Exactly how an awkward little man like Moby (a.k.a. Richard Melville Hall, a true descendant of Herman Melville) became one of contemporary music’s coolest icons is still a mystery. He is bald, soft-spoken and small enough to fit into the trunk of a Volkswagen. There’s also nothing traditional about the music he makes, or how he makes it. The 36-year-old Moby is a one-man operation: a singer, producer, pianist, songwriter and DJ who makes genre-defying music in a small home studio. Somehow or other, his last effort, “Play”–a collection of field and old blues recordings mixed with electronica, classical and pop–managed to sell 10 million copies worldwide. “To this day, people say how weird it is that I’ve had this much success,” he says, his skin a pale shade of always-in-the-studio white. “I’m an underground, obscure musician in his 30s who makes records in his bedroom. I can’t dance very well, I’m not very photogenic and I don’t even sing on most of my songs. Traditionally, that’s not been a recipe for success.”
Moby’s latest album, “18,” is just as weird–and threatens to be just as big. It’s a mix of random blues and gospel vocalists; graceful, sweeping electronic effects; detached, thumping club beats and gloriously melodic piano interludes. Moby has begun to experiment with the sounds of the ’80s. “We Are All Made of Stars” is a quirky new-wave number, and the old-school hip-hop ode “Jam for the Ladies” (a likely MTV hit) offers the tough raps of MC Lyte against the warm harmonies of Angie Stone. Still, the album is mostly fluid and graceful, featuring Sinead O’Connor’s brooding voice over the sentimental “Harbour,” and Moby’s own hypnotic, quavering vocals on the heartbreaking “At Least We Tried.”
“18” is not drastically different from “Play,” and the singer’s sure to catch critical flak for that. Fans, though, will revel in the cool, surreal Moby-ness of it all. “At parties I still get the question ‘Oh, you’re a musician, so what kind of music do you make?’ " says Moby, who speaks in the soothing, measured tones of a cultish spiritual leader. “In those moments I don’t want to seem like a difficult, petulant musician by saying, ‘Well, it’s complicated. I play different instruments.’ I should carry a resume and say, ‘Read this, then we’ll continue our conversation’.”
Even if they don’t know exactly what Moby does, all the right people know who he is. The Grammy-nominated artist is now invited to all the right parties, hangs with stars like Jewel and has posed in Gap ads as well as on giant billboards for Calvin Klein. He even plans to open his own restaurant in lower Manhattan, a vegan tearoom called TeaNe. Still, Moby does not feel part of the in crowd. You don’t have to look any farther than his new video to get a sense of his uneasiness now that he’s part of Hollywood’s glitterati. In “We Are All Made of Stars,” Moby hangs out with L.A.’s most absurd characters–Kato Kaelin, a Backstreet Boy, a bevy of strippers and groupies–in a sterile, white spacesuit. “I’ve always had a degree of envy for people who fit in,” he says. “That’s the subtext of my entire life.”
As a child, Moby was one of the few low-income, single-parent kids in the upscale suburb of Darien, Conn. His father, a college professor, was killed in a car crash when he was 2. His mother brought him up at his grandparents’ home and occasionally on hippie communes. “I’m convinced that because of my upbringing, I will always feel like a second-class citizen,” says Moby. “Someone will say, ‘Well, you’ve sold 10 million records, why feel like a second-class citizen?’ I say it’s difficult to undo the emotional habits of a lifetime.” Moby bonded with punk rock in high school, then rave culture by his late teens. As a DJ, he landed the techno club hit “Go” in 1991, and gained first-class status with his major label debut, 1995’s “Everything Is Wrong.” He charmed critics and college radio by stretching beyond pulsing club beats with actual song structures, ethereal piano melodies and his own vocals. But the momentum was lost with his follow-up record, the raw and caustic “Animal Rights.” The album tanked, he left his label (which probably would have dumped him anyway) and began making the accessible album that would become his milestone hit.
“Although I was relatively comfortable being this marginally known underground musician, I was getting tired of playing concerts and venues that were half full,” says Moby, who, after being turned down by countless labels, signed to V2 in 1999. “I was getting tired of going to radio stations and waiting for a half hour in the lobby for an assistant to come down and shake my hand.”
These days he travels in style. Just now, Moby is on his way to an interview at Westbury, N.Y.’s WLIR radio in a black, ostentatious SUV with smoked windows. He’s planning to pull an April Fools’ prank on listeners by pretending he purchased the station, but at the moment he’s dead serious. Moby is concerned about how his single is doing in terms of radio play. “Do we know where it is?” he asks his manager, Marci Weber. He then goes on to stress about scheduling, flights, interviews, etc. His manager tells him to relax, assures him that the single’s doing fine and adds, “Remember, the last record took a while to catch on.”
Nearly a year, in fact. Moby didn’t expect to sell many copies of “Play,” so he licensed the songs to advertisers. If you ever watched a Baileys Irish Cream commercial or an episode of “Party of Five” or shopped at Nordstrom’s, you were probably humming Moby before you even knew who he was. Then something strange happened to Moby’s strange little album: the single “Honey” began to get radio play, attracting 17-year-olds, their parents and Moby’s alternative-music fans. These days, Moby is routinely lauded as pop’s new genius, though some of his peers beg to differ. Mos Def complains that the field recordings sampled on “Play” (originally recorded by folklorist Alan Lomax) exploited the pain of pre-civil-rights black America. Eminem bags on Moby in his new single “Without Me,” proclaiming that no one cares about techno anyway. Even singer-songwriter David Gray has a bone to pick. “Gray tore me apart in a recent interview, like I stole his milk money in school,” says Moby. “He said he hated me because it’s unethical to use music in commercials. My only thought was, you’re signed to a major label and do music videos and tours. It’s weird that one way of being involved in art and commerce is acceptable, and one way is not. To me, it’s all subtle shades of gray–no pun intended.”
Moby sounds defensive, but when he’s asked if he thinks his peers are just jealous, he softens up and sounds once more like the poor kid who still thinks he’s a second-class citizen. “I don’t know how I could inspire jealousy in anyone, because I have such low self-esteem,” he says. “If they only knew. Whatever their bad opinion of me is, trust me, I’m doing a better job of ripping myself down than they ever could.”
By the time the SUV pulls up to the radio station, Moby’s in a playful mood again. Over a meal of sweet-and-sour tofu balls that taste mysteriously like pork, the artist–who’s a devout vegan and Christian–eagerly discusses plastic surgery and mentions in passing that one of his good friends is a hard-core porn actress. He also gossips mercilessly, dishing on everyone from Winona Ryder (“Has she stolen anything lately?”) to Gina Gershon (“Have you ever even seen her in a movie? What exactly does she do?”). Once on air, Moby plays his April Fools’ prank, pretending that he is the new owner of the station and that he’s changed its name to WMBY radio. Some callers actually believe it, and are phoning in to show their support. “I’ve fired everyone,” Moby tells listeners. “Now I even have to scrub the toilets myself.” He’d do it if he had to. He’s always been a one-man show.
