Richard Melville Hall (born September 11, 19651), better known by his stage name Moby is an American DJ, singer-songwriter and musician.
He plays keyboard, guitar, bass guitar and drums. After eight top 40 singles in the UK in the 1990s he released the album Play, in 1999, which sold more than 10 million copies worldwide2. His follow up albums, 18, Hotel, and Last Night sold 6 million copies and have achieved gold and platinum status in over 30 countries.
Early life and name
Hall was born in Harlem, New York, and raised by his mother in Darien, Connecticut.
According to Hall, his middle name and the nickname "Moby" were given to him by his parents because of an ancestral relationship to Moby Dick author Herman Melville: "The basis for Richard Melville Hall – and for Moby – is that supposedly Herman Melville was my great-great-great-granduncle."3
He has also released music under the names Voodoo Child4, Schaumgummi5, and as a member of the bands Vatican Commandos, AWOL, Caeli Seoul and Gin Train1. He performs frequently in the New York club scene, often at events known as Degenerates.6
Music career
Early years
Moby started playing music when he was nine years old, originally studying classical guitar and music theory, and eventually learning piano and drums.
From 1982 to 1985 Moby was in a hardcore punk band called the Vatican Commandos, who released an EP called Hit Squad for God. He was also in a Joy Division-inspired post-punk group called AWOL, who released an eponymous album in 1983.
After years of pursuing a record deal he signed a recording contract with Instinct Records in 1989. During this time, Moby lived in an abandoned factory in a crack-infested neighborhood in Stamford, Connecticut, and his loft in the abandoned factory had neither running water nor heat.citation needed
Go & Rise to Fame (1991-1993)
His first single for Instinct was "Mobility," but it was the second single, "Go," a progressive house track using the string line from "Laura Palmer's Theme" from the TV drama Twin Peaks, which reached the UK top ten in October 1991 and earned him his first appearance on Top of the Pops. Some of his other singles in 1992 and 1993 were "Next Is The E", "Thousand" and "Voodoo Child."1
In 1991 and 1992, he remixed the The B-52's, The Prodigy, Orbital, Erasure, Michael Jackson, and Ten City.
In 1992 he toured with The Prodigy, Richie Hawtin, and John Acquaviva.
Everything Is Wrong, Animal Rights & I Like to Score (1993–1998)
In 1993 Moby signed with Mute Records and released an EP entitled Move. This became his second appearance on Top of the Pops. During this time he also went on tour with Orbital and Aphex Twin in North America.
He then released his first album, Everything Is Wrong, on Mute Records in 1995. Early copies (in the UK at least) came with a special bonus CD called Underwater. This was a 43-minute five-track instrumental ambient CD. Everything Is Wrong earned early critical praise (Spin Magazine named it Album of The Year) and some commercial success. He followed this up in early 1996 with the double album Everything Is Wrong—Mixed and Remixed. In 1995 Moby also headlined the second stage at Lollapalooza, playing alongside Beck, Sonic Youth, and Pavement.
In 1996 he released a punk rock album called Animal Rights and toured Europe with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden. Moby usually writes all his own music, occasionally with collaborators, but Animal Rights included a cover version of Mission of Burma's "That's When I Reach for My Revolver". The single "Come on Baby" from Animal Rights was Moby's third Top of the Pops performance. It was notable for its very aggressive look and sound.
In 1997, he released I Like to Score, a collection of his music that had been used in movies. Among those tracks were an updated version of the James Bond Theme used for the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, and a cover of "New Dawn Fades" by Joy Division which had appeared (without vocals) in Michael Mann's Heat.
Moby performs a rare DJ set at NASA Rewind 04-03-2004 in NYC
Play, 18 and Worldwide Success (1999–2004)
In 1999 Moby released the album Play. The album had moderate sales after its release, but eventually went on to sell over nine million records worldwide.citation needed Every song on the album was licensed internationally to various films, advertisements, and TV shows, as well as independent films and non-profit groups. Moby performed three times on Top of the Pops with singles from the album. One of the collaborations on the album was "South Side", featuring Gwen Stefani. Play mixes songs from Alan Lomax's 1993 Atlantic recording "Sounds of the South: A Musical Journey From the Georgia Sea Islands to the Mississippi Delta." For the song "Natural Blues", Moby mixes "Trouble So Hard" from the Alan Lomax, Sounds of the South compilation.7 8
In July 2001 Moby:PlaytheDVD was released. Produced by Moby and Jeff Rogers (Swell) the DVD was nominated for a 2002 Grammy award. The DVD included various sections: Live on TV, most of the videos (excluding Southside w/Gwen Stefani), Give An Idiot a Camcorder (Moby was given a camcorder and the tape was later edited by Tara Bethune-Leaman) and an 88 minute Moby MegaMix of all the remixes created for the album Play. The Mega Mix was accompanied by visuals created in Toronto at Crush led by director Kathi Prosser.
