Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
SANTA ANA – Moby, a singer-songwriter, musician and DJ who’s sold 20 million records, recalled being at a party a half-dozen years ago in New York City, talking about the late 1980s and early 1990s there when he was a starving artist.
As he told stories of crack addicts on the street – a sharp contrast to New York City’s cleanliness and hyper-expensiveness nowadays – he noticed it caught the listeners’ attention and made them mad.
Those were the days he paid $125 a month for an apartment without a bathroom, Moby told attendees an Orange County Register Book Club talk and signing Wednesday night at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana.
“The more I looked at my story, especially from 1989 to 1999, I realized at the very least there’s stuff in there that’s anecdotal and interesting and maybe worth writing down,” Moby said.
Moby opened up his laptop and started writing, and the result is “Porcelain: A Memoir,” which chronicles the low point in his life leading up to the release of his studio album “Play,” which propelled him into another level of electronica success and includes the song from which his book draws its name.
In 1989, Moby said he was a sober Christian trying to get a DJ job and a record contract. He moved to New York. There, he got involved in the rave scene and the underground club scene. Halfway through the book, he started drinking again and moved aggressively away from his Christian beliefs.
By the end of the book, he had lost his record deal, his mother had died of cancer, he was going broke and battling alcoholism.
“I thought my career was over,” Moby said, “and at the very end of the book, I release my album ‘Play,’ which ended up being the most successful thing I ever did.”
Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Moby spoke before a crowd of 200 at the Frida Cinema Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Moby is interviewed by Register pop culture reporter Peter Larsen. Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
A photo of Jambo the therapy dog is on top of Moby’s memoir. Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Moby spoke before a crowd of 200 at the Frida Cinema Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Moby is interviewed by Register pop culture reporter Peter Larsen. Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Moby is interviewed by Register pop culture reporter Peter Larsen. Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Ann Saller listened to Moby during the Register Book Club event Wednesday. Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Moby gave autograph for fans at the Frida Theater. Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Moby gave autograph for fans at the Frida Theater. Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Moby gave autographs for fans at the Frida Theater. Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Moby gets a kiss from a therapy dog named Jambo during an autograph session. Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Moby answers a question with a painting of a mariachi band in the background. Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
Moby was the guest for the Register Book Club to kick off the paperback launch of Porcelain: A Memoir. The event was held at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer,Orange County Register/SCNG)
His memoir highlights what he calls “one of the central lies of our culture” – the belief many people have that once they achieve what they are trying to attain, everything will be better.
“Totally not supported by evidence,” Moby said. “When I look back to that, returning cans just to make enough money to buy food and not having heat or running water or a bathroom, I didn’t love that time, but honestly, I was just as, if not more, happy than I am now.”
Though Harlem-born, Moby — whose birth name is Richard Melville Hall — grew up a poor kid surrounded by millionaires in Darien, Connecticut, where his mother was from.
The book opens when he was 10 years old inside a car as his mother was in the laundromat washing their clothes and those of other people, to make money. It was a 40-degree, rainy February day in Connecticut, Moby recounted, when he heard the Diana Ross song “Love Hangover,” which had a sensual quality.
“It’s two of my favorite things – music and the future, combined,” Moby explained. “That’s why I thought it was an interesting place to start.”
Moby said he came to Orange County on Wednesday because, “you guys asked,” and that after spending most of his life touring, he doesn’t like to go to far from where he lives, Los Angeles.
“The fact that I can drive here even though it took two hours in traffic, to me is a lot nicer than having to go to the airport and get on a plane, stay at a hotel,” he said. “In theory I can get back on the 5 and go home and go back to my house.”
The interviewer for the night, Peter Larsen, the Register’s pop culture reporter, said Moby he didn’t spare himself when he told his story. He shared the tale with about 125 people at the Frida.
“And that I think makes a memoir good,” Larsen said. “You’re not hiding secrets.”
Moby responded with an analogy from attending Alcoholics Anonymous sessions long, long ago. He said they were interesting because people would say things in public that we’ve all thought and felt but would never admit.
“Why are you writing a memoir if you’re not going to be honest?” Moby said. “I thought, maybe if I’m willing to be honest, then maybe someone reading it will be like, ‘Wow, I can be honest about the things I’m ashamed of.’”
The only constants in Moby’s life are his music and veganism. As Larsen said, in the memoir, Moby starts off sober and Christian and by the end isn’t sober at all.
“It gets a lot worse,” said Moby, who’s working on his second memoir. “I just wrote a chapter about waking up in a tour bus covered in poop, not knowing whose poop it was.”
