CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Moby has been making people, well, “Move” -- and feel so good -- for more than 30 years now.
A punk rocker turned electronic music pioneer turned eclectic muso, Richard Melville (yes, THAT Melville) Hall has amassed a legacy that includes 19 studio albums and four EPs, 21 Billboard Dance Club Songs chart singles and the occasional crossover hit such as “Go” and “South Side.” He’s collaborated with Gwen Stefani, Debbie Harry, Public Enemy, A$AP Rocky and more, and he’s remixed for Michael Jackson, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, the B-52′s, Beastie Boys and a slew of others. He opened vegan eateries in Manhattan and Los Angeles and is an animal rights activist.
Moby, 55, has been exploring that glorious past with his most recent projects. His 2019 book “Then It Fell Apart” is his second memoir, following “Porcelain” three years prior. The illuminating documentary “Moby Doc” came out in May, the same day has his new album, “Reprise,” which recasts his songs in orchestral and acoustic arrangements with guest vocals by Kris Kristofferson, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James and Skylar Grey, among others.
We caught Moby at home near Los Angeles, where he enjoys his time as “an isolating misanthrope, even before the pandemic”...
A documentary and a new album -- that’s not a bad haul to show for your time in lockdown.
Moby: Y’know, because I don’t feel like socializing much, pandemic life hasn’t been nearly as much of a challenge as it’s been for a lot of people I know. I spent my time staying home, working on music, reading books. Obviously, I finished the “Reprise” album and finished up the movie. I made a couple of other albums, wrote a couple screenplays that’ll probably never get made. I’ve just been working constantly, which is nothing new for me.
Do you feel your life flashing before your eyes, and ears, with “Moby Doc” and “Reprise?”
Moby: I mean, I’m definitely old. (laughs) I’ve sort of made peace with the fact I’m 55. I might feel differently when I start really turning the corner towards 60 or 70 or 80 or 90, however long things might go on. But I think the longer you stay alive and the more experiences you have, the more material you have to learn from and to draw from. Writing memoirs, making the movie, it’s sort of inspired by the fact I’ve been around awhile.
And it’s also inspired by your sobriety, yes?
Moby: That’s right. It honestly is coming from a sort of 12-step place. A huge part of the 12-step programs is telling your story -- sharing your experience, as we say in AA, strength, and hope. It’s not me narcissistically saying my story is more phenomenal; It’s more me saying, ‘This is my story. I’m gonna put it out there, and hopefully it will reach someone in a way that might be of service to them and benefit to them. And in the process of telling my story, I gain some objectivity about the life I’ve had.
Has that been the case for you?
Moby: I hope so. Then again, maybe I’m clueless and delusional. But there’s something, especially in writing down your story and having to populate a story, where you do gain a degree of expanded perspective and almost more sympathy and compassion for yourself, because it’s too easy to look at past mistakes and remonstrate yourself over them. Instead, you learn to look at the past mistakes and sort of find that degree of gentleness and compassion around them and realize that even though I was being an idiot, making tons of mistakes, I was stumbling along trying to do the best that I could.
It’s nice to see David Bowie in the film, talking about your relationship. That seems like a pinch-yourself part of your life.
Moby: David Bowie was absolutely my favorite musician of all time, and I would posit that he’s the greatest musician of all time. I can’t think of anybody who inspired me more than he did. When I was growing up, I’d work for weeks as a caddy just to save money to buy a David Bowie records. Then for a few years around the year 2000 we were neighbors and dear friends who went on tour together and spent holidays together. It amazed me I got to be friends with a demigod and go on tour with a demigod. And seeing the movie it reminds me how there’s no part of my life that I would’ve even for a second predicted or even thought existed in the realm of possibility while I was growing up. Being friends like that with David Bowie...was so far from the realm of possibility you could not even use the term “realm of responsibility.”
The “Reprise” album is an interesting way to approach your material. How did that come about?
Moby: The ultimate reason music does, or should, exist is communicating emotion. What excited me most about this was that idea of using acoustic elements, orchestral elements, and these voices to communicate emotions in a unique way I didn’t think I could do working more exclusively with electronics. Normally when I work on music I’m alone, by myself in the studio 99.9 percent of the time, but making this record was the exact opposite. I wrote the arrangements by myself, but working with orchestrators, string quartets, with brass sections, orchestras, tons of different singers and engineers...It was such a communal way of making a record. That part really fascinated me. So did figuring out how to record a gospel choir during the (pandemic).
What were some of the specific surprises you felt hearing your songs performed this way?
Moby: Well, obviously the vocal performances. The one that resonated with me the most, the one I was most surprised by and in love with, was Kris Kristofferson’s (on “the Lonely Night”). Obviously, Kris is an icon, a legend. He has a voice that is so deep and just the product of experience. I was just amazed at the understated genius of what he did. He’s not really singing. You can almost call it melodic, conversational vocal speaking. The delivery is so unique, and he has the genius of making it seem effortless but knowing full well it’s intentional and there’s so much talent behind it. So that definitely surprised me, in a positive way.
Could you see doing another volume, or volumes, of the “Reprise” concept?
Moby: I hope so. I do sort of feel like, as a musician, one of my goals is to keep working in the hope that I’ll make something interesting or beautiful. But also, I just love the act of working on records and recording songs, whether they’re my songs or other people’s songs. And luckily because the joy I get from music now is just the act of making it, it doesn’t concern me too much if it gets released and no one cares about it, or if it even gets released. It’s just this profound joy of working on music, recording music, finding singers that drives me. I almost feel selfish saying that.
Are you always confident that the muse will be with you?
Moby: The muse has only failed me when I’ve tried to employ other criteria in determining what the music I create should be -- meaning there was a period before I got sober where I really wanted to try to write hit songs. I learned very quickly and sadly I was just not good at it. So, I was a little bit disappointed that the muse didn’t enable me to be David Guetta, but in hindsight I’m really glad that the muse failed me in that way, and I’m not maligning people like David Guetta at all. They’re lovely people who do interesting, commercial work. But I feel my job as a musician is to pursue beauty and to pursue the magic that music has the power to create entirely new worlds. That might sound grand, but that’s the goal, to constantly be working towards that as opposed to pursuing commercial success.
What are we going to hear, or see, next from you?
Moby: Oh boy, that’s a good question. I’m putting out a weird cookbook in September from the Little Pine restaurant I used to own, which is really nice and we’re trying to find a good charity to give the money to. Hopefully there will be a lot of things, but because none of them have actually been finished I’m hesitant to mention anything yet -- sorry if that sounds vague. But right now, none of them are all that unique yet -- certainly good, but not unlike anything I’ve done before. So, I’m still working to get them to that unique point I love so much.
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June 28, 2021 at 10:16PM
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Electronic music pioneer Moby keeps creative spark alive with ‘Moby Doc’ and new album, Reprise’ - cleveland.com
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