WEBVTT - Moby 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast, the 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:10.800 first live podcast ever here at the USC Festival of Books. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:16.759 It's April twenty one, day before my birthday. You start 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:23.200 day again, and uh my special guest today is Moby 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:28.960 and I thank you all for being here because we 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.960 had a hard time getting here. We did not connect, 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:33.640 we went to diff It was like our own little 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:37.159 spinal tap moment. So I would we miss if I 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:40.040 didn't ask you, Moby that it being April twenty one, 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:42.400 the day after a VICI passed away, do you have 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:46.000 any thoughts about a VICI? Uh? Boy, oh boy. By 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:48.120 the way, first of all, if tomorrow is your birthday, 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:51.280 all I can say is like the thirties can be 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:55.120 a challenging decade, but there's there's a lot of room 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:57.480 for growth. Well. I don't want to reveal how old 0:00:57.520 --> 0:00:59.080 I am as but you can look it up online. 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:03.040 Thirty was bad. I thirty was no big deal. Forty 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:05.199 was bad, Fifty was no big deal. You're you're fifty 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.280 point sixty? Really fucked me up. I'm still funning, okay. 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:14.039 Um So a VICHI, Well, I guess it's speaking of 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:19.040 getting older or not getting older it's just, I mean, 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:23.960 there's so much to say about that. When someone dies 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:28.720 so young, it's just I mean, I'm stating the obvious. 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:32.880 But it's tragic, it's heartbreaking, it's unnecessary. It's just like 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:39.679 the fact that death is the one unavoidable fact of 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:43.960 our existence. Why hurry it along? You know? Like I 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.280 remember when I was a depressed teenager listening to joy 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.680 Division and wanting to throw myself off a bridge. I 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:51.160 thought to myself, I was like, you know, I'm gonna 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.560 die eventually. Why not just stick around and see what happens? 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:58.000 You know? Wow, But you have been part of this 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:03.360 world for decades to what degreed you believe the lifestyle 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:09.400 of DJs would contribute to their demise? Uh? I mean, 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:14.440 certainly there's very little about being a traveling professional DJ 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:18.399 that's healthy. You know, even if you're sober and doing it, 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.919 it's still pretty shitty, you know, like meaning like you're 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.400 an airport, you're eating garbage food in airports. You stay 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:27.839 in hotels, and even like the nicest hotel is still 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:32.800 an artificial environment with recycled air. And especially like young kids, 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:36.359 and you know that you're old when you start referring 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.639 to the youth as being something you're not. You know. 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.000 I remember hearing Obama say like young people, and I 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:47.160 was like, oh does that mean, like but but he's young, 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:54.240 so okay. So so even without drugs and alcohol and whatnot, 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.440 touring is unhealthy, you know, like it's very as you 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:00.360 know from a lifetime of being around on this, Like 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:02.880 you look at anyone who's been touring for a while 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.240 and they start to look like the crypt keeper Um 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:10.480 or Gollum in my case. And but then you add 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:15.680 in all the free alcohol and the drugs that are 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:17.480 just thrown at you, like I've been sobered out for 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:23.000 about ten years. But pre that, thanks um, but pre that. 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:25.480 I mean, like if if you're on tour and you're 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:29.480 playing a concert, you know, you play your concert, you 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:31.800 get on the bus and you leave, and so you 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.000 can be degenerate, but not that degenerate. Whereas the world 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.960 of celebrity DJs, they have their own planes. They fly 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:41.920 to Abisa, they fly to Las Vegas, they fly wherever. 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:46.840 They stay in huge palatial presidential suites. They do their 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:52.360 deejaying and then afterwards endless partying, which is great but 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:56.240 so destructive and so corrosive. So okay in your a 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:00.800 particular case, what caused you to get sober? Uh? So? 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:07.160 In nine two, do you remember the been Big Audio Dynamite. 