Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - Behind the Music: The Journey to Happiness for a Music Icon with Moby & Lindsay Hicks

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

Welcome to The Radcast! We've got an incredible lineup today with Moby, the multi-talented musician, author, and producer, along with our fantastic actress, co-host and producer, Lindsay Hicks!Join Lindsay, Moby, and Ryan as they discuss the importance of setting goals and prioritize creativity over commercial success. Discover how Moby's life experiences, including his upbringing and philosophy studies, have influenced his unique personality and skyrocketed his musical success. Uncover the harsh reality that many stars face - money and success don't guarantee happiness. Sometimes, it takes a profound self-discovery to find true contentment. It's a fascinating exploration into the mind of one of today's most captivating artists. So, get ready to learn from the best and find tips that you can apply to reach your own version of success!Key notes from the episode: Moby and Lindsay share their upbringing and their journey to success and how Moby got his nickname which he still uses today. (00:16) Moby's life experiences, including his upbringing and philosophy studies, have shaped his unique personality and musical success. (04:02) Lindsay and Moby have collaborated to create an informative and engaging conversational podcast focusing on topics related to mental health, animal rights, environmentalism and more. (07:18) Moby started out as a classical musician, but his musical career flourished when he discovered punk rock and electronic music, leading to the immense success of his album "Play", despite which he still struggled to find fulfillment. (11:22) Moby and Lindsay have seen many stars realize that money and success do not guarantee happiness, and that it can often take a personal journey of self-discovery to find true satisfaction. (16:26) Lindsay, Moby and Ryan discuss the importance of having goals and how creativity should be prioritized over commercial success on their journey of understanding. (19:40) Moby highlights the paradoxical nature of life and art and encourages people to prioritize beauty and integrity over commercial success or compromise when it comes to music. (25:00) The Moby Pod is an informative and engaging podcast featuring conversations with various guests about topics ranging from music composition to sustainability and even writing a song in an episode. (32:02) Moby discusses the potential sacredness of intentional conversations in a podcast format, remarking on his experience as a guest and how meaningful they can be. (37:25) Lindsay and Moby discuss the power of their podcast to deepen relationships. (43:28) This episode is packed with information, wisdom, and passion and we know you will get a ton of value from this.If you want to learn more about Moby, follow him on Instagram @Moby and his podcast https://www.human-content.com/moby-pod-blogIf you want to learn more about Lindsay Hicks, follow her on Instagram @linzhicks and @humancontentpodsLearn more by visiting our website at www.theradcast.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/RadicalHomeofTheRadcastIf you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, Like, Share, and leave us a review! If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. They say, if it's radical, we cover it. And this is, let me just say, if you had told me, 20-year-old me, while I was sitting in college at Clemson, listening to dance music and listen to electronic music and playing this album probably till I wore it out that I'd be talking to Moby one day. I wouldn't believe you. But I am blessed to have Moby on along with Lindsey Hicks, his co-host, a producer. Moby doesn't need any introduction, but we'll do it. Author, producer, writer, badass musician and one of my favorite artists of all times.

It's great to have you guys on the show. It's wonderful to be here. Thank you. Hi, Lindsay, pleasure to have you. Been enjoying, digesting your show. Moby Pod, which we'll talk about. We don't want to start too far down the path. But Moby, I know you need no introduction, but our audience, your career spanned a lot.

But let's go straight at setting the table for everyone on your career and your life and what's brought you here today. And we'll do the same with you, Lindsay. Okay, great. So I'm very comfortable being completely self-involved in describing my life and my career, if you want me to do that. Let's start there, man. I know you could talk. We could probably talk for two hours about that.

You've had such longevity and success. There'd be a lot. But let's talk about all the, I don't know, the foundational things that led to your music career to just breaking all the rules and making actually electronic dance music. of the hottest best-selling music of the late 90s, early 2000s, like you're a game changer. It started, and I'm going to, as an old person, my stories tend to go way back. So I was born in Harlem in 1965, and I grew up for the first few years of my life in a basement apartment in Harlem and my parents were academics. And then when I was three, my dad died. So my mom and I moved back to

Connecticut, where she grew up. And I then, for the next about 16 years, lived in Derry and Connecticut, which I assume you and a lot of your listeners are familiar with, because it is just about the waspiest, preppyest, most affluent place on the planet. And what made my upbringing there so strange was my mom and I were on food stamps. We were on welfare. We bought our clothes at Goodwill and Salvation Army. But, But I went to school with the children of millionaires and billionaires. My first girlfriend in Daryenne, her dad owned a fleet of oil tankers. And my second series girlfriend in Daryenne, her grandfather was Bill Hewlett, who started Hewlett Packard.

