Photo by Dominic Episcopo zoom
"Don't scrape the walls," says Moby as earSHOT's photo crew hauls equipment into his SoHo apartment. It seems
like an odd request coming from a guy who's sporting a ratty T-shirt
and five- o-clock shadow, but Moby takes pains to keep the porcelain-white
walls sparkling clean. Ironically, this diehard vegan lives in a gentrified warehouse
that used to house a meat-packing facility. The shiny concrete
floors were designed to enable blood to drip into drains located
in the center of the building. But that was long ago and Moby
recently had an architect redo his apartment. Now, with skylights
and pale wood cabinets, it almost looks like a seminary chamber
styled by Ikea. As the musician's fashion sense and interior design suggest seemingly
opposite aesthetics, his musical m.o. has been equally confounding.
Moby's first major-label release, Everything Is Wrong (Elektra), sold 400,000 copies and established him as a star
of the electronica scene. His strong opinions about the destruction
of the ecosystem and consumer waste allowed MTV to turn him into
the poster boy for the new left. Yet with his second album, Animal Rights (Elektra), it seemed like he was out to sabotage his career.
Against his record company's advice, he threw an artistic curve
ball and made a hardcore-punk album. He was tired of keyboards
and wanted to concentrate on guitar songs. But fans and critics
expected more of the Moby who wove elements of classical, techno
and funk into hyper hits. With all of the Nirvanabes flooding
the music scene, who needed another angry white guy spewing venom?
"Most people responded to Animal Rights in a very reactionary way," says Moby, sitting at his kitchen
table. "They weren't evaluating it according to its merits, but
its context - 'Oh, here's this dance guy making a rock record.
Who does he think he is?'" Moby's quick to add that he's been
playing guitar for 23 out of his 32 years and his resume includes
membership in notably noisy bands such as Flipper and Ultra Vivid
Scene. None of that mattered to the fickle public. Even being
on Lollapalooza couldn't keep sales from sinking. Animal Rights barely sold a tenth of Everything Is Wrong. A few months ago it seemed like Moby's 15 minutes were quickly
ticking away. Now Elektra has released I Like to Score, a compilation of the songs Moby's written for movies. Several
of the cuts have been released before, however almost all the
music is electronica. The newer material proves he hasn't lost
his ability to layer symphonic samples with stark beats and haunting
keyboard melodies. Moby's juiced-up version of the "James Bond
Theme" from the new 007 flick, Tomorrow Never Dies., is a bouncy take on the spy classic. It's also a sure bet to
put Moby back on the dance charts. (It's already a Top-10 hit
in the U.K.) But what happened to the guitar hero? "Last spring, I had an epiphanous experience," he recalls. "My
manager told me, 'I like your rock music, but I think the dance
music makes people happier.' I'd never thought of it that way.
That evening I went to see John Fogerty and he played all of his
hits and was incredibly gracious and everybody had a wonderful
time. After that I went to see Prodigy play and they were insulting
their audience and it was horrible. I realized that if I can make
people happy with my music that's a wonderful thing." As for I Like to Score, it was released for two reasons: Elektra wanted to release the
movie music Moby had written; and MGM, the company behind Tomorrow Never Dies, told Elektra that if Moby was going to do the "James Bond Theme,"
they would need to release an album to support the song. That's
not to say the album's a throwaway, but it's certainly not as
cohesive as Everything Is Wrong or even Animal Rights. Is the boy from Darien, CT, selling out to Hollywood? Sizing up
Moby's swank address and sparse taste in decor, it doesn't look
like he needs or wants to. The main room of his apartment has
little more than a bookcase, a futon and a few lamps. "Things weigh me down," he explains. The money he makes from movie music isn't nearly as important
as the artistic challenge, he says. "You have to make something
that can get on the radio, be used in the film and played in clubs,"
he explains. "Writing a successful pop song is so much more difficult
than doing underground esoteric stuff." However, it doesn't hurt
that most of his movie songs have earned him between $20,000-$30,000
each. Moby writes and records much of his material in a one-room home
studio that's filled with keyboards, albums, TVs, guitars and
a mixing board. On the walls are posters of his grimacing face
10 times its normal size. In real life he's much less intimidating,
looking like a scrawny kid with a receding hairline. His studio is the one room in the house brimming with consumer
products. Moby's distaste for materialism is well-documented in
the liner notes he's written. In I Like to Score, he rails against the wealthy community he grew up in (when his
name was Richard Hall). "Money can make life easier, but it can
also make life miserable," he writes. "Poverty can be bad, but
it can also be fine." Like most of Moby's essays, there is a sense
of spirituality suggested throughout. This one ends in a discussion
of tolerance, concluding with the phrase: "Christ took pity on
us and had compassion for us, so why can't we try to have understanding
and compassion for ourselves and for each other?" Moby has never been quiet about his devotion to Christianity,
but he's hesitant to speak about the topic. "I don't even like the word Christian because I don't know what
it means," he begins. "There are so many different sects with
distinctive tenets that it's hard to define it exactly." Then why call it Christianity at all? "The only thing I can compare it to is getting married. You meet
someone, you fall in love with them and you commit yourself to
them, saying 'I want to develop myself with this person.' All
the while being aware that there are other attractive people in
the world, but for some reason this person fits." When Moby was 20 a friend convinced him to read the New Testament
and, even though he wasn't raised in a religious household, he
immediately felt in tune with it. "I studied comparative religion in college, so I'm aware of the
different faiths, but something about the character of Christ
seems strangely divine to me." Two years ago, he tattooed a cross
on the back of his neck. Yet he doesn't exactly live a saintly life. In a documentary that's
being made about Moby by one of his close friends he brags about
sexual conquests and drinking binges. "I don't feel comfortable being cloistered away and not experiencing
the world," he explains. "Sometimes you gain really interesting
insights into the world when you're falling down drunk at six
o' clock in the morning, talking to homeless people in Chinatown."
The next completely new Moby album probably won't be released
until September '98. The songs are already written, says Moby;
it'll be an eclectic mix of dance tracks, ballads and guitar tunes. Though he's done work for other movies, he's dedicated to finishing
that project. Axl Rose recently asked Moby to produce the next
Guns N' Roses album and he declined. "I would have had to move to L.A. for 10 months to do it," he
explains. Rose was interested in Moby after hearing Animal Rights. "Even though it means giving up a couple of million dollars,
I had to say no." (Just in case you're wondering, Moby got along
great with the band and still wants to help out.) Live, Moby will play the tunes that get the crowd grooving. "I'm a populist," he assures. He's also a thrilling performer,
shrewd businessman and an unusually righteous soul. Moby will play on Saturday, Dec. 6 with Juno Reactor at the T.L.A.,
334 South St., 922-1011.
Moby