It’s about twelve thirty Monday lunchtime. The world seems at peace with itself as I walk down to the sandwich shop. My mobile phone starts to ring and I look down to see an incoming call from JohnB at Dontstayin. “We’ve got a phone interview with Moby!” John tells me, as the first point of the call. I know all about this because we’ve been discussing the possibility of an email interview with Moby, but John informs me that they’ve upgraded this to a phone interview. To say I am happy with this would be an understatement. Everyone around me must realise I’ve had some kind of good news as I run down the street making roaring noises and shouting the word “Yes!” at various intervals.

Of course, I realise that Moby is a pretty big star in the world of Dance music. It’s impossible for me to not feel a little over-awed at the prospect of speaking to such a big star. I’ve not felt this way since I had to be “The Judge” in our year 7 play “The Court of Good Friends”. However, I’ve got a focus and I begin to read as many articles on Moby, or Herman Melville, as he’s also known, as I can. I get an appreciation for who the chap is and then we get the conference call set up.

It comes to the afternoon of the call and I speak to a BT operator in India, who is quite eloquent and fluent. He informs me that there will be an announcement when there is five minutes left on the conference call. I ask him how long the call will be in total time, and he tells me that it’s fifteen minutes. I’m quite shocked that I didn’t check this out before as a big part of my technique is to talk general chit chat to get a feel for the person I’m speaking to, but I can’t on this occasion, so at first I hurried my questions a little. However, Moby was such a chilled out, laid back subject it didn’t take time before he was the one getting me relaxed and in the mood to talk. So here we go with the words…

1.) Just so we can get an idea of who you are Moby, if we were conducting this interview over some food in a restaurant anywhere in the world, what restaurant would that be? And if I asked you to recommend a dish for me, what would you order for me from the menu?

Moby: Well, there’s a restaurant in LA, called Real Food Daily… They do the most amazing vegetable tacos. The only problem I really find is that you can either eat food or do an interview.

jacK: I guess the food goes cold?

Moby: Or you simply end up with a musician with food falling out of one side of his mouth!

2.) Grand Theft Auto IV has been released today and many, many people I know have taken time off work to sit around and play this leviathan of a video game. When you’re not working Moby what would you do on your ideal week off to kick back, relax and let yourself go?

Moby: Well that’s a very good question as actually kicking back and relaxing are not my strong points. In the last ten years I think I’ve taken 2 days of vacation time. I’m a fairly restless person and it’s very hard for me to sit back and relax. Although I do have to say at one point I was on tour, and they had GTA on the tour bus and I became a little too addicted to it. I had to run an intervention on myself to stop myself from playing it.

jacK: Have you tried Yoga?

Moby: I have tried Yoga but I simply find it too boring.

jacK: Yeah! Me too!

3.) This question is kinda double barrelled. It seems that your music always creates controversy, perhaps because people want to feel comfortable with an artist and like to pigeon-hole musicians for marketing purposes. However you seem like a pretty mild mannered guy. Do you actively look to create controversial music, or are you just looking to make people think, and why do you think people find your music so controversial?

Moby: I don’t know to be honest with you. I had a very strange musical upbringing. As a child I mainly played classical music then I was involved in Punk Rock and played as a Hip Hop DJ, and I got involved in the House scene very early. As an artist I’ve always wanted to experiment with different genres and styles of music, and over the years that may have alienated a lot of people. Unfortunately, however I find it impossible to just make one style of music. I love a challenge and there are just so many different styles of music on the planet, it seems a shame to only limit yourself to one type of music. I have friends who make just one type of music, and it’s very good music.

4.) Music production technology has advanced massively over the last few year to the point where a well trained penguin with a Apple Mac and copy of Reason or Ableton live can produce dance music. Do you feel this has lead to a dumbing down of dance music to the bland recycling of music and themes, and if so, how do you think we can rescue dance music from this situation?