So the contrast of living in a house with secondhand furniture, having to go to the grocery store and buy things with food stamps, wearing secondhand clothes. And then to put it in perspective, one of the first trips I ever took was with my then girlfriend in the mid-80s to Lake Tahoe to visit the Hewlett compound. So the Hewlett compound had a private railroad connecting the different houses of the Hewlett kids. So compare and contrast that to buying groceries with food stamps. So it was a very confusing upbringing.

And you mentioned my weird name. So I'm related to Herman Melville. And when I was born, my parents thought it would be funny to give me the nickname. name Moby. And lo and behold, 57 years later, I still have my infant joke nickname. Yeah, but was there ever a cooler name once you got to become an artist? The people who chose their name, like Sting, like that's a cool name. I love my name, the literary aspects of it, the fact that I didn't have to invent it for myself, but my parents had a sense of humor and gave it to me.

But so regarding music, when I was growing up, music to me represented refuge. It represented excitement because, as I mentioned, we were very poor. The home I grew up in, there was a lot of chaos, there was violence, there was drug addiction, and music to me was a way of feeling excited and safe at the same time. And I never thought I'd have a career as a musician. I thought I'd be an academic and I'd teach philosophy at some community college and make music that no one would ever listen to. So every single aspect of my career has been both accidental and completely surprising. Yes, but I'm thankful that you didn't end up the professor.

Even though you could pass for one, I think. You've always had the look of the smartest guy in the room. Professor Moby. When I went to college, I studied philosophy because I both loved philosophy, but also I learned early on the moment you say you were a philosophy major, people immediately assume you're way smarter than you actually are. Maybe. But maybe where does that side come from?

Because even your music has always had, I don't know, every time I turn your music on now, maybe not as much as a 20-year-old kid that's hanging out listening to play. But it's always had that thoughtful, I don't know, I feel like I'm in deep thought. when I listen to a lot of your music. So where did that come from in you? Are we talking nature or nurture?

That's a, it's a, I self-involvedly think it's a really interesting question, not just as applies to me, but as applies to everyone, like who, and sorry, I'll try not to sound like too much of a grad student, who are we and how did we end up this way? How much of it is socioeconomic? How much of it is cultural? how much of it is hereditary or epigenetic. And when I try and deconstruct myself, I think it's that sort of the intersection,

and maybe this is very self-evident, but the intersection of nature and nurture and how they inform each other. Like it's safe to say, if I had been born in Madagascar, and I was six foot five and really good at sports, we would, if we were talking right now, we'd be having a very different conversation as opposed to a nerdy little guy who played guitar in his bedroom when he was growing up.

Yes. But equally good on the piano, I presume, at least with the melodies and the sounds. But we'll come back to it. Lindsay, I do want to, I want to turn it to you. I know you co-host Moby Pod with Moby, producer. Let's give our audience a little bit of your background before we come a little more. further down the line. Yeah.

As it relates to how I got here and working on this podcast with Moby, I many years ago wrote a web series that got bought by a TV network, which eventually got me a TV development job working at a production company. And then I worked at a couple of different production companies, amazing ones. I worked for Wanda Sykes for a while. I worked for the company that runs, that owns and operates the improvs. So I was doing TV development for the comedy side of that. And it was really fun.

But then the pandemic happened. And Moby and I have been friends for years. And we were talking one day. And I was saying like, okay, I'm furloughed from this job. I can wait until they hire me back. But I don't know. I want to do something where I feel like what I'm doing matters. Like it helps someone with their mental health or it helps animals or it helps the environment

or brings awareness to climate crisis or just general things that I care about, something that I feel like moves the needle a little bit. We had this conversation about it. And a few weeks later, Moby called me back and said, hey, I was thinking, and what if we work together and try to figure out what we can do in the content world to find something that could potentially make a difference? And he had this kind of fledgling production company where he shot a couple of things and done a couple of things, but wanted to do more with the production company.