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.240 So I was opening up for Big Audio Dynamites Switter 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:13.160 group from the Clash, Yeah, Mick Jones and Don Let's 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.360 I think um. So I was opening up for Big 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:21.560 Audio Dynamite UM at Roseland and New York City, and 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:25.560 we had dinner beforehand at a vegan restaurant called zen Palette, 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:28.600 and I ate a purple Japanese egg plant and it 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.719 disagreed with me. To this day, I've never eaten another 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:35.400 purple Japanese egg plant because I had a little upset 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:39.560 stomach as opposed to drinking, where I had thousands and 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:44.920 thousands of soul destroying, debilitating hangovers. But I kept doing it, 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.920 and I think I realized that indicated that I had 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:53.240 a problem. You know, when you're hungover for the five 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:57.360 thousandth time, you're like, oh, why do I keep doing this? 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:01.520 When it's like it's just this I don't know, diminishing returns. 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:03.120 So was he just one day you woke up and 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.559 said this is it? It was? I tried getting sober 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:11.000 multiple times and then this with the programmer by yourself. 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.680 Eventually it was just a UM, I mean it works 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:16.839 for me, if other people get sober without a God 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:20.200 bless there's no right way to do it. Um. But 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:24.600 it was October seventeenth, two thousand and eight. I had 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:28.840 played a fundraiser for Kristen Gillibrand, Um, she was running 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:34.919 to take Hillary Clinton's seat, and just had just a 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.799 stupid night not with her. I'm not trying to throw Kristin. 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:40.320 Jillibrand was like, we weren't you know, we weren't up 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:43.279 at four o'clock in the morning doing cocaine and talking 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:45.640 about how we should start a band. Yeah, that would 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:49.160 be now. She left early on good for her. And 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.520 then I found myself at like four o'clock in the 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.800 morning at some dive bar and Hudson, New York, standing 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:59.440 on stage asking if anyone there could sell me drugs, 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.640 and then buying drugs and doing them by myself, and 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.320 then at nine o'clock in the morning getting on amtrack 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:09.120 and I hadn't slept, and I felt like death had 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.160 like put me in a bag and thrown me down 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:14.880 a flight of concrete stairs, like I just destroyed. And 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.640 I thought you know this isn't getting better, and then 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:22.200 you have that decision to do immediately go with a yeah. 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:23.960 I went to an a meeting and just sat there, 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.200 started crying and said, I'm Moby, I'm an alcoholic. And 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.600 that was day one. And what did you learn in 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:32.800 the I used to drink and I stopped drinking for 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:36.000 a cornucopy of reasons, and for like the first thirty 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:38.600 days was a lifestyle change, like the things places I 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:40.800 would normally go, I will go. And then it was 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:43.320 earlier when a lot of people were not sober. It 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:46.680 was really quite a head speaking experience, irrelevant of not 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:50.880 waking up over well. Especially I lived in Lower Manhattan 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:55.320 and so in New York. For anyone who's spent time 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.920 in New York, you know that it's paradise for degenerates 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:01.880 like it and something you can afford to live in Manhattan. 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:06.040 But like the ethos of New York is just abject 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:09.000 debauchery and degeneracy. It doesn't matter who you are, like 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:11.640 where you are on the socio economic spectrum, Like if 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:13.520 you're not drinking and doing drugs in New York, you're 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:15.320 missing out on why you should be in New York. 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:20.720 Um so yes, So suddenly I was sober, living in 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:23.640 the East Village and having my recording studio on the 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:26.160 Lower East Side. So every day I would like walk 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.640 home from work past all the bars where I used 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.360 to get drunk, to go eat cereal and watch the 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:35.600 Daily Show, and which was good. I wasn't hungover, but 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.360 I was missing out on everything. And to this day, 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.480 I still don't know how I stuck with it. You 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:43.480 know why on one of those walk homes, I didn't 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:47.360 just like go into a dive bar, get drunk and 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.520 try to convince some like, oh pair to go home 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:53.680 with me. Let's go back to the beginning. You grew 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:55.360 up in dry In, Connecticut, not far from where I 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:59.280 grew up in Fearfield, Connecticut. Darien is a very upscale 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.680 room community. Most people work in Manhattan. However, there