Here, George Gershwin Debuted 'rhapsody In Blue' Here; The Velvet Underground Are From New York.

I Spent So Much Of My Life Reading About Spirituality And Reading About Neuroscience And Trying Different Meditation Practices. It's A Really Big Part Of My Life. But It's Sometimes Hard To Talk About. There Are So Many People In The World Who Don't Live In Southern California And Don't Spend Their Time Meditating.

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.

I Think The Word 'blog' Is An Ugly Word. I Just Don't Know Why People Can't Use The Word 'journal.'

For Me The Most Important Issue Is Climate Change Because It In Some Ways Trumps Every Other Issue. Everything Else We Care About Falls By The Wayside If The Greenland Ice Shelf Falls Into The Sea. And If Suddenly Sea Levels Rise 21 Feet, Everything We Hold Near And Dear Ceases To Exist.

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.

In Some Of The Greatest Recordings Ever Made, The Performance Is A Part Of The Recording. Dylan's 'rainy Day Women No. 12 And 35' Is All About The Esthetic Of That Performance. You Can Hear The Room.

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

I Don't Want To Get Too Nuanced, But We Have The Electoral College In The United States And That Means We Don't Have Direct Democracy.

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.

There Are A Lot Of People In The Animal Rights Movement Who Can Be Very Passionate And Aggressive, And I Applaud People's Passion, But When People Are Judgmental And Aggressive, All You End Up Doing Is Getting Other People To Turn Away In Irritation. To Change People's Minds, You Have To Respect The People You're Talking To.

A Lot Of People Do Talk About The Demise Of The Album, But I Still Believe That If An Artist Tries Hard To Make A Great Album, People Will Buy It And Listen To It As An Album, Rather Than Just A Collection Of Random Songs.

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 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'm Perfectly Happy For My Videos To Be On Youtube, Whether I'm Getting Paid For Them Or Not. If They're On Youtube, People Will See Them. If For Some Reason My Videos Get Taken Down From Youtube, Well, I Apologize. If It Was Up To Me They'd All Be Up There And They'd All Be Free.

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.

It's The Age Old Thing: If You Want To Get Elected, Blame Immigrants. It Worked In The 20th Century And It Works Now, And It's Heart-breaking To See People Make The Same Mistakes. They're Looking At A Complicated World, But They Just Keep Blaming Immigrants, And It's Really Disturbing That People Haven't Got Past That.

A Vegan Who Beats His Wife Is Far Further Down The Ethical Ladder Than A Meat Eater Who's Kind To His Children.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Most Artists, You Know, You Spend Their Entire Lives Learning How To Play Music And Write Songs, And They Don't Really Know How The Music Business Works.

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

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

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.

When I Was Fifteen Years Old, The Only Distinction In Music My Friends And I Made Was [that] There's Music Made By People With Short Hair And Music Made By People With Long Hair.

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.

Doing Interviews And Touring Are Two Ways That I Can Try To Bring My Music To People. It Can Be Tiring, But It's Better Than Working At Burger King.

I'd Just Rather Have A Really Sharp, Interesting, Smart Gay Son Than Some Big Dumb Hetero Meathead.

I Feel Compelled To Make Art That On One Hand Reflects And Sometimes Almost Creates Like A Sense Of Comfort When Confronted With The Strangeness Of The World.

I Wasn't Raised Catholic; I Just Really Like The Image Of A Neutral And Benign Mary Floating Around Somewhere, Being Nice To People.

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.

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

At 3 O'clock In The Morning On Tour When You're Sober Is A Lot Less Fun Than 3 A.m. When You're Drunk In A Bar Or In A Nightclub. But Having Said That, 9 In The Morning On Tour Sober Is Immeasurably Better Than 9 A.m. On Tour When You're Hung Over And Feeling Like Death.

I'm Not Trying To Look For Pity Or Sympathy. I Was Just Surprised That So Many People In The World Of Entertainment Seemed To Be Okay With Misogyny And Homophobia As Long As They Were Profiting From It.

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

Look Not Too Long In The Face Of The Fire, O Man! Never Dream With Thy Hand On The Helm! Turn Not Thy Back To The Compass; Accept The First Hint Of The Hitching Tiller; Believe Not The Artificial Fire, When Its Redness Makes All Things Look Ghastly. To-morrow, In The Natural Sun, The Skies Will Be Bright; Those Who Glared Like Devils In The Forking Flames, The Morn Will Show In Far Other, At Least Gentler, Relief; The Glorious, Golden, Glad Sun, The Only True Lamp—all Others But Liars!

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

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.

One Of The Main Reasons I'm Vegan Is Because I'm Ethically Lazy. My Friends Who Eat Meat Or Who Eat Eggs Have To Sometimes Wrestle With The Ethical Consequences Of Their Actions. By Being Vegan, I Take The Easy Way Out.

Let Peace And Beauty Reign.

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 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.

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.

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

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