Moby Doc (2021) - full transcript

So you might wonder
why I just clapped,

because I'm sitting
in my studio by myself

and am I,

am I applauding myself?

I guess a good place to start
is a simple question.

Why in the world

would I want to make
a documentary about myself?

And I think that's a pretty
legitimate question.

Thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you, thank you!

On one hand,
I've had a strange life.



I grew up very poor in
a very wealthy environment.

My strange life as a musician
has taken me

to a lot of very odd places,
literally and figuratively.

And I guess I could make
a documentary about that.

Just another biopic
about a weird musician.

What's more interesting is,
at least to me, is...

well, the why of it.

The why of everything.

The, why do we do what we do?

Our very short lives

quite possibly have
very little significance.

As far as we can tell, we're
in a universe that is vast

beyond our imagining,

ancient beyond our imagining.



But yet, all of us
generally work from a place

where we think that
our actions have meaning,

our lives have consequences.

And that if we do things
in a certain way,

if we do things in a right way,

that our lives
might somehow be better.

If I had legitimacy,
if I had some money,

if I was recognized
for what I did

and for who I was,
and if I was esteemed...

One of the most innovative figures in
the world of electronic dance music, Moby.

...happiness,
and meaning would ensue.

And honestly, that's why
I want to make this movie,

because I think that a lot of us

still work
under those assumptions,

that if we do the right thing,

if we have the right
existential portfolio,

if we have the right people,
the right amount of money,

the right home or homes,

the right job,
the right amount of recognition,

then everything
will suddenly make sense

and we'll be happy
and we'll live for a long time

and we will die contented.

There's one huge problem
with that, though.

That's never actually been
the case for anyone.

It's almost like we assume that
it's not true for everyone else,

but that if we figure it out, like if I
figure out my perfect existential portfolio,

that I will find
perfect human happiness,

but I tried, and it didn't work.

This is my dream.

So we're revisiting.

New York City in 1966.

So yes, I was born in Harlem.

Let's make it nighttime.

Rrrrr... There's New York City.

Rrrr, rrrr!

My dad, we'll have him
wearing glasses

because the truth is, I don't
remember my father at all,

but in my mind he wore glasses,

and unlike me, he had hair.

My mom, because I'm not
the best drawer in the world,

I have a feeling she's
going to look...

Oh, she actually looks
almost feminine, maybe.

Little baby me.

We also need some animals.

When I was growing up in Harlem
we had a pet dog,

one or two cats,
and a bunch of rats,

because my father was,

he worked in the chemistry
department at Columbia

and he brought home
some test rats.

They were in their twenties.

They were in New York,
and they hung out in the Village

and talked about poetry
and politics.

And they had me,

and then very quickly
realized like,

"Oh, having a newborn in
a basement apartment in Harlem."

And my dad had been
a heavy drinker apparently,

but then apparently he started
drinking more and more and more,

- and my mom yelling...
- Get out of my house!

- ...him yelling back...
- Yaaaaaa!

And then him disappearing
on drunken binges.

So because I lived
with two very angry parents

who were screaming at each other
and smoking cigarettes and drinking,

the only calm sort of stable
presence in the apartment

were the animals.

The cat, the dog,
the rescued lab rats,

represented here by chihuahuas.

At an early age, when I was
a tiny little baby,

I learned a lesson, which is that
animals are nice and people are terrifying.

And then after a couple of years
of this, they had a huge fight,

and my mother told my father,
"I can't do this anymore.

I want a divorce, and I'm taking
your son away from you."

So, my father got drunk

and got in his car...

and drove into a wall...

at a hundred miles an hour.

So my mother was a widow
at the age of 23

with her crying newborn,

a bunch of animals in a
basement apartment in Harlem.

Hi.

So I'm Moby and I'm
the director of this scene

and we will be reenacting
some scenes from my childhood.

I'd like to introduce
our players.

Laura, would you step in?

This is Laura
and she'll be playing my mom.

Hi, I'm Laura Dawn
and I'm playing Moby's mom.

Daniel, would you like
to step in?

Who will be playing my mom's
scumbag boyfriend.

Hi, my name is Daniel Ahearn.

I'll be playing
the scumbag boyfriend.

And this is Daron,

and he'll be playing me
at about age, say three.

Hi, my name's Daron Murphy
and I'll be playing young Moby.

