Moby: "I give most of my money away"

With a career spanning nearly 30 years, Moby is something of a music legend. After a touch of success in the early 90s, it wasn't until 1999, and the release of his unforgettable album Play that Moby truly hit the mainstream. As well as being an amazing record it changed advertising forever - with every track used to soundtrack movies, TV and all manner of commercial products.

However, it's easy to forget that since then, he's released four more brilliant records. Now, as he releases his latest collection, Destroyed on his own record label, we caught up with pop music's reclusive vegan megastar to talk success, loneliness and the lasting legacy of the Play album...

Hello Moby. Your new album 'Destroyed' is a melancholy experience. Was it made for sad people?
It's really written for my friends who still take their time to listen to albums. A lot of people just download a song here and there, that's fine, that's the nature of the world in which we live. I really like the album as an art form, so I worked really hard to try and craft cohesive albums in the hope that someone might listen to it from start to finish.

So you don't recommend listening to 'Destroyed' on shuffle?
I am flattered if anyone takes the time to listen to music I've made. It's not up to me how they experience it. Of course the control freak in me wants me to make them listen to the album from start to finish but I fully understand that that will rarely be the case. That's ok but I like the idea that there might be a few thousand people on the planet who will actually listen and that makes me happy. The nice thing about the demise of the record business is because no one sells millions of records anymore, you cant make a record and second guess a market place. So like in the olden days, record companies would put pressure on you to try and make something that will get played on the radio or get MTV support, and now that doesn't happen. Everybody's lost.

Not selling millions is fine for artists who are already established, but it must make things difficult for new artists.
Its funny, I never sold records when I first started. The first record I put out was in 1983 and I was in the hardcore punk band The Vatican Commandos and we put out a 7-inch that sold 200 copies. It sold 1000 copies. And then other records sold well, other records sold poorly. And I understand musicians starting out now might look back to the good old days of big record sales, the biggest problems of those days are the big record sales only happened to a few people. So I think in almost geo-political terms, the music business used to be like Paraguay. You now, where you had 99% of the wealth in the hands of 0.01% of the people. Now a lot of people in the music business can pay the rent and do pretty well and their bands have opportunities that they would not have had 10 - 15 years ago. They're never going to become successful millionaires with fur lines private planes, which with all things being equal is probably for the best.

You've said that 'Destroyed' was inspired by empty cities and 2am. What inspires you about such loneliness?
Being in an empty city at 2am it's a bit off-putting because there's that weird, almost externally enforced solecism where you feel you are the only person on the planet. Especially on a Sunday night or a Wednesday night, and so like that experience of being in your car driving through an empty city at 2am in the morning when you feel you're the only person on the planet, that's sort of what this album is created for. I mean I hope it works at other times as well, I hope it works on someone making breakfast with their friends and family but I think it makes most sense late at night when you really feel like you are the only person left alive.

Destroy is your fifth album since Play, are you bored of people talking to you about that record?
Oh not at all.

Do you wish people would pay a little attention to some of your other work?
I never thought I would have a career as a musician, I mean I never really thought I would make music that people would listen to. I thought that I'd spend my entire life making music in my bedroom and no one would ever hear it, except maybe some friends who I forced to listen to it. So every single aspect of my life as a musician has been surprising to me, and if I've ever done anything that somebody is willing to listen to it's nice and flattering and surprising. So with Play, I'm happy to talk about it and subsequent records that have done better in certain countries and worse in certain countries, its fine.

If I were to try and draw attention to another album, of all the albums I've made the one that I like the most is Animal Rights which is a little perverse of me because it sounds nothing like any other records. It got terrible reviews and sold nothing, and it's a really difficult record, but that's my favourite one. I'm not so fond of the album Hotel, it's an okay record but it's a little to conventional for me and my tastes. I mean the way I produced it was very straightforward and conventional which as a result it's not a record I go back and listen to very often. A lot of people like it though, and I don't want to disagree with them. When I hear that album I'm just really disappointed with the way in which I produced it. I like records that are a bit messier and have mistakes.

Your tracks have been synched to countless adverts and movies. Do you think there's a worry that bands will start recording tracks for soft drinks instead of for people to listen to?
There is that danger. Whenever I've licensed music to TV or advertisements or movies, it's never been music that I've written for adverts or movies or TV. Its music that I've written for myself, for other people, they just accidentally lent itself well to visual media. I would be really wary of someone who intentionally wrote music that might get licensed to an advert or TV, they would be compromising their creative output in the interest of short term gain and nobody benefits from that. But at the same time musicians have certain circumstances where they need to make some money, like they have child support to pay, they have to out their kids through school.

I remember when Jeff Tweedy licensed some Wilko songs to an advertisement and critics and fans were outraged. He responded to them asking: 'where are you going to be when I send my children to school? Where are you going to be when my mother is sick and needs healthcare?' This is why I don't criticise what other musicians do in terms of how they choose to make money. I choose to give most of my music away. Just because I like giving things away, doesn't mean others should.

Finally, you tried acting, even a bit of waitering. What ambitions do you still have left?
Honestly, all I want to do is keep making music, regardless of whether people pay attention to what I do, regardless of whether records get sold, I just want to spend my entire life working on music. If you keep working it increases the chances that you might make something good. And that's why the goal is to keep working like Henry Moore and David Lynch, these heroes of mine who just kept working. Whether they were happy with what they were doing or not, I want to everyday wake up and make something because you never know when you might end up with something wonderful.

Thank you very much, Moby.