are 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.440 other people of not of that economic caliber. So what 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:08.960 was your experience growing up in day? So I was 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.000 born on a street in Harlem, and then my dad 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:14.400 died when I was two, and my mom happened to 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.880 know what. He died of alcoholism. He drove into a wall, 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:22.040 and so clearly it's we drove in a wall metaphorically 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:25.000 or literally literally, I mean, I guess it worked on 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:28.200 a metaphoric level, like no, he literally drove into a 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.880 wall on a Jersey turnpike at a hundred miles an hour. Yeah, 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:36.040 pre airbags. So it didn't work out too well. Um, 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:37.959 And so my mom moved us back to dry Enne 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:41.480 where she had grown up. But we were poor, white trash. 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:43.840 We were on food stamps and on welfare. We lived, 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:45.679 and it was from dairy En. Did she come from 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:49.680 an upscale family? Her dad, my grandfather, worked on Wall Street, 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:52.480 And so she moved us back to Darien because the 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.680 schools were good, it was familiar, and she had family around. 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:00.880 So what was your experience like constant shame because you 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:02.839 were not one of the wealthy people. Yeah, because we were. 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:05.720 So my mom was a pot smoking hippie who dated 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:09.680 Hell's Angels and Darien is the land of like Lily 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:14.000 Pulitzer pants and golf country clubs and you know, like 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:19.079 my first serious girlfriend heard she came from the Rand family. 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:21.520 Sorry I don't, I'm I hope I'm not going to 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:23.640 get her in trouble, like, you know, the Rand Corporation, 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.800 Like that's her posse. Her family and her dad owned 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:29.920 a fleet of oil tankers. So that's my first serious girlfriend, 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.079 my second serious girlfriend. Her grandfather was Bill Hewlett, who 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:36.160 started Hewlett Packard. So it's like a level of wealth 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:38.920 that you can't imagine. And my mom and I were 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.600 on food stamps and welfare and I would come home 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:44.920 and she would be, you know, like smoking pot in 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.839 the kitchen with her Hell's Angel's boyfriend. And was there 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.840 music in the house constantly? And what music did you hear? Everything? 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:57.120 My mom had the most remarkable taste in books, which 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:01.000 is Germaine. As we're at the l a Time festival books. 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:06.600 That's what's called right yeah? Um? And so I mean 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:09.720 because she had been a literature major at Barnard, and 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:13.160 you graduated from Barnard, she eventually graduated from East Khan 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:18.199 and Dan Barry. Um, so she went back. It shows 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:20.800 a level of perseverance despite being a you know what, 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:24.240 Hell's Angel dating hippie. Yeah, when she was really aeradite 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:28.680 and academic. She just liked bad boys. Um. So. But 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:31.920 her book collection, I mean, like I grew up reading 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:36.160 Faulkner and Rambo and Dyukowski when I was twelve years old, 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:38.599 just because she didn't turn them on to you just 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:40.439 saw him on the shelf and you pulled them down. 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:42.880 I was talking about this earlier with a nice man 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:45.280 at PBS. I was like, when you're twelve years old 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:47.840 and your board in the middle of the summer and 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.400 there's nothing good on TV. You go to the bookshelf 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:54.040 and you see as a as I lay dying and 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:56.880 you're like, that sounds cool, or you know, like a 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:58.920 Season in Hell by Rambo and you're like, oh, I 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:01.360 want to read that, or you know Bukowski, you know, 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:03.720 like every book he wrote has an amazing title. So 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:08.560 I just started reading compulsively. And her record collection was 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:13.960 everything from I don't know, divor Jack to Coltrane, Like 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.880 she still maintains that I was conceived. Well, my mom 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:22.120 and my dad were listening to Love Supreme now that 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:29.120 whether it's two or not, who cares? So yeah, So 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:33.000 I mean Crossy Seals and Nash and Young to Stravinsky 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:37.280 to Bruce Springsteen too. She loved like a lot of 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:39.920 late sixties folk music like It's a Wonderful Day or 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:43.839 It's a Beautiful Day, Beautiful's a Beautiful Day and Donovan 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.600 and Jefferson Airplane and Nick Drake. So it was like she, 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:51.559 I grew up with an amazing record collection, just so eclectic. 