Yeah. Perfect.
Life has already gone wrong.

You're only three years old, and
basically nothing good has ever happened.

- You guys are getting ready to go out.
- Let's go.

So you're a local motorcycle
gang member...

but you're just,
you're just scummy.

- Bye, Moby. We'll be back in a couple of hours.
- Don't touch my stuff.

That was great. The only thing
was you were a little too involved.

OK.

- And action.
- All right, Moby, we're taking off.

We're going to go out to this
party and we'll be back later, okay?

Bye, Molly.

- Poor Moby.
- Yeah, yeah, mm-hmm.

I wish we could save him.
We'd be your friends, Moby.

- Oh yeah.
- Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My mom is upset because she's
unemployed, her boyfriend has left her,

and young me is going
to try to comfort her.

Nothing ever works out.

Dan left.

Again.

And I still haven't found a job.

So I don't know
what we're gonna do.

- Mom...
- Just leave me alone!

Well done.

A little more sadness.

Well, okay, no, dial it down,
just not quite so much sadness.

A little, little more,
just sort of like soft pathos.

That's okay.
No, come on in.

We're doing really
important stuff.

Oh, that's very sad.

- That's a big apartment to me.
- Call Child Services!

His first experience, if you think about
your mother being the center of your world,

the idea that if you're the
focal point of someone's world

and all they know about love
and trust and stability in the world,

but you are not stable,

then that produces a cascade
of effects in a developing mind

that can really mess up
the rest of their lives.

He was left in places
and situations

that a kid that's three,
four or five, six years old,

should not be left in.

And there was a lot
of drug abuse.

There was a lot of alcoholism.

I think that he suffers
from anxious attachment.

When I hear
so much of his music,

I hear the pain and emotion and
longing that he feels towards his mother.

That to me is a core dragon
he's been chasing his entire life

as some kind of understanding
and resolution to that pain.

When I was very, very young, I grew
up playing in New York and Connecticut.

And at that time, like my
only goal was to at some point

put out a seven-inch that maybe
sold a hundred copies.

I never ever,
ever in a billion years

thought I would be playing with one
of the most remarkable orchestras.

So I just wanted to say
thank you all so much.

Such a beautiful orchestra.
Such a friendly orchestra.

When a human being
truly dives within all the way,

negativity begins to lift away.

Hate, anger, fear,
all these things start to lift.

The suffocating rubber clown
suit of negativity dissolving,

and pure gold
coming in from within.

So for a while, we lived
in Darien, Connecticut,

which is one of the wealthiest
towns in the United States.

And I was certainly the poorest
person that I knew there.

I hated it.

Not being able to bring people
back to my house.

When I say "bring people," I mean
like friends in elementary school,

but as I had learned early on,
animals were safe,

and animals didn't judge me,

and I never had to feel
shame around animals.

So I'd found animals,
and then I found music.

And then I picked up a guitar one of my
Mom's boyfriends had left at the house,

and I started playing around and
very quickly I discovered punk rock.

And I fell in love with The Clash,
Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Black Flag.

And I also found a home.

I found this amazing community of
misfits and confused teenagers like me,

and I felt comfortable
and at home for the first time,

and I just wanted to play
in a punk rock band.

And I guess that's
when I dedicated my life

to these two things,
animals and music.

I've been looking forward
to our session.

- It's good to see you again.
- Oh yeah.

Can I get you water
or a cup of tea?

I want to know more
about your feelings.

How have you been able
to process your feelings

and what you experienced as
a child through your music?

We've talked about this before
that sometimes you refer to yourself

in the third person,

which is intellectualizing,

and I'm wondering if you can
connect to your feelings

and tell me about it
from that perspective.

Well, growing up, I always felt
uncomfortable if I'm being honest

and I felt really
disconnected and unsafe.

I know this sounds
like hyperbole,

this sounds like I'm
overstating, but music saved me.

I felt connected to this bigger
world that was so much better

and more interesting than the
sad suburban world I was inhabiting.

Can you just tell me a little bit
more about how you felt about that?

I was able to like take all of
the things that I was feeling...

and make sense of them,
and sort of make them

you know, take the fear
and make it interesting,

and take my confusion
and try to make it beautiful.

And so the act of making music was
almost like a form of like self-healing,

but also in a way
that maybe other people

could relate to or understand.