Moby: Well the one thing I think I disagree with is that the penguin wouldn’t have to be well trained. (I burst into laughter at this point) The great thing about Reason and Ableton and all this music technology is that it does allow anyone to make great sounding dance music. There have been people who wouldn’t have been able to make records otherwise. As you say, the problem with that is now everyone on the planet can make great sounding dance music records.

jacK: I remember reading an interview with you where you cited thing like Bizarre Inc’s “Playing with Knives” as one of your favourite tracks. I think there is a certain blandness to many tracks now and we lack the innovation and energy of the early days of dance. How do we get that back in the scene?

Moby: I’m thinking right now that with the software, Reason, Ableton and even Logic, they are all still fairly new, I feel a lot of the people who are putting out records are still enjoying the novelty and fun of putting out a record from a laptop. My hope is that over the next few years that people will get beyond this novelty point and sit down and start making some seriously interesting records.

jacK: I suppose if people don’t have to make tracks also with such a commercial bias then this will free up artists to be more inventive?

Moby: Yeah definitely. When you have major labels putting too much pressure on artists, you end up with really bad records.

5.) I understand that you are very pro Jesus, but very anti-organised religion. This is a viewpoint that many of our readers wouldn’t be able to understand. I certainly believe that Jesus carries a very strong message still applicable in today’s world. Can you just explain to us how you can believe in Jesus outside of the context of the organised Christian church?

Moby: Firstly I’d like to say that the world is a big and complicated place. I like the teachings of Christ because he talked about compassion, forgiveness and understanding…

jacK: Things that are perhaps in short supply today?

Moby: Yeah, and to me, organised religion… (pauses) I’m sure that there are good organised religions and bad organised religions… I don’t really know very much about this kind of religion, but it seems to me that it’s just another bureaucratic structure much like big business or government. Whenever people come together to create an organisation it then becomes a goal for that organisation to stay in existence, and that’s when the bureaucracy comes in and all the original good ideas seem to get sidelined or lost.

6.) As we said in the first question, you’re not afraid to defy the convention the marketing world would have you impose on your own music. I’ve always genuinely really liked everything you’ve produced and found it to be refreshingly different from the musical vogue at the time. I’ve even read somewhere that “Go!” was synched up to be in time with the earth’s rotation so I suspect you draw on very different themes to create your music. What can we expect from your latest album and what themes did you draw on?

Moby: The idea behind the album, “Last Night” was very simple to me. I just wanted to make a record that sounded like a night out in my neighbourhood.

jacK: You live opposite David Bowie, right?

Moby: I live in the lower side of Manhattan. It’s filled with bars and venues and clubs, and as a result I go out all the time. In fact, I go out way too often. So in this record I just wanted to somehow take an 8 hour night out in my neighbourhood and condense it into a sixty five minute record.

jacK: So is it like a walk down the street with you meeting different characters, you going round your favourite sights? What kind of journey do you take us on?

Moby: A liquor and drugs fuelled 8 hour night out. Where it starts out innocent and naïve and gets darker and more dance oriented, very confusing but ends up very blessed out as the sun starts coming up.

jacK: I thought you were quite anti drugs and drink?

Moby: No, there are a lot of misperceptions about me. If anything I should learn to be more anti-drugs and anti-drink because it would probably make me a healthier person.

7.) You seem to dislike monolithic inflexible organisations, as mentioned in the question about Christianity. You may not know this but the website this article is going to feature on has done a lot to change dance music in the UK, as well as making stars out of people, who you’ve probably never heard of like wo0, Marc De Groot, and Dave-The-Rave. How do you think the internet can change the world in into a better place?

Moby: Well what’s fascinating about the internet and now the “blogosphere” is that people can now communicate directly with each other. For example in the past if you were a musician the only way you could reach people was through the media and the press. Now, musicians and bloggers can communicate through each other, Its great because its forcing mainstream media and the record companies to chase and catch up with their audience.

jacK: You’ve heard of Tim Leary right?