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.200 And what point did you start to play music? I 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.959 started studying music when I was around nine. What was 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.560 the impetus for that? That I loved music and I 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:04.200 just wanted to do anything I could to be around it? 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.440 And was this private lessons? Were in school or by yourself? Well, 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.720 my mom played piano and she dated a bunch of 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:14.600 itinerant musicians, um one of whom was a pedal steel player. 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:16.640 And I tried to learn pedal steel at ten and 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:18.559 I couldn't like it was just too like as your 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:22.640 feet are doing things. So one of her boyfriends had 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.240 left a guitar behind, and so I started playing guitar. 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.920 And she had a friend who taught guitar lessons. And 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:32.920 he was the most idiosyncratic music teacher because he played 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:35.839 in a metal band. You know. He was one of 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:39.480 those like Deely Deally dud thinks Chris Rasola like a 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:44.040 phenomenal virtual so guitarist. But he loved music theory, bok 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.760 and jazz fusion. So he instilled in me like we 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.920 would study scales and deconstruct Bach cantatas and then learn 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:54.480 how to play purple, Hayes, This is all on the guitar. 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:58.360 On the guitar, that's not easy to do on the guitar. Yeah, 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:00.560 and so you learned how to we music, and you 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:02.960 still read music to this day about as well as 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.400 I can read French, meaning like I can figure it 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:09.120 out if you hold a gun to my head. But 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.679 like like friends of mine who can cite read I'm 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:16.280 sure you know those people, like like you put rockman 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:17.640 and Off in front of them, put them to the 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:20.559 piano and they start playing it. Like, there's absolutely no 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:22.080 way I could even begin to do that. It would 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.200 take me ten minutes to get like the first stanza. Well, 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:28.000 in my family, we started with piano lessons, and then 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.040 of course the folk are and the Beatles came along 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:32.680 and we picked up guitar. But the issue was always practicing. 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:40.679 Did you practice? I practice constantly because I was untroubled 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:43.959 by much having much of a social life or a 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:47.520 dating life. Did you have friends. I had a few friends, 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:51.520 but not too many, so I had a lot of 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:54.200 free time growing up, you know, especially summertimes, like you 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.559 know what's like in Fairfield County, Like all the rich 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.160 kids go to country clubs, they go to Switzerland, they 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:03.280 go to islands like Fisher's Island and Martha's Vineyard and 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:06.440 Nantuckett and I stay home and watch TV, listen to records, 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:09.880 play guitar, drive my bike to Johnny's Records to look 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:12.320 at records that someday I might be able to afford. 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:18.080 So you're in school, your mother is highly educated. What 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:20.120 kind of track are you on? Are you thinking I'm 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.560 going to go to college? I can't wait to drop out? 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:25.040 What's going through your head? Well? When I went, I 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:28.120 went to Yukon Stores and Stanford. I didn't know that 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:30.480 I didn't graduate. And did you go for I went 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.280 to Yukon Stores for a year, went to Yukon Stamford. 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:39.200 This is means a lot to us um and I 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:41.800 went to study purchase for a little while. Let's let's 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.360 go back. You're at Yukon Stores. Yeah, isn't that like 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:47.640 a square peg in a round hole? Obviously that's why 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.000 I didn't stay. I mean, also I was having I 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:52.480 was having terrible panic attacks and I had to leave anyway. 