And so I came and was working with Moby for a little walnut. And I came on in a finished, helped finish Moby doc. And we recently, in January, released Punk Rock Vegan movie that he had shot some of. And then we put it all together and released it and premiered it at Slamdance in Park City last January. And then we were talking about a podcast and trying to figure out what it was. And eventually we just wanted to make it. something that felt specific to Moby and what he cares about because he has this amazing platform that consists of so many people that care about all the things that we care about,

but also that care about his music and music in general. So we decided that a podcast would be an amazing place to talk to people that know about things or that care about things that could help someone or people that could help people enter into possibly a more plant-based lifestyle or care about animal rights or things like that. So that was how MobyPod got started. So we produced it all in-house. And it's been a really podcasting is so fun. It's so open.

It's so free. You can do whatever you want. And it has this kind of like direct reach to an audience. And we have this email set up where people can contact us directly and say what they love and what they want more of. And it's been, it's just been really wonderful. Yeah. Well, let me say this. I've really enjoyed it.

I listened to three or four episodes before. You have a very soothing voice, Lindsay. It's therapeutic. It's very light, but it's like nice. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I have to a lot of people with guests and things like that. And then Moby's like exactly what I expected. Like he's, I know he likes to say, oh, I'm not the smart guy or whatever,

but just so thoughtful, it's exactly what I expect. But it's very, the variation in the episodes remind me a little bit of Moby's music. There's so many things going on in variations. Like if you really listen to some of the tracks, I've really enjoyed it. So I think the audience, you check that out on all the podcast networks, the Moby pod, POD, easy to remember. Moby, got a transition back. You've been in the music business for a long time. You've seen it all, I'm sure.

Talk to me. Give me the real of it of what it was like going through the heyday of play and some of that, I don't to say unexpected, but I think for other people who's unexpected, maybe it was expected for you, the success of that and what the industry's been like to this evolution from records to CDs to now everything's streaming. I'd love just your broad-based perspective on the music business. I started out, weirdly enough, playing classical music, which might seem very surprising, but when I was really young, I was playing piano and guitar and studying music theory, and then when I was around 13, I heard the clash and the sex pistols,

and I tried to unlearn everything I had learned about classical music, and I started playing in a punk rock band, and I got so involved in the world of New York-based punk rock in the early 80s, seeing bands like Minor Threat and Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys, and it was so exciting. And honestly, I just thought this was the be-all and end-all. Our first 7-inch record, the first one, record that my band, the Vatican Commandos put out, we sold 200 copies. And I was like, we're the

biggest rock stars in the world. We sold 200 copies of a record that we made. That means there are potentially 200 people out there who know who we are. I was ready to retire at that point. But I kept working on music. I kept DJing. I was hanging out in nightclubs. And I got really involved in the world of electronic music. So then in the late 80s, I started releasing my own electronic music, with the assumption that, okay, no one's ever going to listen to it, but who knows, maybe I'll play a show and 30 people will show up. Through the 90s, I kept having very weird, unexpected success. And one of the things, again, that I never, by definition, it was unexpected, so I never expected it. But also what had made the world of punk rock and early electronic music so interesting is that they were swigeneres, meaning they were not reliant on corporations.

We were making the records ourselves. We were printing the flyers. We were making the T-shirts. We were booking our tours. So it was all very DIY, do it yourself. Organic is what I did. Yeah. Completely.

completely. And then I found myself being on the receiving end of mass media attention and signed to a major label, which didn't work out by the end of the 90s. And I'll try and keep this relatively brief, but by the end of the 90s, by the end of the 90s, I had lost my record deal. I'd been dropped because I'd made a record that people didn't like very much. And I was really in a dark place. I was battling drug addiction and alcoholism. My mom had. cancer, then she died of cancer. I was going broke. I was battling panic attacks. I'd lost my record deal. And that's when I made the album play, which I thought was going to be my last record, because it was a weird record that I made

in my bedroom at the time. And it went on, as you mentioned, to sell 12 million copies and be this huge cultural phenomena where suddenly, I'll put it in perspective. The first show on the tour for the album play was

