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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the

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Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart Radio. It's summer and that means

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Speaker 1: it's time for our tradition and Here's the Thing, where

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Speaker 1: the staff share their favorite episodes from our archives in

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Speaker 1: our Summer Staff Picks series. Our last pick is from

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Speaker 1: engineer Frank Imperial.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Alec. When I think back to the late nineties

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Speaker 2: and early two thousands, it's impossible not to hear Moby's music.

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Speaker 2: His album play was everywhere in films, commercials, on the radio,

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Speaker 2: and yet it never felt manufactured. It felt intimate, like

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Speaker 2: he had cracked open his own world and invited everyone in.

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Speaker 2: What makes this conversation so compelling is that Mobi doesn't

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Speaker 2: just talk about the music. He opens up about the

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Speaker 2: struggles that fueled it, the questions of identity and faith

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Speaker 2: that have followed him, and his passion for activism from

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Speaker 2: animal rights to environmental issues. Sense of an artist who

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Speaker 2: always has tried to connect the personal with the political,

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Speaker 2: the beats with the bigger picture. Listening back, I was

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Speaker 2: struck by how candid he is about fame, sobriety, what

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Speaker 2: it means to try to live authentically in a world

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Speaker 2: that doesn't always make it that easy. And of course

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Speaker 2: you hear the humor and self awareness that makes him

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Speaker 2: such a singular voice. Here's Alex twenty nineteen conversation with Boby.

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Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. Ooh,

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Speaker 1: lone trouble so ham ooo lone.

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Speaker 3: Treboshan don't about and do a job God.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety nine, your cool friends put on Moby's

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Speaker 1: play at parties. In two thousand, it was on the radio.

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Speaker 1: Popularity snowballed into ubiquity. In two thousand and one, Play

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Speaker 1: was in and Volkswagen Ads. It became the biggest selling

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Speaker 1: electronica album of all time. To fans outside the electronic

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Speaker 1: music world, Moby seemed like an overnight success, but he

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Speaker 1: was thirty three in nineteen ninety nine and had been

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Speaker 1: recording since the eighties. Play was actually his fifth studio album.

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Speaker 1: It never occurred to him it would break even, let

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Speaker 1: alone break records. The self described loner and nerd succumbed

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Speaker 1: to the worst sort of rockstar excess. As his fans

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Speaker 1: filled stadiums and models showed up in his dressing room.

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Speaker 1: Moby was euphoric but spinning out of control. It's a

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Speaker 1: story he shares in his new book Then It Fell Apart.

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Speaker 1: I spoke to Moby last month in the early chapters

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Speaker 1: of his book. Moby is coming to terms with the

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Speaker 1: album going platinum. What do you think happened inside the

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Speaker 1: music in that album that was different and something click did?

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Speaker 1: Something changed all of a sudden. You're a monolith in

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Speaker 1: the music business.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And to contextualize it, before that album Play came out,

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Speaker 3: my career had essentially ended. I'd lost my record deal.

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Speaker 3: It was a very dark time. My mom had died,

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Speaker 3: I was I was living on Mott Street and I

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Speaker 3: recorded Play where in my bedroom on Mott Street?

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Speaker 1: Of course you did, and.

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Speaker 3: Well, actually I slept in the closet and I had

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Speaker 3: my bedroom had been turned into an ad hoc recording

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Speaker 3: studio and I saw it. So I'd made Play. My

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Speaker 3: last album had failed completely, and I'd lost my record

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Speaker 3: deal with who. I was signed to Elektra, and then

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Speaker 3: I was signed in the UK to a label called

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Speaker 3: Mute and they hadn't dropped me. But to put it

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Speaker 3: in perspective, they'd never dropped anyone. That was their claim

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Speaker 3: to fame is they'd never dropped an artist in the case. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: So I was like I could didn't really take too

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Speaker 3: much comfort in the fact that I hadn't lost my

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Speaker 3: deal with Mute when they'd never ever dropped an artist.

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Speaker 1: So play who released Play?

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Speaker 3: Well, Richard Branson started a label called V two, and

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Speaker 3: someone working at V two somehow heard one of the

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Speaker 3: songs on play I still don't know how, and he

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Speaker 3: offered me a deal. But yeah, I mean before it

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Speaker 3: was released, I thought, Okay, I'm an alcoholic bald has

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Speaker 3: been I'm going to release this one last week in

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Speaker 3: my closet. Well, the building was from the mid nineteenth

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Speaker 3: century on Mott Street, and it had been a slaughterhouse.

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Speaker 3: So the space I was living in this is weird

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Speaker 3: as an animal rights vegan. The floors all sloped to

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Speaker 3: central drains because when it had been a slaughterhouse, they

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Speaker 3: would just hose the floors out and all the awful

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Speaker 3: would just get washed down the drains. So I'm in

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Speaker 3: that environment thinking I'm going to move back to Connecticut.

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Speaker 3: I'm going to get a job teaching community college. I'd

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Speaker 3: probably be a philosophy professor to students who just had

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Speaker 3: no interest in paying attention to philosophy, and then this

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Speaker 3: album comes out and rather than failing, it kept doing

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Speaker 3: better and better. So to your question of, like, musically,

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Speaker 3: why that happened, I still to this day have because

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Speaker 3: a lot of the vocals on play were like old

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Speaker 3: African American vocals from the mid twentieth century, And if

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Speaker 3: I look at there's just no precedent for a middle

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Speaker 3: aged musician making a record in his bedroom at the

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Speaker 3: end of his career, involving vocals from people who've been

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Speaker 3: dead for a few decades. Like, that's not a recipe

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Speaker 3: for a hit record. I remember at some point it

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Speaker 3: sold fifty thousand records because I thought it was going

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Speaker 3: to sell nothing. I was amazed that my album had

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Speaker 3: sold fifty thousand records and then six months later it

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Speaker 3: was selling one hundred thousand copies a week.

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Speaker 1: What do you attribute that to? What did people respond

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Speaker 1: to the only people are listening to your music and

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Speaker 1: buying your music in a world that is choked with music.

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Speaker 1: There was so much stuff out there they can listen to,

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Speaker 1: and they buy ten million copies of your album. Why

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Speaker 1: do you think you know?

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Speaker 3: I was recently doing an interview with Larry King, and

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Speaker 3: he asked me that question, and he sort of asked

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Speaker 3: me like, if you could replicate it, would you? And

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Speaker 3: I was like, oh, I tried, like the following like

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Speaker 3: the next three twos I kept I was like, how

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Speaker 3: do I recreate that? And I never really could, Like

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Speaker 3: that one sort of weird lightning in a bottle moment.

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Speaker 3: I don't I mean, I don't want to answer promorphize

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Speaker 3: the universe too much, but I almost feel like the

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Speaker 3: universe was in a sort of lighthearted educational way saying like, Okay,

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Speaker 3: we're going to give you everything you ever wanted times

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Speaker 3: a million, and it's going to come close to killing

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Speaker 3: you and you're going to hopefully learn something from it.

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Speaker 3: So there was like, and again, that might sound very narcissistic,

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Speaker 3: like I've just answer promorphized a thirteen point eight billion

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Speaker 3: year old universe, but it felt like if at the

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Speaker 3: end of the day, more than anything else, educational, like

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Speaker 3: the universe is going to say like, Okay, you live.

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Speaker 1: In a crime. To anthropomorphize the university part of the

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Speaker 1: human condition. Let's go from there.

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Speaker 4: Then.

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Speaker 1: So the album comes out nineteen ninety nine. It's difficult

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Speaker 1: for some people to say this is his style. You've

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Speaker 1: let a lot of different you know, kind of tones

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Speaker 1: and a lot of different variety to the sound of

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Speaker 1: your music. And what was music in your childhood? Were

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Speaker 1: you in a chorus, was a church, was a music school?

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Speaker 1: It was weird.

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Speaker 3: I started playing guitar. I guess when it was are

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Speaker 3: a nine or ten because one of my mom's boyfriends

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Speaker 3: had gone to jail and left a guitar behind.

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Speaker 1: But your mother is kind of from a privileged background Connecticut.

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Speaker 3: Quasi, I mean, like my grandfather worked on Wall Street, right,

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Speaker 3: But then my mom sort of rejected that the sixties

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Speaker 3: progressed and she fully embraced the hippie lifestyle.

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Speaker 1: But your dad passed away when you were how I

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Speaker 1: was two? So when you were two? And how long

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Speaker 1: did you stay in New York? After he passed away.

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Speaker 3: My mom moved back to Connecticut to get her undergraduate

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Speaker 3: at East Cones. Is that he is even still a school.

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Speaker 3: And then we went to San Francisco in nineteen sixty nine,

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Speaker 3: where everything sort of fell apart.