In 2002 Moby released the follow up to Play, 18, which earned gold and platinum awards in over 30 countries, and sold more than four million copies. Moby toured extensively for both Play and 18, playing well over 500 shows in the course of four years.
He founded the Area:One Festival in 2001, a popular touring festival that features an eclectic range of musical genres. The Area:One tour featured: Outkast, Moby, New Order, Incubus, Nelly Furtado, and Paul Oakenfold. Area2 tour (2002) featured David Bowie, Moby, Blue Man Group, Busta Rhymes, and Carl Cox.
In 2001, Moby also earned the ire of rapper Eminem after Moby called Eminem's music misogynist and homophobic; Eminem later satirized Moby (among others) in Without Me, declaring "Nobody listens to techno!" The two got into a confrontation at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards, along with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.9
In the next few years, Moby co-wrote "Is It Any Wonder" with Sophie Ellis-Bextor, remixed the Beastie Boys, David Bowie, Nas and Metallica, produced and co-wrote the track "Early Mornin'" for Britney Spears' fourth studio album "In the Zone", and collaborated with Public Enemy on "Make Love, Fuck War", which was released prior to the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Moby also had his song "Extreme Ways" used in the Jason Bourne movies. Although not a hit when it was released, "Extreme Ways" has gone on to become Moby's most downloaded song.
In 2003 Moby headlined the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury. In 2004 Moby worked on the John Kerry presidential campaign, and also worked extensively with liberal group moveon.org.
Hotel, Last Night and The Little Death (2005-2008)
In 2005 Moby released Hotel. Instead of his relying on samples for vocals, all of the vocals and instruments were performed live in the studio, by Moby and vocalist Laura Dawn.
Hotel spawned two of Moby's biggest European hits, "Lift Me Up" and "Slipping Away," both of which were #1 European singles. Hotel went on to earn gold and platinum awards in over twenty countries, with global sales of over two million copies.
In 2006 Moby also acted in the movie Pittsburgh, with Jeff Goldblum and Illeana Douglas.
In 2006 He accepted an offer to score the soundtrack for Richard Kelly's 2007 movie Southland Tales because he was a fan of Kelly's previous film, Donnie Darko.
In 2007 he produced and performed on The Bongos' remake of "The Bulrushes," for the special edition re-issue of their debut album, Drums Along The Hudson (Cooking Vinyl Records), and appeared in the promo video of the song.
In 2007 Moby launched a website entitled mobygratis.com. mobygratis provides free music for film students and independent and non-profit filmmakers. It is a non-profit venture, with any/all revenue earned by mobygratis.com going to the Humane Society/HSUS.
In 2007 Moby also started a rock band, The Little Death, NYC, with his friends Laura Dawn, Daron Murphy, and Aaron Brooks.
In 2008 Moby released Last Night, an eclectic album of electronic dance music inspired by a night out in his New York neighborhood (the Lower East Side). The singles from Last Night include "Alice," "Disco Lies," "I Love To Move In Here," and "Ooh Yeah." 10
In collaboration with The Sunday Times, Moby released an exclusive mix album titled "A Night in NYC" which appeared on the newspaper's cover. It was a compilation of Moby tracks spanning his career and included video from his new album Last Night.
Wait for Me (2009-)
In a November 2008 interview Moby spoke about the follow up album to Last Night, which he is currently working on. "I want to make a really emotional, beautiful record. I don't know if I will succeed, but my goal is to make something very personal, very melodic, very beautiful11." The album, titled Wait for Me, is expected to be released in June 200912 13.
On the 14th of April, Moby confirmed that the album would be released on the 30th of June 14. "I recorded the album here in my studio on the lower east side (although 'studio' always seems like an overly grand word for a bunch of equipment set up in a small bedroom). In the past I've worked in large and small studios, but for this record I wanted to record everything at home by myself," said Moby on his journal. 15. "I started working on the album about a year ago, and the creative impetus behind the record was hearing a David Lynch speech at BAFTA, in the UK. David was talking about creativity, and to paraphrase, about how creativity in and of itself, and without market pressures, is fine and good. It seems as if too often an artists or musicians or writers creative output is judged by how well it accommodates the marketplace, and how much market share it commands and how much money it generates. In making this record I wanted to focus on making something that I loved, without really being concerned about how it might be received by the marketplace. As a result it's a quieter and more melodic and more mournful and more personal record than some of the records I've made in the past."16.