Everyone chant!

Someone asked me
this question recently,

if I were an animal,
what would,

or how would my consciousness
be different?

And it's
a fascinating question.

So when I look at an animal
like, like, look at buffalo.

I wonder if sometimes
one of the reasons

that people kill animals,

one of the reasons that people
treat animals so badly

is because of loneliness,

is because they look at animals
and they feel rejected by them.

You know, they look at a buffalo
and buffalo are stoic

and apparently quite happy to
just hang out with other buffalo,

and they have their own concerns
and their own priorities.

Like the desire
to not get eaten,

the desire to not be hungry,

the desire to spend time with
your family, with your community.

But sometimes nature has
an indifference towards humans.

And the animals, like let's say
like a buffalo, they don't care.

And I think sometimes
that almost justifies

people's cruelty to animals,

is they're punishing the animals

for having their own lives
independent of us.

The animal is almost like

an emissary of
the vast existential void

that we're all so afraid of.

My friend gave me some acid.

And I thought this
was really interesting,

'cause I'd never
done acid before

and it lasted
for about 15 hours.

And then a day later
I had a panic attack,

and the panic attack lasted
for about six months.

It was so bad that I had to drop
out of school and moved home

back to my mom's house,
and it was really grim.

19 years old, unemployed, broke,
battling constant panic attacks,

going to my local bar,
getting drunk with alcoholics

just 'cause that was the only thing
that would make the panic abate.

When friends from college
would drop me off...

...I would have them
drop me off here,

and for a brief minute, I would
pretend that I lived here.

Everybody I knew who grew up
like the rich people here

just felt entitled and were
kind of arrogant and obnoxious,

but anyone who grew up
even slightly poor here,

you just felt this like stain
of inadequacy

because everybody knew exactly
how much money everyone else had.

No matter where you went,
you just always felt,

if you're poor growing up here, you just
always felt like a second-class citizen.

In my case,
like an 11th-class citizen.

That was my fantasy
when I was growing up,

to live in a house like this and
drink tea and sit by a roaring fire,

and read Blake

while the golden retriever
was asleep at my feet

and my beautiful wife was,
I don't know,

writing poetry at her desk
by the leaded window panes.

And then I moved
to an abandoned factory.

This huge, weird
factory complex,

I mean millions
and millions of square feet.

It had been a lock factory
in Stamford, Connecticut.

But when I moved in, it was
completely empty and I paid $50 a month.

What I thought of
as squatter's rent.

There was a security guard,
and I'd give them $50 a month,

and I didn't have running water,
I didn't have heat,

but I had electricity.

And so I had my studio
and it, my space was tiny.

I mean, so tiny, it was basically
like a big glorified closet.

And I worked on music.

I was DJing
just a couple days a week.

$25 to DJ for six hours.

And this whole huge factory
building was empty,

except for me and like a few
other artists who are squatting in it.

The two years I lived here, I
think three people got murdered.

My friend Jamie
got stabbed to death here.

I loved it, because I had free
electricity and my space,

even though it was very small,
was sunny and I didn't have heat,

but I had space heaters that I
borrowed from my girlfriend's mom.

Now, Moby, did you grow up
in your punk rock days,

did you live in factories?

As a matter of fact, I did.

Um, but old factories,
the desolation

and like the entropy of them,

'cause they're such
sturdy structures.

Normally things when they're
abandoned collapse,

but what's great about factories is
they're abandoned and they stick around,

you know, and the bricks become interesting
and the floors get dusty and interesting.

And especially when the old machinery
is too heavy to move, you know?

So they're just like,
we're just going to leave it.

You're talking my type.

And that's when I started making

my own almost exclusively
electronic music.

And then I started working
at a record store,

so I was able to buy
more records and DJ more.

And then I started DJing Friday
nights and Saturday nights.

And then there was this magic day when
I learned how to mix two records together.

And all of a sudden I realized
like, "Oh, that sounded okay."

Like, "I guess I'm a DJ now."

I had the worst sampler in
the world and a little four-track,

and so I made my idea of
what hip-hop should sound like

and my idea of what house
music and techno should be.

I mean, keep in mind, house
music had just been invented

and techno had
just been invented,

but with my little
Casio keyboard

and my cheap Roland drum machine
and my little sequencer,

I tried to make electronic music

and I had no idea what was
going on with me

or my life or my future, but I
had some really good friends,

and I was surprisingly happy.