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Speaker 1: And then three so right after your dad passed away,

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Speaker 1: she finished school at Fish School.

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Speaker 3: We went to San Francisco and she sort of I

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Speaker 3: guess was very torn, like the counterculture was happening, and

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Speaker 3: she really desperately wanted to be a part of it,

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Speaker 3: you know, And.

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Speaker 1: So did you have any ideas why? I have a.

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Speaker 3: Feeling half of it was rejecting like growing up in

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Speaker 3: day in Connecticut, being encouraged by her parents to sort

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Speaker 3: of be very conservative and very traditional. So it was

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Speaker 3: a rejection of to an extent her family, but also

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Speaker 3: just wanting to be a part of this new, exciting paradigm,

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Speaker 3: you know, I mean nineteen sixty nine original paradigm.

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Speaker 1: That's why that's been copied since then. Yeah, that was it.

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Speaker 3: She's twenty three years old and she wanted to be

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Speaker 3: this free spirit artist, but she also had a three

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Speaker 3: year old child, and that's where things, a lot of

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Speaker 3: tension and trauma really came from.

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Speaker 1: What did your dad do for a living?

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Speaker 3: He was a chemistry professor at Columbia, but he had

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Speaker 3: been in the military and he was It's funny people

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Speaker 3: don't really talk about it that much. I think he

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Speaker 3: was either an assassin or a sniper, because I've asked

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Speaker 3: people in my family. I'm like, oh, what did my

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Speaker 3: dad do in the military, And they're like, well, he

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Speaker 3: did a lot of things, and never so I think

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Speaker 3: because he killed himself and he was a.

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Speaker 1: He drove a car off the Arizona.

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Speaker 3: He drove I don't know where exactly, but he got

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Speaker 3: very drunk. My mom had threatened to take me away

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Speaker 3: from him, and so he got drunk and got in

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Speaker 3: his car and drove one hundred miles an hour into

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Speaker 3: a bridge somewhere and died.

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Speaker 1: Now what would people tell you, if at all? Did

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Speaker 1: you do any investigation or did you have some curiosity

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Speaker 1: as to what your dad was like? Did you learn

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Speaker 1: a little bit about him later on in life? Well,

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Speaker 1: it's only beyond the CIA credit.

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Speaker 3: Only in adulthood did I realize how little I knew

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Speaker 3: about my father. Like, for example, if I had a

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Speaker 3: child with a woman and she died, as the child

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Speaker 3: grew up, I would do everything in my power to

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Speaker 3: make sure the child knew who his mom had been.

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Speaker 3: You know, we would talk about it. And after my

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Speaker 3: dad dies, he was never mentioned. His mother never mentioned

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Speaker 3: it to me, and all I knew was that he'd

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Speaker 3: been in the military and I had photos. But again,

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Speaker 3: it was only after my mother died that the rest

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Speaker 3: of the people in my family sort of let me

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Speaker 3: know that my father had been a professor and he

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Speaker 3: had a good sense of humor, and the.

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Speaker 1: Brother had to die before people were allowed to introduce

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Speaker 1: you to your dad. Kind of yeah.

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Speaker 3: And I found and it sort of had this quasi

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Speaker 3: like almost like a check off play quality, like I

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Speaker 3: found out after my mother had died. I found out

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Speaker 3: that my father had killed himself because my whole life

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Speaker 3: up until that point, I thought he had just died

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Speaker 3: and no one ever explained how or why. And I

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Speaker 3: also found out I have a half brother somewhere, which

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Speaker 3: can I tell you a story about whom I have

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Speaker 3: half brother? Is not I think you'll appreciate. I was

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Speaker 3: in DC in two thousand and seven with Alexandra Pelosi,

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Speaker 3: Nancy's daughter, and we were with Nancy. Nancy was the

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Speaker 3: Speaker of the house, and this is pre sobriety. So

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Speaker 3: I got very drunk and ended up talking to a

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Speaker 3: journalist from Politico and telling this journalist that I have

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Speaker 3: a half brother, and I jokingly said, maybe it's Carl Rove.

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Speaker 3: The journalist wrote a little Politico piece saying, our Mobi

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Speaker 3: and Karl Rove brothers. Two weeks later, I get a

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Speaker 3: letter on White house stationary, It says, dear Moby, it's

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Speaker 3: not me. For one thing, I'm seventeen years older than you,

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Speaker 3: and I have no musical ability. Have you considered James

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Speaker 3: Carville as your long lost brother because he's bald and

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Speaker 3: plays the guitar too, your pal Carl Rove? And I

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Speaker 3: was like, so, I know, as far as I know,

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Speaker 3: Carl Rove is not my half brother.

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Speaker 1: You have one. Did you ever meet the half brother?

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Speaker 1: I have no idea who or where he might be.

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Speaker 1: You know your story, and we'll get to some of

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Speaker 1: the details of this in the book. That the self destructiveness,

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Speaker 1: but an impression I get of you, the way you live,

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Speaker 1: as you like to isolate, and you talk about this

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Speaker 1: panic plateau thing or whatever the terminology is, which which

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Speaker 1: which kind of hampered or impacted relationships you would have

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Speaker 1: with people as.

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Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, I mean, I'm fifty three and I've never

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Speaker 3: had a serious relationship, and over time trouble you it

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Speaker 3: used to, but then over time I've sort of made

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Speaker 3: peace with it. I mean, I guess there's almost in

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Speaker 3: a way not to overstate it, but like there's a

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Speaker 3: there's a sort of utility to being incapable of having

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Speaker 3: real relationships, which is I get to work on other things,

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Speaker 3: you know, like I get to be to spend the time. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: I get to spend more time doing activism. I get

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Speaker 3: to spend more time I don't know, reading, working on music,

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Speaker 3: working on art. I have a weird little production company

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Speaker 3: in La so I can work more on that. So

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Speaker 3: I had always thought that the key to happiness, at

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Speaker 3: least growing up, was like you find your perfect per

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Speaker 3: and you build a life with them. And at some

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Speaker 3: point I realized, oh, that's just not in the cards

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Speaker 3: for me, and so there's so far, so far. But

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Speaker 3: at the same time, I don't I don't have any

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Speaker 3: longing for it. You don't which not that you know of,

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Speaker 3: not that I mean, maybe I'll meet them, you know.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you just it's it's you don't know. Do you

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Speaker 1: want to venture where it comes from? Does it come

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Speaker 1: from certain obvious childhood signals? I think so. I assume

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Speaker 1: so that because you were left alone a lot as

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Speaker 1: a child.

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Speaker 3: I was left alone, and I was also raised you know,

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Speaker 3: I grew up very very poor in a very wealthy

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Speaker 3: town in Darien, Connecticut, and my mom dated Hell's Angels.

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Speaker 1: There was a lot of when you went back to

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Speaker 1: Darien and you were how old when I was five?

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Speaker 1: So you were you were in San Francisco just a

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Speaker 1: couple of years. Yeah, so your mom's smoking pot and

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Speaker 1: the taking actresses and taking acid and and everybody like,

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of cavorting around the hate or whatever

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Speaker 1: they were doing. You were only there for a couple

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Speaker 1: of years and.

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Speaker 3: Then we moved back to Connecticut.

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Speaker 1: How long?

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Speaker 3: Well, I lived in Connecticut from the time I was

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Speaker 3: five until the time I was twenty one.

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Speaker 1: You basically grew up there.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just an inbred white trash kid from Connecticut.

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Speaker 1: The San Francisco thing was a brief period of cod.

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Speaker 3: That was just brief and traumatic, right and well traumatic.

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Speaker 3: There was sexual abuse my mom, and I don't want

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Speaker 3: to throw her under the bus posthumously, but she wanted

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Speaker 3: to hang out with her friends. She was twenty three

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Speaker 3: years old. So they put me in this very low

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Speaker 3: rent daycare center and I was sexually abused there.

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Speaker 1: What did she do during the day? Did she work?

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Speaker 3: Not?

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Speaker 1: In San Francisco. There she was supported by her family.

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Speaker 1: They were all dependent on somebody.

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Speaker 3: A lot of kids from Connecticut who in nineteen sixty

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Speaker 3: four had been playing lacrosse. Nothing wrong with lacrosse. I

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Speaker 3: just was never very good at it. And they had

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Speaker 3: short hair, wearing eyes ods, you know, going to Webern

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Speaker 3: country Club, drinking gin and tonics. Then all of a sudden,

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Speaker 3: they're living on hate Ashbury with fringe jackets and hair

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Speaker 3: down to the middle of their back, taking acid. And

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Speaker 3: I sort of got caught up in the middle of

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Speaker 3: that as a three year old.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, when you got back to Connecticut and you grew

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Speaker 1: up there, did your mother develop as a parent and

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Speaker 1: she was getting older, what did she become a better parent?