Moby: Of course.

jacK: He says in his book, “A Design for Dying” that the internet will end the reign of large institutions with a “one size fits all” mentality. Do you think the internet will further separate music into more specific genres and types, or simply make more people aware of what is “good” music?

Moby: Hopefully it will end the days of large music companies. It seems the days of large institutions selling millions of records are coming to an end. As people now have the ability to make records and music and get it to their friends and people immediately, it does make it seem like the relevance of big major labels is now in question.

jacK: What then, do you think of big acts like Madonna and Radiohead giving away their music for free?

Moby: Well, they never gave their music away for free. They just engaged in clever marketing tricks. It frustrates me a little bit because last year I started a website called “mobygratis.com” and it’s a website where I give away music for free to student film-makers… I love Radiohead but it’s just marketing. At the same time they were selling a boxed set of the record, then they released a CD. With a lot of these artists, one of the reasons they give away records free is that they can make so much more money by going on tour, many of them just see records as marketing for going on tour, and in my mind that’s a shame because it does cheapen the music quite a bit. I don’t necessarily think music should be sold, but if you’re going to give music away for free make sure its because you want people to hear it, not just because it’s a marketing trick.

8.) Just going back to the drugs question, do you think that drugs are an integral part of the dance music scene, and how would we get society to accept there are also benefits to people using drugs?

Moby: I’m a proponent of drug legalisation. Almost everybody I know has either taken drugs in their life or continues to take drugs, and the danger honestly is quality control. I think a much more enlightened position is the position the Dutch government has, which is a realisation people are going to take drugs hence they try to protect the quality so that people are not going to get hurt by them.

9.) One of the reasons we’re doing this interview is because of your upcoming album launch party with Mylo and Trentemoller. Are these your current favourite DJ’s and which other DJ’s and producers out there at the minute do you think are producing new, original and exciting music?

Moby: Mylo and Trentemoller, I love the records that they make but to be honest with you I’ve never heard either one of them DJ, I mainly just know their records, they’re friends of mine. Most of the DJs that I know are just DJs who live in New York, because that’s where I live and that’s where I go out. I like people like James Murphy, and people like Princess Superstar and Tommy Sunshine.

10.) We’re running out of time here, so I’d just like to thank you for finding the time to talk to us at Dontstayin.com. If you became the next messiah of the human race, and became universally worshipped without being corrupted by the huge amount of responsibility and power in your hands, what message would you bestow upon humanity to help us through the next 2000 years?

Moby: Don’t take yourself too seriously!

jacK: Once again Moby, thanks for the time talking to us. It’s been really great and I hope it gives our readers a chance to see a different side of you. You seem like a very decent bloke, the sort of person you could sit down and have a beer with. Although with run out of time would you like to carry on talking?

Moby: I’m afraid that someone’s pointing a metaphorical gun at my head, so I’ve just got no more time.

jacK: Well, thank you very much Moby, goodbye.

I was very impressed by Moby and the fact that he wasn’t an uptight zealot of left wing liberalism, as he came across just like a normal chap with as just as much to say for himself as anyone. I felt at the end of the interview we’d got some clarity from him on some issues which are widely reported to be true. I’d read many articles written on the internet from third party sources which contradicted Moby’s own comments, so I know who I’ll be trusting!

I hope you’ve got a good feel of who Moby is from my article and I’d like to say what a pleasure it was interviewing him for your benefit at Dontstayin.com. I hope everyone likes the article and the different view of Moby as a person I’ve tried to get from my short time spent talking to him. Ultimately it’s good to see that there is a real person behind the media hype in any occasion, and the truth of the matter is that the real story is always better than the hype.

If you’re looking for something to do this Friday, or if you want to see Moby play tracks from his new album live then he is of course playing alongside Mylo and Trentemoller at the O2 arena in London. There was a chance to win some free tickets on DSI, but we waited till they were all gone (for those of you out there with a real eye on everything…) till posting this article. Still, if you love Moby and are in the area then we couldn’t recommend a better night out.