And I remember trying to explain
that to my family,

how in hindsight it was one
of the happiest times of my life.

Run for your lives!

Let's go to space!

There, 205 East 14th Street,

that was my first apartment
in New York City.

And I'm pretty sure,
I had a bunch of roommates,

but my rent was around $150
a month, $160 a month.

Growing up in Connecticut,
I fetishized New York City.

New York was 30,
40 miles away,

and it was easy
to get to on the train.

And so my friends and I growing up
went to New York every chance we could.

It's where the best record stores were, it's
where we saw all our first punk rock shows.

And we were amazed that
we could just get on the train

and hide in the bathroom and 40
minutes later be in Grand Central.

Not to overstate it, but this train
saved my life and made me who I am.

I would make the tapes
in my abandoned factory,

get off in Grand Central, jump the turnstile,
and then just go around giving out tapes.

Years of doing this.

My first record label
came from that,

other DJing jobs came from that, being
introduced to all the producers of the day.

I heard about this club called
Mars that was opening.

It was going to be the
coolest nightclub in the world.

Somehow the man
who was booking Mars

listened to it
and gave me a job.

My first record label
came from that,

so it all started
with that one job at Mars.

In 1990, I put out
a song called "Go."

And this came out
and did nothing.

It sold maybe 1500 copies.

And then after it was released,

a record label guy in the UK
heard it

and wanted to release it,
but needed a remix.

And at this time I was obsessed
with Twin Peaks,

and somehow
I had this weird idea

of adding the strings from Laura
Palmer's theme from Twin Peaks

to this remix
I was working on for "Go."

So I came up with this remix,

and then I played the chords
to Laura Palmer's theme

on top of the remix.

Yes. Well, Moby
did that song "Go,"

and that was based on pieces
of Angelo's music in Twin Peaks.

I thought it was fantastic, and a
lot of other people thought that too.

And it became a top-ten record throughout
Europe and it sold a million copies.

So my first single
sold 1500 copies,

and my next single sold
a million copies.

That's a big turning point,

and it was so profoundly
unexpected.

So the fact that it became
this weird, weird hit single,

where I was going back and forth to the
UK every two weeks and DJing in raves

and playing at raves and being
on all sorts of different TV shows

and being on Top of the Pops,
like none of this was expected.

I had never thought
that I would live in New York.

I had never thought that
I would have a record deal.

I never thought that I would
leave the United States.

I never thought that anyone
would make an effort

to listen to the music
that I was making.

And then all of a sudden I was
doing interviews for magazines.

And then I was on the cover of dance
magazines, and I was on TV shows,

Spin'salbum of the year, the
Village Voice's album of the year.

And I had a big hit single in Europe, I
had music in a Michael Mann movie,

and I went on tour with the Red Hot
Chili Peppers and the Flaming Lips.

Like by the end of 1995,
things were kind of magical.

All that had happened,
and I had expected none of it.

And I was financially stable
for the first time in my life.

And I bought an apartment,
my very own apartment,

with a real studio with
soundproof walls and a skylight.

I still remember,
I was on British Airways

flying to the UK
to do Top of the Pops,

and I saw in the newspaper
my song "Go" in the charts

in between Michael Jackson
and Phil Collins.

Can you talk to me
about how that felt?

Not just intellectualizing
that time,

but really unpack your feelings
around that for me?

It felt baffling, confusing,

dislocating,
but it felt wonderful.

I'd been playing music
for 15 years

and every day of those
15 years thinking like,

how can I have an audience?

How can I finally,
like at some point,

even like get a record deal
and make records?

But I never really expected
that that would happen.

How many people right now
are beating themselves up

because they think they're not successful
enough, they're not famous enough,

they're not young enough, they're
not beautiful enough, and like...

But then the people who are
super young, super attractive,

super famous,
they're miserable, you know?

So it's this, it's this
horrifying, I don't know...

Like I don't have to pretend
to be younger than I am.

I don't have to pretend
to be more attractive than I am.

- I don't have to wear a toupee.
- Yeah.

I don't have to pretend
that I'm still young

and relevant in the same way that
I was 20 years ago or 15 years ago.