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Speaker 1: Was there a continued period of isolation and kind of.

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Speaker 3: Not good childcare for you both an equal measure, Like,

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Speaker 3: we had a good support system of my grandmother had

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Speaker 3: aunts and uncles, so there was a lot of support.

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Speaker 1: But did you spend a lot of time with their mother's.

301
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Speaker 3: Parents, Yeah, but also a lot of time alone because

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Speaker 3: also we were very poor. We were on food stamps

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Speaker 3: and welfare and we were in dairy in Connecticut, which

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Speaker 3: is per capital, one of the wealthiest places in the world,

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Speaker 3: And so I had this constant sense of shame, you know,

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Speaker 3: So when I went to school, it was pretending that

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Speaker 3: I didn't live in the garage apartment, and that we

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Speaker 3: weren't on food stamps and welfare. You know, if I

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Speaker 3: had the flu, I would come back and say, oh,

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Speaker 3: we went to Switzerland, because that sounded like something that

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Speaker 3: wealthy people would say. So just this the sense of

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Speaker 3: shame and the sense of inadequacy, and not again not

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Speaker 3: to overstate it, but like when you grow up with that,

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Speaker 3: it's hard, even in adulthood, when your circumstances change, it's

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Speaker 3: hard to move past how you were formed.

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Speaker 1: When did you start to get this idea that you

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Speaker 1: were going to write music?

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Speaker 3: I think, well, my mom, who was an aspiring musician pianist.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I remember my mom had the most odd

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Speaker 3: eclectic record collection. So she had Crosby, Stiells, Nash and

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Speaker 3: Young and Divorge Ack and Lightnin' Hopkins and Baba O

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Speaker 3: Latunji and so I just grew up with this constant

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Speaker 3: soundtrack of weirdness and it made sense to me. And

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Speaker 3: she dated musicians. My uncle was a musician. My great

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Speaker 3: grandmother actually taught classical composition to Arthur Fiedler. She was

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Speaker 3: Arthur Fiedler's mentor. So I grew up in this weird,

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Speaker 3: idiosyncratic musical household. So I never thought as I was

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Speaker 3: growing up that I would have a career as a musician.

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Speaker 3: I just knew that I loved music and I wanted

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Speaker 3: to be a part of it. And I had a

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Speaker 3: lot of free time because I wasn't very good at

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Speaker 3: sports and.

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Speaker 1: Did you do well in school? I did okay.

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Speaker 3: So my name Moby is a nickname that I've had

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Speaker 3: since birth because I'm related to Herman Melville. So what

336
00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:36,320
Speaker 3: I learned was when teachers found out that I was

337
00:17:36,400 --> 00:17:40,240
Speaker 3: descended from Herman Melville, they just would add fifteen IQ points.

338
00:17:40,560 --> 00:17:42,320
Speaker 3: They would assume, like, oh, he's got to be like

339
00:17:42,880 --> 00:17:45,360
Speaker 3: aerodyite because he's descended from Herman Melville.

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Speaker 1: Same thing.

341
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Speaker 3: I went to college and I was a philosophy major,

342
00:17:47,640 --> 00:17:49,600
Speaker 3: and I was not a good student. But I realized

343
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Speaker 3: the moment you tell someone you're a philosophy major, they

344
00:17:52,200 --> 00:17:54,879
Speaker 3: think you're way smarter than you actually are. So, like,

345
00:17:55,480 --> 00:17:59,680
Speaker 3: descended from Herman Melville philosophy major, Like that just added

346
00:18:00,160 --> 00:18:05,399
Speaker 3: thirty bonus points to my IQ, totally unwarranted. So I

347
00:18:05,400 --> 00:18:07,800
Speaker 3: had growing up, had a lot of free time, had

348
00:18:07,840 --> 00:18:11,600
Speaker 3: access to instruments, and was raised in this odd creative family.

349
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Speaker 3: So I just started writing music when I was around

350
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Speaker 3: ten or eleven, and i'd also my uncle had given

351
00:18:18,280 --> 00:18:20,639
Speaker 3: me some hand me down photo equipment, so I started

352
00:18:20,640 --> 00:18:24,679
Speaker 3: taking pictures. And here's an odd, little funny story. My

353
00:18:24,720 --> 00:18:26,800
Speaker 3: best friend when I was nine years old was Robert

354
00:18:26,800 --> 00:18:31,040
Speaker 3: Downey Junior, and so his dad gave us because his

355
00:18:31,119 --> 00:18:36,240
Speaker 3: dad was a filmmaker and Darien he lived there. Darien

356
00:18:36,280 --> 00:18:40,920
Speaker 3: has a baffling array of odd public figures like and

357
00:18:41,119 --> 00:18:44,400
Speaker 3: Coulter and Gus van Zant and Robert Downey Junior and

358
00:18:45,280 --> 00:18:47,760
Speaker 3: Chloe sevig Yee and Steve O from Jackass and the

359
00:18:47,800 --> 00:18:50,800
Speaker 3: author Rick Moody from this little town of fourteen thousand people.

360
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Speaker 1: Very odd people. Yeah, in the fact that and.

361
00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:56,280
Speaker 3: Culture and Zant went to the same high school. Yes,

362
00:18:56,320 --> 00:19:00,359
Speaker 3: So Robert and I made with his this superak camera

363
00:19:00,480 --> 00:19:02,360
Speaker 3: his dad when we were eight and nine years old.

364
00:19:02,359 --> 00:19:06,159
Speaker 3: We started making little films long since disappeared. But it

365
00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:09,560
Speaker 3: was just part of the ethos of just go out

366
00:19:09,640 --> 00:19:12,760
Speaker 3: and make things, with no expectation that there would be

367
00:19:13,640 --> 00:19:16,560
Speaker 3: a career or that you'd even make anything good. But

368
00:19:16,640 --> 00:19:19,240
Speaker 3: I just started writing and taking pictures and making little

369
00:19:19,280 --> 00:19:21,199
Speaker 3: movies and writing songs and doing all this.

370
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Speaker 1: They make little movies. How if you were broke super

371
00:19:25,600 --> 00:19:28,400
Speaker 1: eight camera you got your hands on a Super eight camera? Yeah,

372
00:19:28,440 --> 00:19:32,480
Speaker 1: like in a pawn shot. Yeah, right, like a really cheap, shitty.

373
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Speaker 3: Superand camera, and you could develop film, you know, like

374
00:19:35,560 --> 00:19:37,879
Speaker 3: two and a half minutes of Super eight film, and

375
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Speaker 3: then you edit it on your kitchen table tape.

376
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Speaker 1: Yeah, we used a dracula and I'm emerging from the coffin.

377
00:19:45,840 --> 00:19:48,399
Speaker 3: And then you develop it and you show it on

378
00:19:48,440 --> 00:19:48,800
Speaker 3: a sheet.

379
00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:52,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're ready to get a can. What's the first

380
00:19:52,840 --> 00:19:56,520
Speaker 1: song you wrote? Do you remember? Do you remember a boy? I?

381
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Speaker 3: Well, so I started playing guitar, and then I I

382
00:20:00,119 --> 00:20:03,600
Speaker 3: had a very odd music teacher. He played in a

383
00:20:03,640 --> 00:20:06,800
Speaker 3: heavy metal band, but he also loved jazz fusion and

384
00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:10,440
Speaker 3: classical music. So one day we would learn name Chris Rosola.

385
00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:12,639
Speaker 3: He would teach me a van Halen song, even though

386
00:20:12,680 --> 00:20:14,399
Speaker 3: I never really liked Van Halen that much, and then

387
00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:17,919
Speaker 3: we would do a Larry Carlton or weather Report jazz

388
00:20:17,960 --> 00:20:20,719
Speaker 3: fusion thing, which I also didn't like that much, and

389
00:20:20,760 --> 00:20:24,280
Speaker 3: then do a Bach cantata, which I love and I

390
00:20:24,280 --> 00:20:26,560
Speaker 3: still to this day love. And then I broke his

391
00:20:26,640 --> 00:20:29,880
Speaker 3: heart because when I was thirteen, I discovered punk rock,

392
00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:34,479
Speaker 3: and so I sort of cast aside, like music theory

393
00:20:34,560 --> 00:20:37,639
Speaker 3: and the sort of idiosyncratic but formal music education. I

394
00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:40,359
Speaker 3: had to play clash covers and because he thought I

395
00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:42,639
Speaker 3: was going to go on to be this virtuoso guitarist.

