Moby
Moby | |
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.jpg) Moby performing in 2018 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Richard Melville Hall September 11, 1965 New York City, U.S. |
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| Years active | 1983–present |
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| Website | moby |
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Richard Melville Hall (born September 11, 1965), known professionally as Moby, is an American musician, songwriter and animal rights activist. He has sold 20 million records worldwide. AllMusic considers him to be "among the most important dance music figures of the early 1990s, helping bring dance music to a mainstream audience both in the United States and the United Kingdom".[1]
After taking up guitar and piano at the age of nine, he played in several underground punk rock bands through the 1980s (Vatican Commandos, Flipper, Ultra Vivid Scene) before turning to electronic dance music. In 1989, he moved to New York City and became a prolific figure as a DJ, producer, and remixer. His 1991 single "Go" was his mainstream breakthrough, especially in Europe, where it peaked within the top ten of the charts in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Between 1992 and 1997 he scored eight top ten hits on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart including "Move (You Make Me Feel So Good)", "Feeling So Real", and "James Bond Theme (Moby Re-Version)". Throughout the decade he also produced music under various pseudonyms, released the critically acclaimed Everything Is Wrong (1995). His punk-oriented album Animal Rights (1996) alienated much of his fan base.[2]
Moby found commercial and critical success with his fifth album Play (1999), which, after receiving little recognition, became an unexpected global hit in 2000. It remains his highest selling album with 12 million copies sold.[3] Its seventh single, "South Side", featuring Gwen Stefani, appeared on the US Billboard Hot 100, reaching No. 14. Moby followed Play with albums of varied styles including electronic, dance, rock, and downtempo music, starting with 18 (2002), Hotel (2005), and Last Night (2008) and continuing with Wait for Me (2009), Destroyed (2011), and Innocents (2013). Returning to his musical roots, he then released two punk rock inspired albums with The Void Pacific Choir, 2016’s These Systems Are Failing and 2017’s More Fast Songs About the Apocalypse followed by the more melodic Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt (2018) and All Visible Objects (2020).
After a performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 2018, Moby was approached by a representative from Deutsche Grammophon and was offered the chance to record an orchestral album for the label. The result, 2021’s Reprise, saw him revisit his vast catalogue and rework some of his most well known tracks with new vocalists. Recorded with The Budapest Art Orchestra, the album was his highest-charting in over a decade, hitting the charts in 16 countries. The follow up album, Resound NYC (2023), featured more reworked tracks and more new vocalists.
Interspersed between these later albums were Moby’s explorations of ambient music, including the almost four-hour release Long Ambients 1: Calm. Sleep. (2016), Long Ambients 2 (2019), Live Ambients – Improvised Recordings Vol. 1 (2020), and Ambient 23 (2023), as well as the collaborative Always Centered at Night (2024). Moby continues to record and release albums.
In addition to his music career, Moby is known for his veganism and support for animal rights and humanitarian aid. In 2020 he founded Little Walnut Productions to support creative activism across film, TV, and theater projects. He is the author of four books, including a collection of his photography and two memoirs: Porcelain: A Memoir (2016) and Then It Fell Apart (2019).
Early life and influences
[edit]Richard Melville Hall was born September 11, 1965, in the neighborhood of Harlem in Manhattan, New York City. He is the son of Elizabeth McBride (née Warner), a medical secretary, and James Frederick Hall (1941–1967), a chemistry professor, who died in a car crash while drunk when Moby was two.[4][5][6][7] His father gave him the nickname 'Moby' three days after his birth as his parents considered Richard large for a newborn baby. The name was also a reference to the ancestry Hall says he was told by his family,[8][9] though he is not directly related to Herman Melville, author of Moby-Dick.[10]
Moby was raised by his mother, first in San Francisco from 1969 for a short period. He recalled being sexually abused by a staff member at his daycare during this time.[11] This was followed by a move to Darien, Connecticut,[12][13] living in a squat with "three or four other drug-addicted hippies, with bands playing in the basement."[14] The two then moved to Stratford, Connecticut, for a brief time.[15] His mother struggled to support her son, often relying on food stamps and government welfare.[4] They occasionally stayed with Moby's grandparents in Darien, but the affluence of the New York City suburb made him feel poor and ashamed.[14] Shortly before his mother's death in 1997, Moby learned from her that he has a half brother.[14] His first job was a caddy at a golf course when he was 13.[16]
Moby took up music at the age of nine.[17] He started on classical guitar and received piano lessons from his mother[8] before studying jazz, music theory, and percussion. In 1983, he became the guitarist in a hardcore punk band, the Vatican Commandos, playing on their debut EP Hit Squad for God.[18] Around this time he was the lead vocalist for Flipper for two days; Moby played bass for their reunion shows in the 2000s.[19] Moby formed a post-punk group named AWOL around the time of his eighteenth birthday. He is credited on their only release, a self-titled EP, as Moby Hall.[20]
In 1983, Moby graduated from Darien High School[21] and started a philosophy degree at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut. Around this time he had found the instruments he had learned "sonically limiting" and moved to electronic music.[22] He spun records at the campus radio station WHUS, which led to DJ work in local clubs and bars.[8] Moby grew increasingly unhappy at university, however, and transferred to State University of New York at Purchase, studying philosophy and photography, to try and renew his interest in studying. He dropped out in April 1984 to pursue DJing and music full-time, which started his interest in electronic dance music.[4][23][24] For two years he lived in a guest house in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he DJ'd at The Cafe, an under-21 nightclub at the back of a church.[25][26] In 1987, he started to send demos of his music to record labels in New York City; he failed to receive an offer, which led to a two-year period of "very fruitless labor".[26] He then moved into a semi-abandoned factory in Stamford, Connecticut, that had no bathroom or running water, but the free electricity supply allowed him to work on his music,[24] using a 4-track recorder, synthesizer, and drum machine.[27]
Moby cites the English band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) as "heroes", without whom he would never have begun making electronic music.[28][29] His other formative influences include Nick Drake, Suicide, Silver Apples, Eric B. & Rakim, and Public Enemy.[30]
Career
[edit]1989–1993: Signing with Instinct, "Go", and breakthrough
[edit]In 1989, Moby relocated to New York City with his close friend, artist Damian Loeb.[12][20] In addition to performing DJ sets in local bars and clubs, he played guitar in alternative rock group Ultra Vivid Scene and appeared in the video for their 1989 single "Mercy Seat".[31][32] In 1990, Moby joined industrial noise group Shopwell and played on their album Peanuts.[33]