One of the hardest things, at
least for me, and I assume for you,

for lots of people,
is the reason we overcompensate,

the reason we try to get people
to see us in like exalted lights

is because deep down
we don't like ourselves.

- Like we're ashamed of ourselves.
- Yeah.

Um, we assume that if anyone
looks too closely, they'll be repelled.

Especially if they look at me at
this angle. Something like that.

And like looking at it
yourself,

but then like being that in
the presence of other people

for as potentially unattractive
and uncomfortable as that might be.

So in the mid-'90s,
I shaved my head,

and after a long period of
sobriety, I started drinking again.

And I became a complete
rock-and-roll cliché.

I was living on tour buses,
hanging out in the strip clubs,

dating strippers.

And I fully
foolishly stupidly embraced

the complete rock-and-roll
degenerate lifestyle.

Ah, yay, yah... drinking!

Ah, yay. Raaaah!

...glug glug glug.

I don't know,
it made sense to me at the time.

Oh, Hi.
My name is Dr. Richard,

and I'd like to talk
to you today about alcoholism.

A lot of people,
many of you who are watching,

might've had a few bad
experiences with drinking,

you know, a few too many drinks
at the office Christmas party.

Well, one of my worst
experiences, I was on a tour bus

and we were driving
from London to Manchester,

and I had 15 or 20 drinks
and took a whole bunch of drugs

and ended up having, I guess, a sexual
encounter with a few different people.

And when I woke up
in the morning,

I was sick and hung over
and alone and cold.

And I had poop
all over my body.

I was covered with poop,

but I didn't know
whose poop it was.

And to this day,
I don't know whose poop it was.

Things started to go wrong.

I broke up with my girlfriend.

I started hanging out
in strip clubs,

and also I decided
to make a punk rock record.

I'd put out the album Animal
Rights and it had failed.

No one wanted
to listen to it.

He was considered to be
past it, a bit of a loser.

They were just making fun of him
and he took it badly.

He wanted to be liked.

He wanted to be respected.

I was convinced it was
going to be my last record.

That I'd move back
to Connecticut,

and I thought I'd go be
a community school teacher.

Then I learned
my Mom had cancer.

And then she died.

And I missed her funeral because
I was in bed drunk, passed out.

I'm really, really sorry.

Oh, I think that's Moby.

That's Moby.

Well, I always
talk about ideas.

And I always say we don't do
anything without first an idea.

So ideas are precious things
and we all want ideas.

There's trillions of ideas,
you know.

They're thoughts in a way,
thoughts go through our heads.

And... but I picture it
out in the ether.

There's trillions and trillions
of fantastic ideas.

And the deeper you can think,

the bigger the ideas are
that you can catch.

So, it's very important

for any line of work
to catch ideas.

And once in a while, you catch
an idea that you fall in love with,

and then the idea tells you
everything, pretty much everything.

So if it's like a musical idea,

you catch something that gets you going
to the guitar or the piano or whatever.

And it fires you up.

Ideas come with inspiration,

a certain amount of information,
and off you go.

I had lost
my American record deal.

My last album, Animal Rights,
had been a complete failure.

My last tour had been a failure
that no one came to,

and I was working
on this album Play,

and I took the music I was working
on, which was like "Porcelain"

and "Why Does My Heart Feel
So Bad" and "Natural Blues,"

and I walked around this neighborhood
and it just sounded terrible to me.

And I stopped on this bench,

convinced that my career
was over...

...convinced I was working on a record
that no one was ever going to hear...

...and pretty sure that I
was going to sell my apartment

and move back to Connecticut
and have to get a real job.

Five... vehicle's armed...

Three, two, one, fire!

Thrust fired.

And I thought Play was going to
be a complete, complete failure,

you know because it was a weird,
badly mixed,

badly produced record
that I made in my bedroom.

Mainly involving vocals
from people who've been dead

for 40 or 50 years,
but then things changed a lot.

Our next guest
is a Grammy-nominated musician

whose CD right here was named
one of the top albums of the year

by nearly every
major publication.

If you don't have one of
these boys now, you ought to,

seriously, tomorrow you ought to call
in sick and go get one. It's called Play.

Here's Moby.

It started off so small.

I mean, when it started,
it was selling

like 2,000 or 3,000 copies
a week, you know,

barely doing anything... oops.

And, uh...

and then it
just kept selling more.