396
00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:47,920
Speaker 3: And the irony, Yeah, and the irony is by embracing

397
00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:52,119
Speaker 3: punk rock and non virtuosic, if that's the word, I

398
00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:55,920
Speaker 3: disinvented music. I ended up coming back to the world

399
00:20:55,920 --> 00:21:00,440
Speaker 3: of classical music and have since started playing with orchestras. Yeah,

400
00:21:00,480 --> 00:21:04,119
Speaker 3: I just I just did a performance with Dudamel in

401
00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:05,160
Speaker 3: the LA film.

402
00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:07,160
Speaker 1: Did You Wouldn't Know? What? Did you guys play? We?

403
00:21:07,160 --> 00:21:11,640
Speaker 3: Well, it was two programs. The first program was LA Composers,

404
00:21:12,119 --> 00:21:15,200
Speaker 3: and they put a piece of music of mine in there.

405
00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:17,200
Speaker 3: It's a song that I'd written for a Michael Mann

406
00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:18,960
Speaker 3: movie years ago, which.

407
00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:21,200
Speaker 1: Film for Heat. Yeah, you wrote a song for Heat.

408
00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:24,639
Speaker 3: It's a very end when Al Patino and Robert de

409
00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:28,320
Speaker 3: Niro finally had I don't want to spoiler alert, so

410
00:21:28,359 --> 00:21:30,359
Speaker 3: they did that as part of the first program, And

411
00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:32,879
Speaker 3: the second program was all orchestral versions of my music.

412
00:21:33,359 --> 00:21:33,840
Speaker 1: Oh wow.

413
00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:36,159
Speaker 3: During the rehearsal. There was I don't know one hundred

414
00:21:36,160 --> 00:21:37,720
Speaker 3: and eighty of us on stage because we had a

415
00:21:37,760 --> 00:21:42,080
Speaker 3: huge choir, full orchestra. And I realized, like, okay, we're

416
00:21:42,080 --> 00:21:45,720
Speaker 3: doing my music, and I'm without question the least talented

417
00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:48,199
Speaker 3: musician on the stage right now, Like I'm the person who, like,

418
00:21:48,400 --> 00:21:51,000
Speaker 3: if I stopped playing, no one will notice. But in

419
00:21:51,040 --> 00:21:52,719
Speaker 3: God Moving over the Face of the Waters, there's this

420
00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:57,680
Speaker 3: big crescendo, you know, it's like timpany and symbols. And

421
00:21:57,760 --> 00:22:02,480
Speaker 3: I got so annoyed because the percussion had come in early,

422
00:22:03,480 --> 00:22:05,160
Speaker 3: and I was like, what, like this is the La Fel?

423
00:22:05,280 --> 00:22:08,840
Speaker 3: How did they screw up? And I realized there was

424
00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:12,240
Speaker 3: a thunderstorm and I was like, so this song is

425
00:22:12,280 --> 00:22:13,840
Speaker 3: called God Moving over the Face of the Water. Keep

426
00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:16,600
Speaker 3: in mind this is in September. This is sort of

427
00:22:16,640 --> 00:22:19,479
Speaker 3: good theological argument for the existence of God, that he

428
00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 3: plays percussion during classical music.

429
00:22:22,080 --> 00:22:24,560
Speaker 1: Do you did this recently with the La Fell? What's

430
00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:26,600
Speaker 1: the first time you did that? Well, the first time

431
00:22:26,680 --> 00:22:29,959
Speaker 1: was actually Michael Mann for Heat. Yeah.

432
00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:34,679
Speaker 3: I had written some classical pieces. He heard them and

433
00:22:34,720 --> 00:22:36,320
Speaker 3: this was nineteen ninety.

434
00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:38,640
Speaker 1: Foudy, how did he unpublished?

435
00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:41,080
Speaker 3: I they were no, I'd put them as a B

436
00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:43,800
Speaker 3: sides on they were out there and somehow he had

437
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:46,280
Speaker 3: heard them. And we then had one of the weirdest

438
00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:48,959
Speaker 3: phone calls. Do you know, Michael, I'm sure. I so

439
00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:53,680
Speaker 3: we're friends. I used that word loose leakause I don't

440
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:56,160
Speaker 3: know if in my mind he and I are friends.

441
00:22:56,240 --> 00:23:00,199
Speaker 3: But he's a odd, wonderful creative man. But like our

442
00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:04,000
Speaker 3: first phone call was, he got my number and he

443
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 3: called me up and he spent forty five minutes telling

444
00:23:07,359 --> 00:23:09,280
Speaker 3: me the story of heat and hung up the phone.

445
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:10,280
Speaker 1: I didn't say one.

446
00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:12,280
Speaker 3: Word apart from hello, so I was like, hello, he said,

447
00:23:12,280 --> 00:23:16,119
Speaker 3: mobe this Michael Man forty five minutes soliloquy, telling me

448
00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:18,800
Speaker 3: in great detail everything about heat, like the archetypes that

449
00:23:18,840 --> 00:23:21,480
Speaker 3: are going on for like the classical element, the moment

450
00:23:21,520 --> 00:23:23,040
Speaker 3: he's done, he just hung up, and I was like,

451
00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:28,680
Speaker 3: what just I'd never spoken to like an esteemed film

452
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 3: director before, and I was like, is this is how

453
00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:32,239
Speaker 3: film directors talk to people? He just call up and

454
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 3: talk for forty five minutes and to hang up the phone.

455
00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 1: That was the first time you had provided score for

456
00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:37,720
Speaker 1: a film?

457
00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:42,199
Speaker 3: Well, I went to Sunny Purchase briefly, and I had

458
00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:45,439
Speaker 3: some friends in the experimental film program there, and so

459
00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:49,919
Speaker 3: my friend Paul made an experimental movie called me I

460
00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:54,760
Speaker 3: the Onion in nineteen ninety or ninety one, So technically

461
00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:57,920
Speaker 3: that would have been my first foray in the film composing.

462
00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:01,040
Speaker 1: Beyond me I the Onion, Yeah made it. Michael Mann

463
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:02,840
Speaker 1: was the first. Yeah. Did it lead to how many?

464
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:05,600
Speaker 1: How many other films have you contributed music to other

465
00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:08,160
Speaker 1: than sourcing your I also I have.

466
00:24:08,119 --> 00:24:10,920
Speaker 3: A weird website called mobigradis dot com and it gives

467
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:15,880
Speaker 3: free music to independent filmmakers, nonprofits, film students. So if

468
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:20,399
Speaker 3: we count that ten thousand films. But those are like

469
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:24,600
Speaker 3: three minute short films where people hired you hired, I

470
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:27,479
Speaker 3: wouldn't know hundreds thousands.

471
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: I mean like, oh, you're not not accessing your music

472
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 1: you published, they hired you to do score four oh films.

473
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:38,280
Speaker 3: Oh, because there's the licensing music. I'm licensing music, and

474
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:40,800
Speaker 3: that's like, it's the greatest thing in the world because

475
00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 3: all you have to do is say yes, you don't

476
00:24:42,600 --> 00:24:46,520
Speaker 3: there's no work involved apart from that actually writing music.

477
00:24:46,560 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 1: So when I moved to.

478
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 3: La after I got sober the first time, this most

479
00:24:50,960 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 3: like ten years ago, I got sober.

480
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:53,960
Speaker 1: And I got sober twice.

481
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:58,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, once in nineteen eighty seven, followed by a glorious

482
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:00,720
Speaker 3: thirteen year long relapse. We're going to get to that,

483
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:04,199
Speaker 3: and then again in two thousand and eight. And so

484
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 3: then I moved to LA and I thought, Okay, I'm

485
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:09,640
Speaker 3: middle aged, I'm sober, I'm in Los Angeles. I need

486
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 3: to fully commit myself to film composing. And then I

487
00:25:12,600 --> 00:25:17,120
Speaker 3: realized I really don't like film composing, Like it's.

488
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:21,159
Speaker 1: What about it? Don't you like? Uh? What I like?

489
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:23,399
Speaker 3: When I work on my own music, it's just me

490
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:27,040
Speaker 3: in the studio. There's no music supervisor, there's no director,

491
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:30,320
Speaker 3: there's no producer. I can kind of I have some

492
00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:33,000
Speaker 3: complete self sufficiency. I don't have to respond to other

493
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 3: people's comments, and as an only child who doesn't do

494
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 3: well with people, that's nice. And my friends who were

495
00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 3: great film composers, part of their skill set is knowing

496
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 3: how to deal with twenty different executives at the same time.

497
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:49,399
Speaker 1: And I just it was too skill have Yeah and

498
00:25:49,480 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: a lot of X acts. Yeah, this is God moving

499
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:04,240
Speaker 1: over the face of the waters. The piece Moby wrote

500
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: for Heat after a lot of input from executives at

501
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:11,879
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers and director Michael Mann. Stephen Daldry is another

502
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 1: great film director with strong opinions about how everyone should

503
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 1: do their jobs.

