Five of the strangest things Moby has ever said: “A sevensome”
Resplendent with the honed aesthetic of a man capable of telekinesis, Moby is probably the only musician presently studied as part of the GCSE music syllabus to have had what he described as “a sevensome” (who’s keeping count when it goes beyond four?).
Its little titbits like the proud public exposure of a sevensome that which would seem to imply that the answer to his famous question: “Why does my heart feel so bad?” is quite simply: ‘A sex and coke-induced stroke’. He even, maddeningly, went so far as to say that he “drank a shot of vodka” then pulled his “flaccid penis out” of his pants, and “casually walked past Trump, trying to brush the edge of his jacket” with his exposed cock.
Yes, the electronic musician certainly knows how to pull out a wild (if not problematic) quote. In fact, Moby is famous for giving confessional interviews in which he peels back layer upon layer of bizarre crap to reveal a soft, gooey, and undeniably nutty centre. I mean, come on, we’re talking about a man whose favourite restaurant is Venice Beach’s Cafe Gratitude, an establishment where a Caesar salad goes under the name ‘I Am Dazzling’.
It’s just too easy to imagine Moby, the light bouncing off his porcelain dome, ordering a whole wheat samosa with the line: “I am dynamic”. Such utterances typify the New Yorker who is legally named Richard Melville Hall. He’s a peculiar fellow whose filter is as leaky as a foam faucet.
So, in this list, we’ll be looking at the Mobiest things Moby has ever said. Some of these comments reveal worrying levels of narcissism, some cast a light on his drug-fuelled younger days, and some are just plain batshit crazy. But, they’re all Moby, and that’s what matters. Behold and beware…
Five madcap Moby statements:
When he wanted to do a ‘Forest Gump’
In 1994, Moby revealed a burning desire to leave the world of breakfast bars and the world wide web behind and return to a simpler way of life, he said: “One of the only major goals I have for my life is to just start walking, To not have anything and just start walking and see what happens: where I end up, who I have to stay with, where I can get food, who I talk to, whatever.”
The question of how much cocaine a man would need to sustain that kind of cardio is a question that I’m sure has crossed Moby’s mind from time to time. Still, it’ll be interesting to see if he does indeed turn out to be the next Henry David Thoreau or Jack Kerouac. But, for the sake of book publishers everywhere, I hope not.
When he did cocaine with pyjama-clad strippers
In 2002, Moby sidestepped into the world of business and set up his own cafe, Teany, with his girlfriend, Kelly Tisdale. It offered 98 blends of loose-leaf tea, including ‘Lover’s Leap Ceylon’, ‘Smoky Russian Caravan’, and ‘Hairy Crab Oolong’. However, his lack of business acumen caught up with him, and the brew-based restaurant closed down in 2015.
However, before the 2009 fire, which tore a hole in the building (probably due to the ‘Smoky Russian Caravan’), it all seemed to be going pretty well. Shortly after it opened its doors, Moby wrote a blog post in which he described shopping for a Christmas tree to put in the cafe: ”We went out in my tricked out black Bentley and had my coterie of bodyguards pick out gold plated Christmas trees while we did blow with pyjama-clad strippers.” Snow was falling, indeed.
When he had a relapse from Veganism
Aside from a notable historical figure who I’d rather not mention, Moby is probably the most famous vegan on the planet, a position he holds purely because he won’t bloody stop talking about it. After spending much of his young life consuming huge quantities of cocaine and alcohol, Moby decided to opt for clean living, cutting out drugs, booze, meat, and dairy from his diet.
In an attempt to distance himself from negative influences, he bought a castle in LA called ‘Wolf’s Lair’ but quickly found the cavernous rooms provided the perfect space for decadent degeneration. In a 2018 interview, Moby described the moment he relapsed: ”I went out and bought $300-worth of cocaine and a case of vodka and a big bag of McDonald’s and put it all into a blender.” Surely, that would render each element useless, but each to their own, I guess.
When he wrestled with his shadow-self
Moby is two parts electronic producer and one part frustrated philosophy undergraduate. He is a unique blend of a party animal, intellectual, and unknown oddity. I suppose that’s what makes him so mesmerising. It’s just impossible to tell which half of his personality is going to dominate the conversation in interviews. But during one notable discussion with GQ, it was obvious that the philosophy student was loose and out of control.
Answering the interviewer’s question of why he decided to leave in a vocal note which was clearly out of his range on his latest synth bath LP, Moby explained that he’d been looking to imbue the record with a sense of imperfection. “Sorry if this is a little esoteric,” Moby began.
Before continuing in the manner of a man who wasn’t sorry about being esoteric at all, “When I was growing up – and Nietzsche talked about, ‘Be careful if you stare in the void too long, it’ll stare back at you,’ and Jung talked about the shadow self – it always seemed like the hidden self was dark and menacing. What if it’s just embarrassing? What if the shadow self is actually just the part of you that farted on a date in high school, or did karaoke badly in front of someone you had a crush on?”
When he tried to convince the world that he invented the iPhone
When Apple released the iPhone, Moby went on a crusade to get the recognition he felt he deserved for the new-fangled kit (soon to take over the world and, arguably, upend it). “I’m hesitant to talk about this because it sounds either like nonsense, or self-aggrandising,” he began before going on to be self-aggrandising.
The story Moby told was that, when Apple launched iTunes, he told Jimmy Dickson, a senior staff member at the tech firm, that the company needed to release an MP3 player alongside the software. Apple, who had been burnt before, weren’t so keen. But then, as Moby explained: “A year or two later they brought me to a hotel room at the Crosby in New York, handed me the first iPod and said: ‘Steve wanted you to have this.’ I said, ‘You do know at some point this is going to have a camera and a phone attached to it?’ And they laughed at me and said that could never happen.”
