My life in travel Moby
The musician and producer has survived ‘concrete’ cocktails in Serbia and salivating coyotes in California
THE LAST TIME I WENT MORE THAN FIVE MILES FROM MY HOUSE was pre-pandemic in December 2019, when I went to New York and Connecticut, where I grew up. I try to schedule my east-coast trips at the beginning of November because Central Park then is the most beautiful place on the planet. The leaves are turning and the air is cool. I just marvel at the spectacle.
I STAY AS FAR AWAY FROM CITIES AS POSSIBLE. I look for physical beauty and emptiness. In Los Angeles I can get in my camper van and, two hours later, be in an environment that looks the same as it would have done 500,000 years ago. I love a good coffee shop and vegan restaurant, and I’m glad people write books and make television shows, but being in an environment where there are no signs, no people and no buildings is so calming. People think of southern California as being beaches and palm trees but that’s just a tiny rind that touches the Pacific Ocean. The rest is rugged and utterly unforgiving, with mountains and inhospitable deserts.
PART OF THE THRILL OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH WEST is that there are so many things that can hurt you: rattlesnakes, coyotes, spiders, mountain lions and bears. One time, I was by myself, climbing up what I thought was a rock face in Bronson Canyon, California, but it turned out to be just compressed soil that kept falling apart in my hands. There was a moment when I couldn’t go up or down so I had to go sideways by holding on to clumps of grass. I looked up and saw six coyotes. There was an immediate atavistic understanding that they were waiting to see if I was going to die. If I was, they were going to eat me. It was comically terrifying. But the grass held.
IN TERMS OF BEAUTY, NOTHING APPROACHES NEW ZEALAND. I’m half-jokingly looking for someone in New Zealand to adopt me or marry me because the combination of climate change and attacks on democracy makes the United States increasingly unviable as a place to live. I like the diversity. The North Island is a subtropical, absurdly beautiful paradise with endless empty black beaches. One that stunned me was Whatipu. The South Island is Alpine splendour. Whenever I go anywhere, I look at Google Maps and look for the green areas where there are no people. I walk and immerse myself.
ONE PART OF PRAGUE THAT ALWAYS IMPRESSES ME is the Charles Bridge, which is covered in statues. It was described to me as the philosopher’s bridge. Before you cross, you walk down a winding street and pass apartments that used to be occupied by alchemists. There is something wonderful about the leader of a country deciding to pay homage to philosophers rather than warriors.
MY WORST TRAVEL EXPERIENCE WAS THE FIRST TIME I PLAYED IN ROMANIA, back in 1996. On the flight to Bucharest I came down with the worst flu I have ever had. I was bathed in sweat and hallucinating. I called my tour manager and said there was no way I could perform. But it turned out the promoter was one of the local mafia and I was told in no uncertain terms that the concert was going to happen. So I did it and I learnt that, even if you are about to die from flu, you can still stand on stage in front of 10,000 people.
I ENDED UP BEING ADOPTED BY A BUNCH OF SOLDIERS when I was in Serbia between the [Yugoslav] wars. I’ve been sober for 12 years but, presobriety, I went as far down the clichéd degenerate rock ’n’ roll rabbit hole as one could possibly go. I still don’t know which side the soldiers were fighting on but I was at a bar and they said they would show me a good time. They did. It was the night that I discovered one of my favourite cocktails, half vodka and half lager, which they called “concrete”. When you’ve had 10 or 15 of those and done whatever weird drugs have been put in front of you, you end up in very strange places. Then, suddenly, it was 10am and I was being dumped back at my hotel.
A PROMOTER BOOKED ME INTO THE PRESIDENTIAL SUITE of a hotel in Rio once. The suite had a dining room, a living room, four bedrooms, a kitchen, a private swimming pool on the roof – and its own heliport.
I mean, I’m just one person looking at CNN on my laptop.
MY FIRST PROPER HOLIDAY WAS TO MY GRANDMOTHER’S CONDOMINIUM in New Jersey when I was nine or 10. I couldn’t believe that I was going to be in a room with air conditioning, knowing that I could go to the pool as many times a day as I wanted. Summers were very depressing when growing up poor – as indicated by the fact that I spent a month looking forward to going to a retirement community.
IN 1994, I’D STARTED DATING SOMEONE WHO LIVED IN HAWAII and I was so excited I was going to visit her. The moment we met up, we realised we had nothing in common. But Hawaii was beautiful. We were on Kauai and, because we had nothing to talk about, we went exploring. I vividly remember hiking the Na Pali coast and also snorkelling in Princeville. My partner had discovered a hidden cove. I don’t know why there weren’t lots of people there because it was the most remarkable snorkelling I’ve ever experienced. The surface of the water looked grey-blue, then you went underwater and there were countless thousands of fish. Hours passed and we were freezing cold but neither one of us was willing to leave.
MY ANCESTRY IS LARGELY SCOTTISH and the first time I went to Scotland, in 1990, I felt an almost hereditary connection. I loved Edinburgh and Glasgow but as I took the train to Inverness and went further north, there was a beautiful emptiness, with expanses of mountain and heather. I have a distinct memory of the drama of sunshine and torrential rain at the same time.
Moby’s new album, Reprise, featuring all his hits rerecorded with a full philharmonic orchestra, is out now on Deutsche Grammophon/Decca