504
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:19,399
Speaker 4: I find it really crazy when actors come in self

505
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:22,199
Speaker 4: prepared because they've done some journey that they getting in

506
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 4: this comment my character and you go, look, it's not

507
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:27,080
Speaker 4: your character. Okay, it's ours, and we're going to make

508
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 4: it up there.

509
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:30,200
Speaker 1: Interesting, I'm going to remember that it's ours. Well, my

510
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:31,080
Speaker 1: character wouldn't do that.

511
00:26:31,119 --> 00:26:32,680
Speaker 4: Well, let's change the character. Then.

512
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:37,080
Speaker 1: The rest of my conversation with Stephen Daldry can be

513
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 1: found in our archive a Here's the Thing dot org

514
00:26:47,800 --> 00:27:02,120
Speaker 1: more Moby in a minute. This is Alec Baldwin and

515
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:10,440
Speaker 1: you were listening to Here's the Thing. Moby never would

516
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:12,919
Speaker 1: have ended up so low if he hadn't been so

517
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:17,399
Speaker 1: desperate to be lifted up. He craved the affirmation of fame.

518
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 3: I loved it, you did, and I just wanted more.

519
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:24,000
Speaker 1: This guy that was this isolated guy that was left alone.

520
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 1: You can't get enough of that.

521
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, all of a sudden, I was being

522
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 3: invited to fancy parties, meeting heads of state, being flown

523
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 3: around the world, on private.

524
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:37,919
Speaker 1: Play and freeing clothes to wear in public. I mean

525
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 1: I still have them, sure.

526
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:42,680
Speaker 3: You know, it's like suddenly like people are competing about

527
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:44,960
Speaker 3: who gets to dress you for the Red carpet, and

528
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:47,680
Speaker 3: you know, it's like Versace and Calvin Klein are like, oh,

529
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:50,679
Speaker 3: let us send you free tuxedos. I was like, you know,

530
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 3: before this record, I was buying clothes at Salvation Army

531
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:56,440
Speaker 3: on the corner of Lafayette.

532
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:57,160
Speaker 1: In Prince A, Republic.

533
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:01,399
Speaker 3: Yeah, like it was great, And then of course it

534
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:03,480
Speaker 3: wasn't great. You know, like my narcissism got out of

535
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 3: control of my entitlement because I felt at the time,

536
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 3: like two thousand and two thousand and one, two thousand

537
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 3: and two, I felt that all I needed to be

538
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:15,159
Speaker 3: happy was constant love and attention from every person on

539
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 3: the planet, to make ten million dollars a year for

540
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:21,199
Speaker 3: the rest of my life, and to make sure that

541
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 3: I could be as promiscuous as possible, do as many

542
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 3: drugs as possible, and drink as much as possible without consequences.

543
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 3: So like, obviously, in hindsight, I recognize how absurd and

544
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:34,879
Speaker 3: unrealistic it is, but at the time I just wanted,

545
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 3: like every night to be like this indulgent festival of

546
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 3: narcissism and the mobsters.

547
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 1: Can you tell me some of these stories that were

548
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 1: in the book.

549
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:47,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a weird one. We took helicopters to

550
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:50,160
Speaker 3: Staten Island and had this weird dinner with the guy

551
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 3: who apparently invented the cabbage patch doll and then went

552
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 3: on to produce Steven Segall movies. And then we left

553
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 3: and I went to a party on Park Avenue, very drunk.

554
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 3: We show up and I met some friends and they

555
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 3: were talking about this game that they played in college

556
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 3: called knob Touch. And what knob touch is You take

557
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 3: your flaccid penis out of your pants and you brush

558
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:12,120
Speaker 3: up against people and you win by the number of

559
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:14,280
Speaker 3: people you can brush up against. And I'd never done this,

560
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 3: and my date, Miss new Hampshire, challenged me to play

561
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 3: knob touch. And there's only one human being on the

562
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 3: planet I have brushed my flaccid penis against. That man

563
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:25,959
Speaker 3: is currently the President of the United States.

564
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:28,840
Speaker 1: Now, yes, where was this being held?

565
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 3: Some bar in park like one of those big restaurants

566
00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 3: on Park Avenue, And like twenty first it.

567
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 1: Was like in public and this isn't a private party.

568
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:37,840
Speaker 3: I mean it was like a one of those New

569
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 3: York style parties where maybe it was like Ralph Lauren

570
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 3: was launching a new paint color or something, you know,

571
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:46,360
Speaker 3: those things that you just go to. Yeah, and you're

572
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 3: not I don't know why.

573
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 1: I have a couple of drinks. Yeah. So I was

574
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: very famous.

575
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 3: People, and I brushed my flacid piece against that of.

576
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 1: Your penis against Donald Trump brush.

577
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 3: He didn't know it was dark, he was. And what's

578
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 3: funny is the publisher of the book said, like, in

579
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 3: this climate, I don't know if you should include that.

580
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 3: I was like, you know what, I think Donald Trump

581
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:07,480
Speaker 3: being able to say that, I me tooed him.

582
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you're there and you're this big superstar. When

583
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 1: did you begin to think.

584
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 5: We really should get back into the studio and make

585
00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 5: another album.

586
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 3: So then the tour for Play was supposed to be

587
00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 3: three and a half weeks long, and it ended up

588
00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:28,720
Speaker 3: being twenty six months long. But the whole time, because

589
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 3: I've always compulsively written music, I have now probably like

590
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:36,880
Speaker 3: eight or nine thousand pieces of unreleased pieces of music.

591
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:42,040
Speaker 3: So even at the bottom of my like alcoholism, drug addiction, narcissism, entitlement,

592
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 3: self destruction. I was at break. I kept writing music.

593
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:49,040
Speaker 3: So the problem break, Yeah, the problem with albums was

594
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:52,480
Speaker 3: to look at like a thousand songs and figure out

595
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:54,600
Speaker 3: how do you get fifteen to put on an album?

596
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 3: Doesn't mean they're good. And when I say eight thousand

597
00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 3: pieces of unreleased music, I'm not speaking to the quality

598
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 3: of them, like a lot of it's garbage. But I

599
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 3: just it's this weird almost like you know there's that

600
00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 3: word laggeria. I have that of music where I just

601
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 3: keep making it without any concern for whether it's good

602
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 3: or bad. I just keep writing and so.

603
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 1: It's like a broken pipe.

604
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:18,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, just like you turn on the faucet and

605
00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 3: just leave it on. So the next album was called eighteen,

606
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 3: and I thought like, okay, this is like Play was big.

607
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 3: I want this to be bigger, and so like I think,

608
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 3: the promo tour for the next album was five months long,

609
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 3: like five months of just like you've done it as well,

610
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 3: like traveling around the world, sitting in hotel rooms, going

611
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 3: to every country, every TV show, everything, And I just

612
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:43,080
Speaker 3: wanted to be more famous, have more money, sleep with

613
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:45,600
Speaker 3: more people, drink more, do more drugs tour more just

614
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 3: for the.

615
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:49,239
Speaker 1: Guy that was isolated. Are you sitting there saying this

616
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: is more like it? Now? Everybody wants to take their

617
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 1: clothes off and jump in bed with me.

618
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:56,920
Speaker 3: And it seemed like fame was going And this is

619
00:31:57,560 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 3: when I say it out loud, it just sounds so

620
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 3: obs heard I honestly, and I wouldn't have admitted this,

621
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:05,720
Speaker 3: but deep down, what I believed was that fame was

622
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 3: going to fix everything.

623
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 1: Like every all.

624
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 3: The trauma from child really be the senses of all

625
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 3: that fear, you know, the self centered fear.

626
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 1: But self centered narcissistic fear is the root of all

627
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:20,840
Speaker 1: of our problems. And living in a constant state, living

628
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 1: in a constant state of agitation, worrying about am I

629
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 1: going to get this? This is going to be taken

630
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:29,040
Speaker 1: away from me? Which defines my life. They say in

631
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 1: a twelve step literature, they say that our greatest fear

632
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,960
Speaker 1: is to lose something we already have or not get

633
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 1: something that we want.

634
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 3: I just thought, oh, fame will fix it as long

635
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:45,080
Speaker 3: as I can keep getting invited to great parties and

636
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 3: drinking and doing drugs, and as long as I get

637
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:52,040
Speaker 3: good reviews. But then the universe, with its sense of humor,

638
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 3: took away all the things.

639
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:58,440
Speaker 1: That I do. You know, why do you have a sense? Why?