Moby and David Lynch discussed the recording process of the album on Lynch's online channel, David Lynch Foundation Television Beta. The entire interview can be viewed for free here.
The first single off the album is Shot in the Back of the Head, and the video for which was aptly directed by Moby's muse, David Lynch himself.17. The single is available for free download from Moby's website, Moby.com.
Ken Thomas (Sigur Rós) mixed Wait for Me.18 According to Moby, "mixing the record with him (Thomas) was really nice, as he's creatively open to trying anything (like recording an old broken bakelite radio and running it through some broken old effects pedals to see what it would sound like. It's on the record as a :45 second long track called 'Stock Radio'). And as a geeky technical aside, we mixed the record using purely analog equipment in true stereo, akin to how records were mixed in the late '60s(some of the songs sound pretty amazing in headphones, if I do say so myself..."19
Moby plans to tour for the new album with a full band again, something that occurred rarely during Moby's Last Night promotion, except for selected festival performances.20
Collaborations
Moby has collaborated live with many of his heroes while on tour or at fundraisers. He has performed "Walk on the Wild Side" with Lou Reed, "Me and Bobby McGee" with Kris Kristofferson, "Heroes" with David Bowie, "Helpless" with Bono and Michael Stipe, "New Dawn Fades" with New Order, "Make Love, Fuck War" with Public Enemy, "Whole Lotta Love" with Slash, and "That's When I Reach For My Revolver" with Mission Of Burma, and made two duets with the french singer Mylène Farmer (the one "Slipping Away (Crier La vie) in 2006 and the other "Looking For My Name" in 2008).
In 2007, he became one of the few well-known commercial artists to produce work for a video game, collaborating with DJ Oscar the Punk on all three tracks of The Bioshock EP, included with limited edition copies of the Xbox 360 game Bioshock.
RIAA Criticism
On June 20th, 2009, Moby posted a blog in response to the RIAA's decision to sue Minnesota suburban mom Jammie Thomas-Rasset for $2,000,000 for illegally downloading music. He called this "utter nonsense" and stated "the RIAA needs to be disbanded."21
Personal life and faith
He lives in New York City's Little Italy, where he has lived for a decade in a small apartment in a five-story building across the street from David Bowie. Until recently he co-owned a small restaurant and tea shop called TeaNY, where he occasionally waited tables. He also organized the Little Idiot Collective, a group of artists.
In an interview with Psychology Today, Moby stated that when he was 19, he tried LSD and began suffering from panic attacks. He claims that he no longer experiences them as frequently as he used to, but occasionally he will "have too much caffeine, be stressed out about work and be in a relationship that's not going well, and it will happen again." He is very open about this in an attempt to help fans who suffer from similar panic disorders.22
When asked about drugs, he responded: "I'm sort of a libertarian. People should be able to do what they want. I ultimately defer the wisdom to an adult to make their own choices. If someone wants to do drugs, I think it's their own business and not the business of the state."23
In a 2003 BBC interview, Moby spoke about his encounter with the Gospels, "In about 1985 I read the teachings of Christ and was instantly struck by the idea that Christ was somehow divine. When I say I love Christ and love the teachings of Christ I mean that in the most simple and naïve and subjective way. I'm not saying I'm right, and I certainly wouldn't criticize anyone else's beliefs."24
In a September 20, 2006 audio interview with Sojourners Magazine, he says, "I read the New Testament, specifically the gospels and I was struck at their divinity, feeling that humans could not have figured this out on their own. We're just not bright enough."25 He also discusses his faith on his own weblog. On January 19, 2007, in his reaction to seeing Alexandra Pelosi's Friends of God, a film about evangelism in the United States, Moby writes, "The movie reminded me just how utterly disconnected the agenda of the evangelical Christian right is from the teachings of Christ."26
Charity
Moby is an advocate for a variety of causes, working with MoveOn and The Humane Society, among others. His MobyGratis.com website, which licenses film music for free for non-profit and independent films, funnels proceeds 27 from films which do go on to produce revenue to The Humane Society. He created MoveOn Voter Fund's Bush in 30 Seconds contest along with singer/ MoveOn Cultural Director Laura Dawn and MoveOn Executive Director Eli Pariser. The music video for the song "Disco Lies" from From Last Night has heavy anti-meat industrial themes.
He also actively engages in nonpartisan activism, and serves on the Board of Directors of Amend.org28, a nonprofit that implements injury prevention programs in Africa.