My next guest tonight is acknowledged
as one of the most innovative figures

in the world
of electronic dance music,

and he's here to perform a song
from his most recent album, Play.

Slowly but surely, everybody
who discovered the music

felt like there was
something special there.

And it was so surprising
and every time it sold more,

I thought,
"Great, now it's done."

And then it started selling
10,000 copies a week,

and then it started selling
100,000 copies a week.

And then at one point it was selling
almost 200,000 copies worldwide a week.

And it went number one in the UK
and it went number one in France

and Australia and Germany.

And suddenly, you know,

I went from playing to
a couple hundred people a night

to a couple thousand people
a night to...

Oh wow, cricket bats.

Do you need a cricket bat?

Do I need a cricket bat?

So different tracks
in different countries

sort of brought
this album forward.

And at that point I just looked
at Moby and said,

"Who the fuck are these people?
How does this even happen?"

It was like magic.

Hello? Hi, guy.
How are you doing?

- Hello?
- Hiya.

Hi, David.

Yeah, I know this voice.

Go on, keep talking, will ya?

- Hello?
- Hello. You sound incredibly tall.

Am I right?
Are you a tall person?

I can't, unfortunately
I can't hear you very well.

You're a tall person
with really long hair, yeah?

I'm a tall person
with really long hair.

- I weigh about 300 pounds.
- Yeah, it's Moby, isn't it?

One of the sexiest men...

David Bowie was my
favorite musician of all time.

Maybe 2000, 2001...

He moved across the street to me
and I couldn't believe it.

Like I became friends
with David Bowie.

Some of the moments that
he and I had together,

I almost feel like
there was maybe like

a quasi older brother quality
to his friendship with me.

And we had barbecues together.
We went to the deli together.

We got tea together and we
worked on music together,

and we had holidays together
and dinners together.

And we got to go
on tour together.

David Bowie and Moby!

Here I was, this panicking,
alcoholic, bald musician

who thought his career was over.

And then all of a sudden
my career wasn't just over,

but it had become
like actual rock stardom.

I'd walk down the street
and people knew who I was,

and I would go to parties and
women I'd never met would flirt with me

and then headlining my own festival,
you know, with New Order and Outkast

and these big bands
opening up for me.

I mean an album like Play
transcends the music industry

because it became
a mainstream phenomenon.

It ultimately completely
corrupted and ruined me,

but at the time
it was so much fun

to go from being
kind of a washed-up has-been

to dating movie stars and going to
these parties and making a lot of money

and touring and playing in front
of tens of thousands of people.

Like maybe I should pretend it wasn't
great, but for a minute it was really great.

And it was mind boggling.

And every day I drank more.

I started doing
a lot of drugs, and...

it was amazing,
but terrible at the same time.

I mean like my narcissism, my entitlement,
just were really out of control.

Yeah. Um...

Do you want me
to pick you up anything here?

Yeah. It's an Indian grocery.

Hi. So we're here
talking to Moby,

and, uh, I want to ask him
some questions about fame.

So, Moby, what are your thoughts
about the world of fame?

How did you buy into fame?

And why would you think it was
so important to you?

It's confusing to me.

I think that you're not
a stupid person.

So why do you think you bought
into the cold culture of fame?

I think I just saw it as a way of, I
dunno, very simply it made me feel better.

It made me feel like I had legitimacy,
and meaning, that my life had worth.

So you keep saying that, not having worth
and legitimacy, and how do you feel now?

I mean, how do you think
you got out of that pattern?

How do you measure yourself?
Playwas your biggest hit, right?

- Mm-hmm.
- You've never topped that since.

- No.
- Why?

That's a good question.

You keep saying that,
that's what I'm here to do.

Yeah.

And I'm, I don't know.

Like I desperately wanted them
to be as successful as Play

and it would make me sad
that each record was sort of like

successively less successful...

And...

Do you analyze it?

We've talked about this, when
Playbecame successful, I loved it.

I pretended
I didn't really care.

I tried really hard to pretend
when I talked to journalists or people

that fame didn't matter to me,
but I loved it.

Were you anxious?
Depressed?

What were you going through?

I was angry.
I was like an addict, you know.

Like a baby who was being weaned
from his mother's breast.

Like an addict who like, the crack
pipe was being taken away from me.

And I was angry,
and I was scared, and I was sad,

and I just wanted anything that
would bring the fame back to me.

