Play, your blockbuster album, blows out its twenty-five candles. When it was released in 1999, you told us that it was perhaps your last album and that you were then thinking of returning to study.
“I remember this meeting very well. It was on a terrace at PIAS, my record company, in Brussels. It was hot, we had ordered delicious vegan dishes, everyone was kind to me. Belgium was then one of the last countries that was interested in my music I was broke, I had a lot of questions about my future I thought. Play was going to go out with indifference and that at the end of the tour, my contract was going to be terminated. I had already inquired about various New York schools and universities about resuming studies in philosophy, photography or cinema.”
When you listen Play today, how do you feel?
“I see myself in my little loft on Mott Street, New York. It’s incredibly hot and I don’t have air conditioning. I have a second-hand Soundcraft console, some cheap analog synths, and a few cheap microphones. My equipment takes up the entire mattress, I have to sleep under the stairs, a bit like Harry Potter When I’m at the final mixing stage. PlayI find that the sound is horrible compared to the productions of Britney Spears, Eminem and Limp Bizkit which were a hit at the time.”
Moby: “I like people but I am more comfortable alone with myself”
Isn’t it this authentic side that made it the best-selling electro album in the world?
“When I started working on Play, I had been recording music for over ten years without having any particular training. I knew nothing about technology and that’s still the case today. This is where the authentic side of my music comes from, but it is not specific only to Play.”
In the second volume of your autobiography Then It Fell Apart published in 2019 (after Porcelain in 2016), you say that everything went into a tailspin after Play. When exactly did you realize this?
“It was in Barcelona in 2003, at an MTV Awards ceremony. It should have been the high point of my career. I was selling millions of albums, headlining the biggest festivals, my songs were played on the radio but were also used in movies, I had my own tour bus and I stayed in shamefully luxurious hotels And yet, that evening, I was more depressed and suicidal than ever. The alarm went off in my head and I am grateful for it. I understood that making art and seeking materialism, validation from the public and professionals at the same time did not work. Music business may be interesting, it will never solve your emotional, spiritual or existential problems.”
In concert on September 21 at the Sportpaleis in Antwerp (sold out).