640
00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 3: I think because on a sort of artistic level, there

641
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 3: came a time and I'm so ashamed to admit this,

642
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 3: and around two thousand and two, two thousand and three,

643
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 3: I wanted to make great music, but I wanted music

644
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:14,160
Speaker 3: to be a means to an end where I wanted

645
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:17,560
Speaker 3: it to like sustain my career. So before my life

646
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 3: had just been spent it going yeah, and I had never.

647
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 1: Thought I don't want to go backwards.

648
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like and before that, all I wanted

649
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:27,120
Speaker 3: to do was make music that I loved, you know,

650
00:33:27,160 --> 00:33:30,720
Speaker 3: that music that somehow was like it was just beautiful, expressive.

651
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:32,960
Speaker 3: Two thousand and two, two thousand.

652
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:34,640
Speaker 1: And three, years after the release of Play, I.

653
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 3: Still wanted it to be beautiful, but first and foremost

654
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:40,240
Speaker 3: commercially viable.

655
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:42,360
Speaker 1: But it was a little less beautiful and it sold

656
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 1: more copies. That was okay with.

657
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:46,720
Speaker 3: Me, Yes, And I started thinking, oh, okay, well, if

658
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 3: I produce this type of song, it'll get on the radio.

659
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 3: And if I produce this it'll sell more. And like

660
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 3: the paradox, the wonderful In hindsight, the wonderful paradox is

661
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 3: the more of an effort I made to be famous,

662
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:01,520
Speaker 3: the less famous I became here.

663
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,640
Speaker 1: You were very open with the press, You courted the press,

664
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 1: You would speak to anybody, you know. For me, the

665
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:09,440
Speaker 1: problem has always been the you know, the press is

666
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 1: never it's a sad. It does sometimes make me sad.

667
00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:15,400
Speaker 1: I get I get over it, and then every now

668
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: and then it comes up in blackjacks me again. After nowhere.

669
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:19,279
Speaker 1: It's like it's like in an alley where I get

670
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:22,279
Speaker 1: mugged by it again, which is they're never going to

671
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:24,320
Speaker 1: interpret who you really are to the public.

672
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 4: Never.

673
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 1: They don't have that ability. It's so painful, the misunderstanding

674
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 1: that goes hand in hand with it, especially.

675
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:34,360
Speaker 3: Because I when I don't know if you had this experience,

676
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:38,080
Speaker 3: but when I started getting press attention, I loved it.

677
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:40,799
Speaker 3: And in the beginning they were so nice, and the

678
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:43,920
Speaker 3: reviews were gentle, and then the reviews were great, and

679
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:45,719
Speaker 3: then you have this sweet spot where you have like

680
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 3: fame and you're lauded in the press, and then it

681
00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:52,399
Speaker 3: turned and then all of a sudden, the reviews got bad,

682
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 3: the articles got bad, and I felt so betrayed. I

683
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:56,959
Speaker 3: was like, why why can't you guys just be nice?

684
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,719
Speaker 3: But then time passes. I'm like, in a like god,

685
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:05,799
Speaker 3: bless them for turning because I've since then like when

686
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:10,319
Speaker 3: when you're rejected, when the press rejects you, then, at

687
00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 3: least for me, I had to sort of look like, Okay,

688
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:14,239
Speaker 3: well who am I without that?

689
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 1: You know?

690
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 3: And where does my worth and sense of self come from?

691
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 3: And like realizing, oh, if it comes from the opinions

692
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:26,960
Speaker 3: of people I've never met, there's something really unstable and

693
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:29,840
Speaker 3: unhealthy there, you know. I had this epiphany recently. I

694
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:33,120
Speaker 3: was in la middle of February hiking and Griffiths Park

695
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:35,759
Speaker 3: and it was one of those beautiful days, like the

696
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 3: sun is shining, coyotes are running around, hummingbirds are flying by,

697
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 3: and I suddenly thought like, Okay, if my last album

698
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 3: had sold ten million copies, and if every journalist on

699
00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 3: the planet loved me and wrote great things about me,

700
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:52,360
Speaker 3: and if I was dating the most beautiful woman on

701
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:56,399
Speaker 3: the planet, how would this moment be better? And I'm

702
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:59,640
Speaker 3: like it wouldn't like, you know, good reviews, good press,

703
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:01,719
Speaker 3: all this stuff doesn't And I don't know, I sound

704
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:04,320
Speaker 3: like a crazy New age hippie, but like it wouldn't affect.

705
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 3: It's like that moment of like the public radio, like

706
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:11,960
Speaker 3: standing in the sun wearing a T shirt, smelling sage

707
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 3: and lavender, watching the hummingbirds fly by. I was like

708
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 3: the universe in that moment was so benign and indifferent

709
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:22,239
Speaker 3: to anything that I cared about, and there was some

710
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:25,719
Speaker 3: there's sort of like a transcendent liberation, almost like Emersonian

711
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:27,800
Speaker 3: style liberation in that moment.

712
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 1: I'll take that feeling. At this point, I just turned

713
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 1: sixty one, and I'll take that feeling wherever I can

714
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:37,680
Speaker 1: get it now, and at my age, I have to

715
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:41,319
Speaker 1: accept that my creative energies may or may not come

716
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:44,440
Speaker 1: to the foe here, and if they don't, I have

717
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:48,080
Speaker 1: to find something else to do to get off creatively,

718
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:50,800
Speaker 1: which is what I do. I completely segregate my creative

719
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:52,879
Speaker 1: from my commercial in a way that I never thought

720
00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:53,480
Speaker 1: it was possible.

721
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 3: And there's one because you reference the twelve and twelve earlier. Yep,

722
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:00,839
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's a twelve steps is part

723
00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 3: of your life?

724
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:04,360
Speaker 1: Yes? Oh, okay, I'm thirty four years sober. Oh right,

725
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:04,759
Speaker 1: eighty five?

726
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:08,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's I mean, and again I feel like

727
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:10,279
Speaker 3: such a middle age cliche saying this, but like the

728
00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:14,320
Speaker 3: Twelve Steps really, if all the therapeutic things I've been through,

729
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 3: the Twelve Steps really saved me. And one of the

730
00:37:18,480 --> 00:37:20,239
Speaker 3: things I learned, as you mentioned, was like the role

731
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:23,000
Speaker 3: of fear and trying to sort of like deconstruct fear

732
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:26,879
Speaker 3: and learn from it. But the other thing that when

733
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:30,279
Speaker 3: I did the Twelve Steps that I really loved was

734
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 3: all of my judgment up until that point was sort

735
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:37,399
Speaker 3: of based on the misperception of omniscience or fake omniscientce.

736
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:39,719
Speaker 3: Like when I had an album that failed, I was

737
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:43,239
Speaker 3: furious because I knew that it should have succeeded, because

738
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:45,279
Speaker 3: if it had succeeded, it would have been better for me.

739
00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:47,319
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden I realized, like again,

740
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 3: in a thirteen point eight billion year old universe, I

741
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:54,719
Speaker 3: don't have omniscients. I don't know causality. If I want

742
00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 3: something to work out and it doesn't work out in

743
00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 3: a way, I'm like, who am I to judge? In

744
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 3: politics as well, because I got really involved in politics

745
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:05,600
Speaker 3: for a while, it was like the vast majority of

746
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:08,279
Speaker 3: people on the planet, their goal is to keep the

747
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:11,480
Speaker 3: lights on tomorrow, you know, like they're like they want

748
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 3: a job, they want to keep.

749
00:38:14,239 --> 00:38:15,799
Speaker 1: Their understand where they're coming from.

750
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:19,880
Speaker 3: And I have to be like, okay, that's It's like

751
00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:21,920
Speaker 3: with the press as well. If to remind myself, like

752
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 3: most of the people I know were journalists, like they're

753
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 3: barely able to pay the rent. And I don't want

754
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:29,000
Speaker 3: to be patronizing or judgmental, but I have to sort

755
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 3: of say, like, Okay, my job is not to rely

756
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:35,919
Speaker 3: on them form my sense of happiness and well being,

757
00:38:35,960 --> 00:38:36,840
Speaker 3: you know, like my sense of.

758
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 1: Strength or my creative Yeah, output the same.

759
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:43,960
Speaker 3: Thing, and creatively, if they're too much of a hindrance,

760
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:47,279
Speaker 3: you move on. You sort of say like okay, God

761
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:49,640
Speaker 3: bless you know, like have healthy boundaries. And I just say,

762
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:52,560
Speaker 3: like it almost makes me think of like that like

763
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:54,719
Speaker 3: the Rudyard Kipling poem is that.

764
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:57,799
Speaker 1: If I remember reading when like eight or nine years old,

765
00:38:58,120 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 1: and it's.

