Moby - das Interview
Marius von Holleben - Es ist kurz nach sieben, noch knapp eine Stunde bis zu Konzertbeginn. Ich sitze Backstage mit Moby im Volkshaus Zürich, der Mixer rattert. Es dauert einige Minuten bevor der kleine Mann mit dem grossen Sound seine Entsaftungs-Routine abgeschlossen hat (eine reiche Auswahl an Obs...
Just before the concert, how does it feel to be back on tour? Did you look forward to go back on stage after producing a record at home?
I've been on tour now since may, and it's a little bit like you almost become schizophrenic. Being on tour, you never really think, you're always going from on place to the next and you’re always very busy.The two things on tour, sitting around and being on stage are completely different. Backstage is boring, being on stage is exciting. It's just such a contrast. So one of my favorite things when I go home is to sleep in my own bed and to be able to open a window.
You produced your new album yourself and released it on your label `little idiot´. Do it your self – is that a new Philosophy?
It's just doing what I enjoy, because the major labels used to put a lot of pressure on artists to compromise in the interests of selling record. So the major label would actually go to an artist and say: You wanna do this one type of record but if we do it our way, we sell more records. So a lot of artists end up doing what the label wants. I realized two things. One is, no one buys records anyway, so there is no reason to compromise. Two, life is short and I'd like to be as honest as a musician as I can be. That means not pretending I'm something that I'm not.
I just feel like, that there is so much music and culture in the world, that’s pretending something it really isn’t. You know, like every Hip Hop artist pretends to be tough, every Indie rocker pretends to be cool and esoteric, every pop star pretends to be sexy. We are all just human. Every hip hopper gets scared and anxious, every Indie rocker desperately wants to sell more records and every pop star at times feels fat, ugly and stupid. This is who I am, this is the music I’d like to make, I hope people like it, but if they don’t, that’s ok!
What would be your advice?
My advice is very simply to do what you love. Because if you do what you love, it increases the chances, that it’ll be good. And it also increases the chance, that other people will like it. For musicians who actually want to make a living as a musician, they have to learn how to do a lot of different things. Just being a base player for instance is not enough anymore. But if you can dj, produce and remix, means you can actually make a living. The times of putting a record out and selling millions of copies, those days are gone. Except for rare artists, like for someone like 'Duffy', it just doesn’t happen anymore.
The new album `Wait for me´ is much more melodic, almost melancholic, compared to your last releases. Why?
Simply, because I really love sad music, you know, happy music is great. I listen to something like brown sugar by the Rolling Stones, that’s a happy song. But the music that always meant the most to me is music that has that quality of sadness to it, that quality of melancholy to it. So for this album, I wanted to focus on that.
There is a theory called `mood management´, which refers to peoples ability to influence their own mood, using various methods. Are you using music as such a tool?
I think it's interesting; everybody on this planet uses music that way. Even if they don’t know it, they do. Sometimes really angry music is therapeutic and sometimes really sad music is therapeutic, too. It's one of the nice things about having an IPod. It's basically a medicine chest. Whatever you want, it's just there waiting for you.The amazing thing about music though is, that it technically doesn’t exist. It’s the only art form that you can't touch. There is technically no such thing as music because all it is, is moving air a little differently but yet people use it to get married, use it to have sex, they use it for funerals they use it when they have military parades or when they try to get armies to go into battles. It makes people dance, it makes people cry but all it is, is air moving a little bit differently.
You once said that America would be past its prime. You supported Obama’s campaign for President. With him in charge now, would you still stick to your statement?
The interesting thing about America is that it has the ability to reinvent itself, it’s constantly changing. To me that's the only good thing about America.
We have the fattest people and we have the healthiest people. We have the most rigid, conservative people and we have the largest porn industry in the world. It s the only country in the world that I know of where people freeze to death in winter and die of heat stroke in the summer. It's an insane country. The most dangerous thing about America is its love of ignorance. Americans really love ignorance. They love simple answers to complicated questions and that's very dangerous. That's why George Bush was president for eight years, because he is not very smart and that's why Americans trusted him. I remember in 2004 when John Carry was running for president. People did a pole of voters and a lot of voters said they didn't trust John Carry because he seamed too intellectual (!).
I like America. It's an interesting place. I think it's predominantly a dangerous country thou. Because it's very provincial and it s very ignorant but it also has a huge military. And that is terrifying. It really is like an angry ignorant child with a bunch of weapons.
Growing up as a dirt poor kid in New York, you are a world famous star touring the world, today. Would you say you’ve become wiser over the years and is that important to you?
I hope that when I've gotten older, I've gotten wiser. I don t know. I mean, the base of wisdom is admitting that you don't know. The universe is so complicated; there is no way that we can know anything. That’s the existential crises: How do you respond to the fact that we are living in this universe that is huge and ancient and unknowable. It either drives you crazy or you just accept it and try having a nice time and try being nice to other people. If you look at very wise enlightened people over the years, they all tend to agree on certain things.On one, be nice to other people. Two, don’t take yourself too seriously. Three, try not to engage an unethical behavior.
Sounds a bit like Buddhism?
The funny thing about Buddhism is, it is not a religion and it was never supposed to be a religion. If you are interested there is a great book by Steven Bachelor, it's called " Buddhism without Beliefs". It's great because he basically says that Christianity is a religion and that it worships god. Islam is a religion and it worships Allah. But Buddhism is like a self-help thing. It supposed to enable you to look at the world as it really is and trying to respond to it better. I think it was never supposed to be a dogmatic religion.
You once said that you could use your whole career to bring the role of the douchebag to perfection. Now you are starring next to Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop in the movie `Suck´. Was that another approach?
I don't have any interest in acting. It's fun, I know I m not good at it, but it's just fun. If someone asked me to be in a movie I'd probably say yes, as long as they understand, that I m not very good at it. Asking me to be in a movie is like asking me to be on a basketball team. You have to understand, I m not very good at it.
So it’s not that you carry a `lifelong sense of inadequacy´, as you once mentioned in an interview?
The problem that most people have is that they either hate themselves too much or they love themselves too much. They either think they are the worst thing in the world or the greatest thing in the world. None of us is the worst thing in the world; none of us is the greatest thing in the world… We are just what we are. So that ability to accept ourselves for what we are, that is the greatest wisdom to me.I don’t know what things are like here, but in New York no one has a hobby. Everybody has to be great in whatever they do. So if someone decides to do yoga, they have to study with the best yoga teacher, they have to go two hours a day and they have to go on a month long retread to India. I, for instance, wanted to learn how to sail, so I signed up for sailing lessons. The sailing lessons were tree days, fourteen hours a day. I just wanted to know how to sail a boat around the lake, I don’t need to know how to sail from Hawaii to New Zealand. I’d like to be ok at certain things. I don’t want to be the best tennis player in the world either, I just want to have fun with it. To apply that idea of just being ok with certain things, to just being alive - I don’t want to be the best human being ever. I just want to be ok.
What do you wish for Santa to bring you this Christmas?
I was doing an interview yesterday and somebody asked me: Was there anything that I had that I was so attached to that I couldn’t imagined live without it. And the only thing I could think of was my passport…For Christmas... (he smiles) I’d love to have a cameo on the family guy.
Thank you very much for your time and good luck with the show.
Interview: Mathias Tünnerhoff, Nachbearbeitung: Marius von Holleben
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