‘We live in an intertwined, complicated world’
Lockdown has enforced a unique period of isolation and reflection for many of us, but for Moby, two decades from the height of his fame, that’s not too far from the norm.
The electronic musician, 55, has spent much of the pandemic doing what he’d usually do – spending time alone at his home in Los Angeles.
“Before the pandemic, I stayed home and I worked and went hiking and avoided socialising. So during the pandemic, I have stayed home and worked and been prevented from socialising,” he says.
“I feel this sense of guilt that my pandemic experience has been probably a lot more benign than most people’s… as someone who lives alone and works alone, I’m perhaps a bit too comfortable with my own company.”
This Benedictine lifestyle is a far cry from the hedonism of Moby’s early fame, chronicled in eye-watering detail in a new selfnarrated documentary released in May.
Moby Doc charts the artist’s life from a traumatic childhood through to life as a teetotal animal rights activist.
The in-between, though, is what’s most shocking: belying his thoughtful, even wonkish persona, Moby describes his battles with addiction and depression in astonishing detail.
In one of the film’s most stark moments, he even admits missing his mother’s funeral due to heavy drinking.
“I’ve appreciated other public figures who’ve attempted to be honest, or who’ve been willing to be honest,” he said.
“Not even public figures, but just humans, friends of mine, or people I meet at AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings, who are actually willing to be vulnerable, willing to be honest, and willing to openly discuss the things that so many people are either ashamed of, or work so hard to hide.”
Moby became a household name at the turn of the millennium when his record Play and a string of accompanying hit singles propelled an outwardly awkward, shaven-headed bedroom musician to rock superstar status.
“To my shame, I kind of defined myself – and a lot of my wellbeing was largely the product of – being a professional musician, and being a public figure,” he admits.
“To that end, I went out and read, so many articles written about me, and I read reviews, et cetera.”
That might be fine when things are going well, but, as the Harlemborn artist explained, it makes it all the more tough when things go the other way.
“In around 2002, the tide turned,” he says. “All of a sudden the articles were negative, the reviews were bad.”
One criticism, this time levelled at Moby’s music, relates to his use of the work of black artists in some of his most successful songs.
Play’s Natural Blues is effectively a remixed version of Trouble So Hard by African-American folk musician Vera Hall, while another well-known single from the album, Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?, is built around vocals from little-known US gospel singers the Banks Brothers.
To some, including the artist himself, these reworkings were a mark of respect and helped bring them to new, much larger audiences. To others, they were simply exploitative.
“When I have used African American or black vocals, samples, it’s out of a place of just profound love and appreciation for those voices, with the full understanding that I have no right whatsoever to use them or lay claim to any aspect of the experience that gives them their power,” he says.
Whether consciously or otherwise, Moby’s new record Reprise – an orchestral album largely comprised of reworked hits – includes the aforementioned songs with the famous vocal parts performed by black singers, namely Gregory Porter, Amythyst Kiah and Apollo Jane.
Making the record was also notable in other ways: for the first time in his career, the selfdescribed “control freak” handed control over the arrangements over to someone else.
“The two or so years it took to make this record, I had a lot of challenging anxiety, having so many parts of the process out of my control. But then that wonderful sort of relief you get when you realise the people who are in control, are so good at what they do.”
He added: “I felt like as much as I love electronic music, it’s just, you know, you get a more unvarnished expression of the human condition, when it’s actually, when you’re just recording humans without electronics.”
One of the more poignant moments on the record is a tribute to David Bowie, a childhood hero whom he befriended and performed with after the pair became neighbours in New York.
The stripped-back rendition of Heroes references a special moment when he and Bowie performed the track on his sofa.
“It was just one of the most special moments of my life. And so, in covering it for Reprise, I wanted to, I guess, both honour and sort of represent and pay homage to David, to my friendship with David and also to the sort of like the inherent vulnerable beauty of the song.”