766
00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:03,760
Speaker 3: Sort of that idea of just keep I just keep going,

767
00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:06,759
Speaker 3: not even from strength and fortitude, more just sort of

768
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 3: like like a post apocalyptic cockroach, just keep plowing forward,

769
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:12,759
Speaker 3: like someone steps on you. Okay, you stepped on me.

770
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 3: Have a good day. I'm going to keep going.

771
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:17,440
Speaker 1: But this is also if I really became the biggest

772
00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:19,400
Speaker 1: movie star in the world and made hundreds of millions

773
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 1: of dollars in private plans, who the fuck knows what

774
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 1: I would have done with that. No, I would have

775
00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 1: screwed that up.

776
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:26,600
Speaker 3: I mean, luckily i'd be dead in a way, like

777
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 3: as as sober middle aged guys. I feel like, maybe

778
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:35,239
Speaker 3: this is an indelicate thing to say, but like a

779
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 3: lot of people have done the work for us, Like,

780
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 3: for example, yeah, twenty years ago, I would look at

781
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,400
Speaker 3: Michael Jackson and say, like, wow, look at that. The

782
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 3: wealth and the fame and the adulation. Boy, oh boy,

783
00:39:49,360 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 3: I'm glad.

784
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:52,600
Speaker 1: I'm glad hanging out with him.

785
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm glad that I was cut off to

786
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:58,080
Speaker 3: an extent from the access to like excessive wealth and

787
00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:00,399
Speaker 3: fame that he had and me. Again, it's a hard

788
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 3: thing to talk about because I don't want to malign anyone,

789
00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:05,759
Speaker 3: especially if they're dead or struggling. But like we know,

790
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 3: I mean the number of public figures who have had

791
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:13,160
Speaker 3: profound success, profound wealth and it destroys them. I mean,

792
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:15,279
Speaker 3: like people like you and I are the ones who

793
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:21,880
Speaker 3: sort of like hopefully emerge unscathed and chastened, with hopefully

794
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:24,719
Speaker 3: an understanding that we can almost use in the form

795
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 3: of service, you know, to go out and be like, Okay,

796
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:30,520
Speaker 3: I've learned a lesson. That's an odd, rare, unique lesson.

797
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 3: Let me try and do something with it.

798
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:35,640
Speaker 1: Yea, was there an epiphany? What was the bottom?

799
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:38,799
Speaker 3: The bottom was do you remember a restaurant in New

800
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:42,880
Speaker 3: York called zen Palette, vegan Chinese restaurant. So this is

801
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:46,759
Speaker 3: a little analogy. New Year's Eve nineteen ninety two, I

802
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:49,120
Speaker 3: went to the zen Palette on Ninth Avenue, Sure, and

803
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 3: I ordered fourties. Yeah, and I ordered purple Japanese egg plant,

804
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:55,880
Speaker 3: and it disagreed with me. And I never ordered purple

805
00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 3: Japanese ig plan again because I had one bad experience

806
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:03,800
Speaker 3: with it. Vodka, cocaine everything. I would do it every

807
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:06,400
Speaker 3: day and it would kill almost kill me and make

808
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:11,120
Speaker 3: me sick. And I kept going back. And basically the consequence,

809
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:14,960
Speaker 3: what I mean is like the rational response to vodka

810
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 3: and cocaine if you have a night out and the

811
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:20,399
Speaker 3: next day you want to blow your miserable, is to say, wow,

812
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 3: that was bad. I shan't do that again, as opposed.

813
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 1: To it's a great definition of addiction. Act.

814
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:27,560
Speaker 3: Let's give me more every day for the next fifteen

815
00:41:27,600 --> 00:41:28,960
Speaker 3: this thing that's making me sick.

816
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: Yeah.

817
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:34,279
Speaker 3: And as I got older, because you got sober young.

818
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:35,360
Speaker 1: Yeah.

819
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:41,200
Speaker 3: I got sober at forty three and basically to ride

820
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 3: the range and the hangovers just got worse and worse,

821
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 3: and it got to the point where I was having

822
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 3: hard time streaming sentences together.

823
00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:50,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. I got sober because I moved to LA and

824
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:51,840
Speaker 1: I was driving a car, and I thought, well, the

825
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 1: consequence is caught up with Yeah, I thought I came

826
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:56,120
Speaker 1: and I still drove around shiitface for two years before

827
00:41:56,160 --> 00:41:59,799
Speaker 1: I got I got smart. I want to talk, when

828
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:01,960
Speaker 1: did pure vegetarianism take hold with you?

829
00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 3: When I was growing up, I had that weird paradox

830
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 3: of loving animals and loving Burger King, you know, when

831
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:11,360
Speaker 3: I was in junior high school high school, like, we

832
00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 3: had a bunch of rescue animals and I loved them unconditionally,

833
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 3: But I also loved Pepperoni pizza. And I had this

834
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 3: one rescue cat named Tucker who had found it the

835
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 3: dump in Dairia in Connecticut, and I loved Tucker even

836
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:27,799
Speaker 3: more unconditionally than I unconditionally loved the other animals. And

837
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:30,400
Speaker 3: when I was nineteen, I had this like Saw on

838
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 3: the Road to Damascus moment where suddenly I looked at

839
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 3: Tucker and I was like, he has two eyes, a

840
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:38,799
Speaker 3: central nervous system, and a profoundly rich emotional life and

841
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 3: a deep desire to avoid pain and suffering. And in

842
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:45,320
Speaker 3: that moment I sort of extrapolated and realized every animal

843
00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:47,480
Speaker 3: with two eyes and a central nervous system has a

844
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:50,759
Speaker 3: rich emotional life and a deep desire to avoid pain

845
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:53,279
Speaker 3: and suffering. So that's when I became a vegetarian, and

846
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:56,840
Speaker 3: then eighty seven became a vegan, and my only vegan

847
00:42:56,880 --> 00:43:00,400
Speaker 3: relapse was in ninety two I had yogurt once. So

848
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:02,240
Speaker 3: now I've got thirty one years.

849
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:06,000
Speaker 1: What is your diet basically something you cook at home

850
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:07,239
Speaker 1: or you how you eat well.

851
00:43:07,239 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 3: Actually I own a vegan restaurant in Los Angeles called

852
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:13,319
Speaker 3: Lil Pine and where it's in Silver Lake, And what

853
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 3: makes it unique is that one hundred percent of the

854
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:18,479
Speaker 3: profits go to animal rights organizations. Because at this point

855
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:22,480
Speaker 3: in my life, I don't I mean, I still am

856
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:25,879
Speaker 3: selfish and probably pretty narcissistic, but all of my work

857
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:29,239
Speaker 3: one hundred percent of the money I make professionally goes

858
00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 3: to the charities I work with, because I'd rather live.

859
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 3: You were sort of addressing this, like live a simple life,

860
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 3: like live very much within my means and make art

861
00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:39,920
Speaker 3: and music for the love of art.

862
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:43,320
Speaker 1: Amazing. I had a couple of them.

863
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:46,759
Speaker 3: And like I had this crazy sixty acre compound up

864
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 3: in Putnam County, and when I moved to La I

865
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 3: moved to a castle. But arms I wasn't happy in

866
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:58,000
Speaker 3: these places. And I was just asked myself, like why

867
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 3: am I having this sort of like Gatsbesque excess, the

868
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:05,759
Speaker 3: citizen cane style, like overcompensation if the end result is

869
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 3: like I've tied up my resources in real estate and

870
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:10,840
Speaker 3: I'm miserable and no one's benefiting. So like now I

871
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 3: live in a much simpler house, got a little simple

872
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:16,360
Speaker 3: apartment in Park Slope, and I can just work for

873
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:19,320
Speaker 3: the causes that I care about. Freedom, yeah, and freedom

874
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 3: and that freedom to like make art, music, books, et cetera.

875
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 3: And if there's money, just give the money to different

876
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:28,759
Speaker 3: very causes.

877
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:31,719
Speaker 1: That's amazing to do that, but that's rare. That's rare.

878
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:37,480
Speaker 3: One of the benefits of my weird attachment issues. Is like,

879
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:39,960
Speaker 3: I'm not married, I don't have kids, so like I

880
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 3: have this odd autonomy, so I'm able to be relying

881
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:48,439
Speaker 3: on you, and so there's it is like that there's

882
00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 3: a luxury to that, like almost like a monastic independence

883
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:54,960
Speaker 3: more after.

884
00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:59,759
Speaker 1: The break this is I can't think of any better

885
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:01,319
Speaker 1: way to ask this, and I'm sure there's a better

886
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:02,960
Speaker 1: way to ask this, but I want to ask, like,

887
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 1: who cares for you? Where is love in your life?