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:57.760 But like Yukon Stores is known for basketball and agriculture, 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:00.800 and it's it's hard to say about but it's literally 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:04.120 in the middle of nowhere, Connecticut. Yeah, it's sort of 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:08.280 like the let's by way of comparison, like the outskirts 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:13.320 of Fresno right now. Um So I was there and 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:15.840 this was the early eighties, and all I wanted was 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:17.680 to be in New York or be in London or 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:19.280 be in Los Angeles and be a part of a 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.160 music scene. So I would listen to music and I 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:26.760 would go to classes. But being in this small farm town, 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:30.800 it was very frustrating, and then you ended up going 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:33.360 to purchase to purchase. I was a philosophy major the 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.880 whole time, so if it weren't for music, I sort 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:39.960 of thought that my life plan was going to be 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:44.280 teaching philosophy at some community college somewhere. So you went 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.960 to like three or four colleges. If you were to 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:49.160 go back today, like in the Bruce Springsteen record where 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:50.880 his mother says, never would you like to go back, 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.080 how much would you have to do to graduate? I'll 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.560 probably take four years of classes. Like I don't know, 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:58.720 I mean, I wouldn't even know, like because this was 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:01.680 this was back in the forties, so like you know, 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:04.680 they kept records on parchment exactly. That's one of my 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:06.520 bad dreams. You gonna wake up one day and they'll say, 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:08.440 we have no record if you graduate from college. You 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:13.600 did go, but um, so are you going consistently from 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:16.680 one college to another? I was like twenty Yukon stores 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:21.200 dropped out about a year of like drinking and learning 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:24.760 how to DJ, went back to Yukon, Stamford dropped out, 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:27.280 went back to Sunny Purchase, and then at that point 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.440 I started to have more of a job as a DJ. 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:32.800 So I didn't let's say, so, if we're in the 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:36.880 early eighties, Okay, what does it look like being a DJ? 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:43.120 Then well, uh, it was not very glamorous. Remember port Chester, 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.720 New York, of course, holl of the capital of the 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:49.600 Capital Theater, which is now back up in the running. 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:53.760 Everyone's right over the border from Connecticut, and it had 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:56.440 a very special place I'm assuming when you were growing 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.240 up as well, because the drinking age in Connecticut was 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:02.440 twenty one and the drinking age in New York was eighteen, 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:05.760 and port Chester was the first town over the border, 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:09.200 so it was filled with kids from Connecticut like crashing 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:12.920 their cars and getting STDs. Um so I got a 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:16.320 job djaying at a bar right by the Port Chester 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:20.000 train station on Monday nights for twenty five dollars a night, 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:22.399 so I was working for six hours. No one was 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:24.760 there except like a couple of like bottomed out methodone 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.520 addicts and what would you play? I didn't even have 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:29.600 that many records, so I'd play the same things over 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:33.560 and over again. So it was the Clash and Joy 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:37.200 Division and some early New Order records and Hank Williams 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:42.600 and Johnny Cash basically like whatever records I had access to. Okay, 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.520 so you did that, You went back to college, and 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:47.400 you're at Sony Purchase. At one point you say, I'm 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:51.240 done with school. I just because d jaying. I started djaying. 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:53.880 Time passed and I got a job djaying in New York, 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:57.080 and I realized, oh, a little bit slower. How did 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.840 you get a job dj in the city. Well, because 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:07.080 you know Saturday Night Fever, of course, And Saturday Fever 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:10.080 is a fascinating movie if you haven't seen it recently. 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:14.399 It's unrelenting, lee dark like. It's how that became like 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:16.800 a pop culture phenomena. I have no idea because it's 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:20.159 super bleak things. That was based on an article by 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:24.359 Nick Cone in New York magazine and he was on Deadline. 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:27.640 He completely made it up. It wasn't true whatsoever. Although 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.560 a great article in a great movie, and but it's about, 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:32.960 you know, these kids in Brooklyn and Queens who just 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:36.600 longed to get to Manhattan. But that existed not just 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.280 in Brooklyn, Queens, but in Long Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.480 upstate New York. Like if you lived within the sort 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:45.760 of periphery of Manhattan, all you wanted to do was 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:49.080 go to Manhattan to hang out, to work, to live. 