As your therapist,

it's my professional
and personal opinion

that you are a sad
and broken human being.

I mean, you know what I'm
talking about, right?

Oh, hey.

I didn't expect
to see you down here.

Wow, I haven't seen you
in a while.

I never really understood
what you were.

You're an alien,
but are you an alien bug?

'Cause you have antenna.

You're sort of a self-portrait.

You're bald except for antenna.

I'm bald.

You come from another planet.
I come from another planet.

Do you want to
go for one more,

do you want to go for a ride?

Is your, your ship is here?

Okay. Let's go for one,
you want to? Yeah, let's go.

The status quo wasn't going to last,
I didn't want to admit that to myself.

And then I started getting
really bad reviews.

Like I remember The New York
Timesgave one of my records a review

where they said it was so bad,
it represented the end of music.

- Really?
- Yeah. It was on the homepage of The New York Times

- for a week.
- The end of music.

And there were people
writing in comments about

not just that they didn't like me,
but they wanted to stab me to death.

They wanted to kick me
to death on the street.

- They wanted to hang me.
- Where is this?

Just like where people like
write crazy ass stuff.

And it was, it really started
to freak me out.

'Cause I was like,
oh, this is the media.

- Right.
- This is the thing that I love.

This is the thing that I need
to feel good about myself.

And not only are they paying
less attention to me,

but the attention they're paying
to me is so hurtful.

- Right.
- You know?

And so, and it...
it really was disconcerting.

You suck!

Nobody listens to techno!

Nobody listens to techno!

Nobody listens to techno!

You suck!

You suuuuck!

You suuuuck!

Nobody listens to techno!

I was in Barcelona
for the MTV Music Awards,

and I'd been told beforehand that I was
going to be winning an MTV Music Award.

And it was going to be
my third or fourth

or fifth MTV Music Award
that I was winning.

And I got to my hotel in Barcelona
the night before the MTV Music Awards.

And I was at the top of one of the
most elegant hotels I've ever been to.

It's called the Arts Hotel.

And there were four huge
apartments at the top of this hotel,

and my neighbors were P. Diddy,
Bon Jovi, and Madonna.

So the four of us
were sharing this floor.

It's overlooking Barcelona
and the Mediterranean.

And that night I ended up
getting very drunk...

and everything was perfect.

You know, everything I'd ever wanted
had been given to me, even more so.

You know, like I just wanted
to make a few obscure records

and all of a sudden, like I'm
at the top of this crazy hotel

and I've sold 10
or 20 million records.

And everything had been given to
me that I'd ever wanted times a million.

And I was so despondent.

How strange it was that
I've been given everything

and I'd never been more
depressed.

And one of the only things that kept
me from killing myself was the fact

that the windows in the hotel
didn't open wide enough.

And I was even annoyed at that.

I was like, wow,
I can't even kill myself.

Even that somehow is denied me.

It was such an odd moment

to be at what was ostensibly
the pinnacle of my career

and the pinnacle of my life

and to have never been
more depressed.

I went back to New York,
and I just started drinking more,

and I started doing cocaine.

I'd always avoided cocaine
because of all the drugs,

that was the one
that scared me the most.

So I was having 15 drinks
a night,

a couple hundred dollars' worth
of cocaine every night,

and then every morning
at like 7:00,

I would try to go to sleep
and I would take Xanax

and Vicodin and I would wake up
so disappointed

that I was still alive.

And it got to the point where
when I went to sleep,

all I wanted
was to never wake up.

But somehow, and maybe I'm like
part cockroach or part rat,

I just kept waking up, you know,
at 4 or 5 in the afternoon

so disappointed
I was still alive.

And I was physically,
I was starting to turn gray,

and I was all puffy, and I had
this like alcoholic bloatedness.

There were complete strangers
in my apartment.

People were smoking
crystal meth in my bathroom.

There are people I'd never met
having sex in my bed.

Finally in 2008, I think
I just bottomed out,

you know, in every way, like
physically, emotionally, spiritually.

Yeah. And then 2008, October,
2008, I finally stopped drinking.

In the crack neighborhood
in Stamford, I was happier.

Making $3,000 a year,
I was happier.

Paying $50 a month
so I could squat,

I was happier than when I was
living overlooking Central Park.

Felt like such a confused...