888
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:08,200
Speaker 1: If you're so autonomous and you don't have the fans

889
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:10,160
Speaker 1: and the public and the press, which is a form

890
00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:13,719
Speaker 1: of love, it's like an energy that simulates love. It

891
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:16,239
Speaker 1: isn't really love. But in your life, where is the

892
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,400
Speaker 1: love and the care in your life? Who's caring for you? Okay,

893
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:23,719
Speaker 1: well a few friends, so close friends are there for you.

894
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 3: I have a few family members. But there's the answer

895
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 3: that I'm uncomfortable giving because it's one of the hardest

896
00:45:33,200 --> 00:45:36,319
Speaker 3: things to say in our world. Is so when we

897
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:38,800
Speaker 3: do the twelve steps. When I got to the third

898
00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 3: step and the third steps has made a decision to

899
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:42,839
Speaker 3: turn our life and our will over to the care

900
00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:45,800
Speaker 3: of God as we understood God, and I really wrestled

901
00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:47,640
Speaker 3: with this because I was like, I was like, the

902
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:50,040
Speaker 3: care of God is I understood God? Like I don't

903
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 3: understand God. And that was my epiphany. I was like, oh,

904
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:55,520
Speaker 3: the God of my understanding is a God that I

905
00:45:55,560 --> 00:46:02,319
Speaker 3: do not understand. And I was like, but I evidence again,

906
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:05,200
Speaker 3: not to answer promorphize, but I see evidence of divinity

907
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:12,319
Speaker 3: in kindness, in forgiveness, in the gentleness of puppies.

908
00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:15,560
Speaker 1: In the redacted parts of the molor reports in our

909
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: immune systems, like I see in my eyes.

910
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 3: This is all evidence of the divine, and so in

911
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 3: nature and all these things. And so my honest answer,

912
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:29,960
Speaker 3: that's an uncomfortable, secular twenty first century answer, is divine

913
00:46:30,200 --> 00:46:31,440
Speaker 3: love is.

914
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:35,799
Speaker 6: What I search your oxygen. That's but also and it's

915
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 6: a component of it other people in yours. And if

916
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:40,359
Speaker 6: I die and someone says, oh, guess what, there's no God.

917
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:43,919
Speaker 6: We live in this empty existential cipher void, like you're

918
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:46,120
Speaker 6: just a bunch of like weird molecules that have come

919
00:46:46,160 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 6: together arbitrarily. That's okay too, But I do somehow, in

920
00:46:50,560 --> 00:46:55,000
Speaker 6: my dim I don't know naive way see evidence of

921
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:58,760
Speaker 6: the divine. And so it's always trying to move towards that. Again,

922
00:46:59,239 --> 00:47:03,360
Speaker 6: not religious, denominational, no gender. It's just simply this idea

923
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:07,680
Speaker 6: of the divinity of like forgiveness and puppies and immune

924
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 6: systems and the unredacted MOLA reports and etc. So that's

925
00:47:13,200 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 6: a huge That's where I get a lot of comfort from.

926
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:18,760
Speaker 1: What's music in your life? Now? You continue to write?

927
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:21,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I work on music mainly for the

928
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:24,359
Speaker 3: love of music. I refuse to tour. I hate touring

929
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:27,200
Speaker 3: unless it's going to do orchestral things. I had this

930
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:30,640
Speaker 3: wonderful realization. I guess it was about eleven years ago,

931
00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 3: the first time I met David Lynch, and we've since

932
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 3: become pretty good friends. LA has that going for it.

933
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:39,279
Speaker 3: I live around the corner from David Lynch. But when

934
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:41,880
Speaker 3: I first met him, he was being interviewed at BAFTA

935
00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 3: in London and he said something so reductive and simple,

936
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:49,440
Speaker 3: and it really struck me is he said, very simply,

937
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:52,919
Speaker 3: he said creativity is beautiful, And all of a sudden

938
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:55,279
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my god, he's right, Like, why

939
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:58,960
Speaker 3: am I compromising my creativity in the interest of like

940
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:02,239
Speaker 3: commercial game, for saking that and for worldliness? I was like,

941
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:07,799
Speaker 3: as we know, like music is that ineffable beauty, like

942
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:12,040
Speaker 3: it can communicate love and transcendent and beauty. That should

943
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:14,239
Speaker 3: be my goal, not that I'll ever reach it, not

944
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:17,880
Speaker 3: that I'll ever make beautiful, ineffable, wonderful music, but like

945
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:20,200
Speaker 3: if every day I wake up with that as the

946
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:23,920
Speaker 3: goal and not in the interest of worldliness and other people.

947
00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:27,440
Speaker 1: I mean, you've written a book, You at points in

948
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:29,480
Speaker 1: your life have conquered the music business. Have you ever

949
00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:31,279
Speaker 1: wanted to try other media? Have you ever wanted to

950
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:31,800
Speaker 1: make films?

951
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm actually I have a weird production company. I

952
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 3: feel like I use the word weird too much, but

953
00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 3: I have a production company in LA. We're working on

954
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:42,320
Speaker 3: some documentaries. You've got some scripted features, an animated feature

955
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:43,440
Speaker 3: that we're trying to develop, but.

956
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:45,720
Speaker 1: Have your hand in that too. Do you like making films?

957
00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:50,879
Speaker 3: I love it as long as I have to your

958
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:54,360
Speaker 3: point the recourse of autonomy, meaning like some of the

959
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:56,840
Speaker 3: projects we're working on, like sure, it would be great

960
00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:00,040
Speaker 3: if we have financing, if we get people attached to it,

961
00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:02,839
Speaker 3: but we also have projects that we can do one

962
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:06,120
Speaker 3: hundred percent ourselves. And because as we know, like how

963
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:10,360
Speaker 3: much time have our friends spent waiting you know, waiting

964
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:13,280
Speaker 3: for the financing, waiting for this to be greenlit approval,

965
00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:16,600
Speaker 3: and with the production company again. My goal is to

966
00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 3: never make personally, never make money from it. So if

967
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 3: money is generated, it goes to my foundation, or it

968
00:49:21,560 --> 00:49:22,799
Speaker 3: goes to causes I work with.

969
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:26,880
Speaker 1: And if you say upfront, I'm going to be involved

970
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:29,239
Speaker 1: in projects in the film business and I never want

971
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 1: to make money with them, You're not going to have

972
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:33,000
Speaker 1: a lot of meetings in LA You're not going to

973
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 1: get to make money from it.

974
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:37,799
Speaker 3: Like like the guy who runs my production company and

975
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:40,120
Speaker 3: my head of development and some of our partners, I

976
00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:45,000
Speaker 3: want them to be fabulously wealthy. I would rather be

977
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:49,520
Speaker 3: like live in a shitty apartment in Hollywood or I

978
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:52,960
Speaker 3: don't know, in bedsty and work for causes that I

979
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:53,520
Speaker 3: care about.

980
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:54,040
Speaker 1: I just don't.

981
00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:56,040
Speaker 3: I don't want to personally benefit from it.

982
00:49:56,960 --> 00:49:59,480
Speaker 1: I would like to do a documentary film, and I'd

983
00:49:59,520 --> 00:50:01,640
Speaker 1: like to put you together on a project. I'd like

984
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:04,719
Speaker 1: to couple you on a film project with someone equally

985
00:50:05,360 --> 00:50:08,400
Speaker 1: maniacally creative and independent as you. I'd like to do

986
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:10,319
Speaker 1: a film where we get you in a in a

987
00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:13,040
Speaker 1: studio and you're gonna do like a little project with Coppola.

988
00:50:13,600 --> 00:50:16,480
Speaker 1: Two people who don't want to collaborate with other people really,

989
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:19,160
Speaker 1: and you force them to do. They agree to collaborate

990
00:50:19,200 --> 00:50:21,279
Speaker 1: for this one time and see what the result would be.

991
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 1: I watched that. Yeah, I want to produce that. And

992
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:26,360
Speaker 1: by the way, you don't have to make any money.

993
00:50:26,400 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 1: My kids are expensive. I'm keeping all the money. I

994
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:31,120
Speaker 1: think we're done.

995
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:46,319
Speaker 5: Then we have a deal than you.

996
00:50:51,480 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 1: Moby composer, musician, recovering addict and proud ex celebrity. Didn't

997
00:50:57,640 --> 00:51:08,759
Speaker 1: you think he's cool with that? Okay? Moby's new book

998
00:51:08,880 --> 00:51:12,360
Speaker 1: is called Then It Fell Apart. It's very funny and

999
00:51:12,560 --> 00:51:16,880
Speaker 1: very sad. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought

1000
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:41,560
Speaker 1: to you by iHeart Radio.