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.480 At least that was the case with me. So in 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:55.320 the late eighties, I started dropping off demo tapes at 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:58.600 different nightclubs in New York and rejected everywhere. And I 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.040 started giving demo tapes to ray EO stations like Kiss 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:03.840 and BLS same thing, I mean, like a skinny a 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:09.119 little bit slower. They would be others. People's material to 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:12.840 the radio was material that you had created. Both. I 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:14.760 would drop off these cassettes that had like a hip 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:17.480 hop mix, a house music mix, and my own music. 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.199 And I also sent it to tons of labels and 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:27.480 I got one response from Hollywood Records, the Peter Paterno 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.960 and this is and I got a letter from Hollywood 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:35.240 Records so clearly, and it said we do not accept 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:44.000 unsolicited Yeah, we'll take a quick break and come back 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:47.560 with more of my conversation with Moby, recorded at usc 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:50.399 as part of the l A Times Festival of Books. 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:56.320 This week we're talking to DJ Moby. Last week we 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:00.119 had Chev Gordon supermnch For that, we had job Is 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:03.520 Martin and Shirley Manson and so many other people. You 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:06.600 gotta go back into the archives. You haven't heard these things, 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:09.600 so download from tune in the Apple podcast or your 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:14.119 podcast player of choice. Okay, let's get back to my 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:19.720 conversation with Moby in front of a live studio audience. Okay, 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:22.280 but a little bit slower. When did you start to 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.359 record your own music? In early eighties? I stole a 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.080 four track from the A V Department at my high school. 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:30.840 I gave it back, so okay. I bought the real 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:34.439 like a like a Fostex, very very like school had 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.800 a FoST that's amazing, task camera Fostex. Well they were 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:40.600 two fostests. Was first intend to task cam, but people 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:42.439 were buying them. They certainly didn't. I did not go 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:43.800 to a low rent school, but we didn't have that 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.359 kind of equipment. Yeah, somehow. Well. I was also in 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.800 the like when like if you watch family Guy, the 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:52.639 nerdiest guy, it always has a hat that says A V. 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:55.840 We were. I was in the A V Department, you know, 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.800 like wheeling the film strip, you know, the overhead projector 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:00.480 to classes and setting it up up and make sure 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:04.439 it's clean. And I would eat my lunch in a 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:07.760 closet in the A V department, not get like, I 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:10.639 put joy Division on my walkman and eat my peanut 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:12.600 butter and jelly sandwich in a closet And it was great. 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:17.800 But where were we? The fas? But for those people 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:19.800 don't know, it was a real breakthrough because there are 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:21.679 four trucks on a cassette and the fast Tex was 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:24.000 the first machine that allowed you to seek up and 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:26.400 record on all four trucks, which was a huge break 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:31.320 It was egalitary, relatively egalitarian multitrack technology. And remember the 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:33.680 first time I turned it on and used it. Because 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.240 I had a matel drum machine. Mattel made a drum 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:39.560 machine called the Simsonics. I forgot that and so I 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:43.359 had my Mattel Simsonics drum machine. My borrowed face text 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:46.800 a guitar and a microphone that I also sort of 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:49.560 borrowed from the A V. Department, and I was able 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:53.919 to make music on my own and it was, you know, 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.080 like the scales fell from my eyes and suddenly, you know, 0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:58.840 I was like I could I don't need to wait 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:01.520 around for other musician, Like, can just do this by myself? 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:05.440 So yes, of the late eighties. Okay, So when you're 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:08.719 making music at first, what kind of music are you making? Uh, 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:14.159 A little bit of everything, sort of inspired by some 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:17.159 of the singer songwriter like Roddy Frame from ast at Camera, 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:22.000 The Smith's The Cure, but also electronic music, you know, 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:27.680 inspired craftwork by craftwork. Um. The demo tape that I 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:30.639 got sent around they got rejected was actually my singer 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:36.119 songwriter stuff, so it wasn't retrospect. How good was no? 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:39.760 This is great, raving great back and forth in retrospect? 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:44.760 How good was that stuff? Oh? Totally mediocre? Because that's 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:46.359 one of the things people send you stuff Originally they 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:47.960 think it's so great, and if they have to make it, 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:50.040