'cause I had thought that living in this
perfect home was going to fix everything.

Like, how couldn't it? When I found the
perfect home, I would be perfectly happy.

When you set your sights, you know you spend
your entire life working towards something

and you achieve it
and you're less happy

than before you even started
working to achieve it,

you don't know what else to do.

Give up the familiar,
even if it's killing you,

and you have to figure out
then what works.

90% of rainforest deforestation,

probably 75% of erectile
dysfunction...

40% of California's water use,

50% of cancer, diabetes,
heart disease,

close to 100% of famine,

'cause all the food that they're
feeding the cows, et cetera,

could be fed to people.

50% of ocean acidification.

So in one fell swoop, you address
all these environmental issues

just by stopping subsidizing
animal agriculture.

That's my quick spiel.

I think people should speak up
about what they believe in.

So, Moby, more power to him,
you know.

What he's speaking about all
the time is, are positive things.

And... but he's known for,
you know, great music.

And I think Moby really does, you
know, love, you know, what he does

and more power to him.

Just keep on making
that great music, Mo.

Just as an aside, not to take up
too much time,

but like, have you
looked around recently?

This is real.

Like, you know?

I mean,
you look at the space,

and you look at the people,
this is real.

Like I've been a vegan
for 30 years.

30 years ago,
this didn't exist.

So let's just take a moment.

I mean,
we have a long way to go,

but boy, we've come so far.

Moby and I are super excited to
present this evening's incredible news.

In just a few weeks,
we will be launching

the world's first ever vegan music
festival right here in Los Angeles.

First off just once again,
thank you to everyone.

And...

...one last thing before
we play this song.

Maybe this is
smug of me to say this,

but we're on the right side
of history.

It was just a given
that at some point

people will look at animal
agriculture in the past

the way we now look at slavery,

or the way that we look at like
women not being allowed to vote,

or the way we look at
African-Americans and Caucasians

not being allowed to use
the same drinking fountain.

Like as Martin Luther King Jr.
Said, and we often paraphrase,

the moral arc of the universe is
long and it bends towards justice.

It also bends towards
the pragmatic reason.

And there's so many reasons
to consider veganism.

Like using animals for food is
the dumbest, cruelest thing

that we have ever done
collectively as a species.

And to that end,

I know it's going to stop,

especially because everybody
here and people around the world

are working so hard on it.

So I would like to dedicate
this song to all the ravers

and all the animal rights
activists, and everyone.

Thanks.

Thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you...

As I've gotten older, the world of
people just doesn't interest me as much.

Nothing that humans make
ever compares

to what I can find in nature.

There are no signs.

There's no advertisements.

There's this wonderful,
still indifference to us.

As humans, we love feeling
a sense of significance

and we spend our whole lives
pursuing significance

and trying to maintain the fiction
that we have great significance,

but there's something really
refreshing and nice

about giving up
any sense of significance

and just remembering our place
in the order of things.

And even though I'm still crazy,

I think I've hopefully
figured out

how to avoid looking
for like big, giant things

to fix more like small
internal problems, but...

Where am, where am I?

Hey, Hey.

Hey. Hey.

Death. Hey!

Hey.

Hey.

Hey, Death.

Hey, Death.

Hey.

What are you doing out here?

No.

I mean, it's a beautiful day.
You want to go for a walk?

Nah, come on. It's...
It's a nice day.

So it might sound weird,

but I could almost,
in an odd way,

say that I'm sort of a fan
of your work...

...because...

Yeah, I know,
I think a lot of people have

some weird opinions about you,

but I'm also
an animal rights activist,

and for most animals, especially
the ones on factory farms, like,

who experience nothing in their
entire lives but sickness and suffering,

like without you, there's
no end to their suffering.

I mean think of all the sick
and suffering people.

You know, without you,

there is quite literally
no end to their suffering.

I mean, you are merciful.

And I think it's also a little
strange that people are afraid of you

and have such negative opinions
about you because

you're the only, literally, the
only guarantee in people's lives.

Yeah, I'm really,
I mean, look, I mean,

I meet a lot of public figures

and I really don't want
to be some fan weirdo,

but yeah, I...

I, I...

But I am wondering,

and I hear... you probably
hear this all the time,

but like what happens
after we die?

Everybody! Come on.

- One more, come on.
- A cappella.