Moby is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function (IMNF), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing scientific inquiry on music and the brain and to developing clinical treatments to benefit people of all ages29. He has also performed on various benefit concerts to help increase awareness for music therapy and raise funds for the Institute. In 2004, he was honored with the IMNF’s "Music Has Power Award" for his advocacy of music therapy and for his dedication and support to its recording studio program.
He is an advocate of network neutrality and he testified before United States House of Representatives committee debating the issue in 2006.3031
In 2008 he participated in a music album called Songs for Tibet, to support Tibet and the current Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso.
Essays
Many Moby albums include essays that he has written himself in the inlay card. Everything Is Wrong had essays on over-consumption ("We use toxic chlorine bleach to keep our underpants white") and U.S. religious leaders ("Why doesn't the Christian right go out and spread mercy, compassion and selflessness?"), and The End of Everything discussed being a vegan ("Could you look an animal in the eyes and say to it, 'My appetite is more important than your suffering'?").
He was interviewed by Lucy Walker for a chapter in Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture (The MIT Press, 2008) edited by Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky.
Discography
Videography
See also
Biographies
References
- ^ a b c Moby's bio from his official website, accessed 25 April 2008
- ^ Jerry Armor, Moby didn't feel pressure to follow up 'Play', Yahoo! Music, viewed February 23, 2007.
- ^ Mark Scheerer: DJ Moby finds inspiration in old Southern music CNN.com, February 8, 2000
- ^ http://moby.org/reviews/idiot1.html
- ^ 'schaumgummi' | moby.com
- ^ http://www.moby.com/journal/archive/200812
- ^ [1]Sounds of the South: A Musical Journey From the Georgia Sea Islands to the Mississippi Delta, Various Artists, Compiled by Alan Lomax and released by Atlantic Records in 1993[2]UPC 075678249624
- ^ [3]Salon.com 1999 Interview with Moby
- ^ Eminem's Moby obsession backfires. San Diego Union Tribune. August 31, 2002. Accessed April 27, 2008
- ^ Mute Records http://www.mute.com
- ^ "Moby: The Fly Life". SuicideGirls.com. 3 November 2008. http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/Moby%3A+The+Fly+Life/. Retrieved on 2008-11-03. .
- ^ "moby journal: i just finished mixing my next record". 13 February 2009. http://www.moby.com/node/8481. Retrieved on 2009-03-23.
- ^ "moby journal: if you're in the music business". 19 March 2009. http://www.moby.com/node/8507. Retrieved on 2009-03-23.
- ^ http://www.moby.com/journal/2009-04-14/wait-for-me.html
- ^ http://www.moby.com/journal/2009-04-14/wait-for-me.html
- ^ http://www.moby.com/journal/2009-04-14/wait-for-me.html
- ^ http://www.moby.com/journal/2009-04-14/wait-for-me.html
- ^ http://www.moby.com/journal/2009-04-14/wait-for-me.html
- ^ http://www.moby.com/journal/2009-04-14/wait-for-me.html
- ^ http://www.moby.com/journal/2009-04-25/thanks-for-coming-issue-project-room-fun.html
- ^ http://www.moby.com/journal/2009-06-20/riaa-have-sued-jammie-thomas-rasset-minn.html
- ^ Psychology Today: The Sounds of Moby
- ^ Advocates for Self-Government - Libertarian Education
- ^ "Moby tells BBC World Service that his understanding of Christianity helped him achieve a new balance in life". bbc.co.uk 29.04.03
- ^ "Moby: Everything is complicated". John Potter's Sojourners Magazine audio interview with Moby, September 20, 2006.
- ^ "Moby's blog". Moby.com, Journal entry January 19, 2007.
- ^ "Moby: The Fly Life". SuicideGirls.com. 3 November 2008. http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/Moby%3A+The+Fly+Life/. Retrieved on 2008-11-03. .
- ^ About Amend.org Accessed May 26, 2008
- ^ About the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function
- ^ http://www.savetheinternet.com/moby.
- ^ http://www.freepress.net/news/15579.
External links
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Moby |
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| as Voodoo Child |
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| Persondata |
| NAME |
Moby |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES |
Hall, Richard Melville |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION |
Musician |
| DATE OF BIRTH |
September 11, 1965 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH |
Harlem, New York, United States |
| DATE OF DEATH |
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| PLACE OF DEATH |
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San Francisco bay area. I wanted to experiment with putting images to music and I ...&link=http://www.youtube.com/v/dBCkoDJkIOc&fs=1&hl=en&source=uds&autoplay=1&thumb=http://3.gvt0.com/vi/dBCkoDJkIOc/default.jpg&celebrity=Moby)