in the basement of a record store and between 20 and 25 people showed up. The last show was at Wembley Stadium in the UK, and it sold out so quickly, we had to book a second show at Wembley Arena. We're talking about tens of thousands of people, as opposed to that first show with 25 people. And so here's where hopefully the story becomes a little more psychological, is as I mentioned, growing up, I'd never expected to have any success, but I always assumed that when I had success, it would fix everything. As I think a lot of people make that assumption. I just thought,

oh, if ever I have fame and money and a good career, I'll be the happiest person in the world. And not surprisingly, that was not the case. And then I started wondering, what am I doing wrong? Like, I'm making money. I'm buying apartments and houses. I'm flying around the world. I'm standing on stage in front of hundreds of thousands of people. Why was I so anxious and depressed? And that became a huge challenge for years trying to figure out.

And I think a lot of people who are probably listening, a lot of people have had that experience of you're given the keys to the kingdom with the assumption that you will be the happiest person in the world. And then, lo and behold, you're not. And then the question is, what do you do next? And I guess one option for me would have been like get hair plugs and start trying to go to St. Barts for New Year's. But the other option was to figure out what actually works. Meaning if, I'm sorry, I'm rambling on like a crazy person. It's good.

But a lot of very relatable to how people think about the journey and like the destiny. You think the destination is going to be all the, it's great. Keep going. And it's not, and also I would say it's not just me, which was an interesting realization. Like on one hand, there is the idea that fame and wealth fix everything. Then on the other hand, there's evidence. And I would say if fame and wealth fixed everything, Donald Trump would be the happiest person in the world. Kanye would be running through a field, singing happy songs.

Avichy would still be alive. if Kurt Cobain would still be alive. Amy Winehouse would still be alive. Chris Cornell from Soundgarden would still be alive. And on so clearly there's a disconnect where we all think that fame and wealth will fix everything. But in the real world, there's no evidence that's actually the case. And it was a really interesting challenge to not just experience that academically, but personally. I bet because anyone listening to this, if they could be told, including myself thinking through like the superstardom level that you were at in 2001, you know, around that time frame to go, he's anxious and not happy, you wouldn't believe it.

You wouldn't believe it at the pinnacle of, I'm sure there's been other pinnacles now. But to not, and they say people say, the journey's everything once you get that. there, you know, you're not, but you got to figure out what makes you happy ultimately. And say money doesn't make you happy. Success doesn't make you happy. It sure helps, but it doesn't help with maybe the core isn't where it needs to be. Yeah, that's exactly what I slowly had to realize. And it was a lesson that was hard learned because I didn't want, I didn't want to learn

that lesson. I had to be drag kicking and screaming to that realization. Like, I wanted to live in the belief that. having houses, having apartments, having fancy friends, going to crazy red, like exclusive parties and red carpet events. I thought this was going to make me happy. And the more I did it, the less happy I was. And as I mentioned, for a while, I was thinking, what am I doing wrong? And then I realized, you know what? Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Maybe someone else would be jumping up and down with happiness given the same circumstances that I had. But I had to figure

that out. And I had to really bottom out as an alcoholic, as a drug addict, as a human, and then figure out the next step of, okay, that didn't work. I could keep pursuing it. But that seems like the Einstein quota, like the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. I was like, there are a lot of people, especially here in Los Angeles, who keep doing it, even though it's not working. And I've had to ask myself, okay, this doesn't work anymore, what does? And it's a really fascinating, at least for me, and challenging question that I had to ask myself.

Lindsay, I bet you've been in and around this. You've been around Mo. You've been around a lot of stars, I'm sure. You're probably familiar with this, like seeing this exact thing play out with friends and colleagues. Yeah. It's a little bit of a kind of wherever you go, there you are type of situation.

it's you nothing external is going to actually fix any problem that starts internally so it's been very inspiring to to hear about Moby's journey and help reframe my perspective of okay having goals is necessary but it's not all about getting there there's so many more important things that will ideally happen along the way. And something else I've learned, especially from Moby, is that where you think you'll end up is probably the farthest from where you'll actually end up, especially if you are following the journey and going with what feels best and most right in the moment and trying to keep your morals in check and make sure that you're doing the best, not only for yourself, but the world around you, your path is going to get curvier than.

Yeah. So that's something that I've definitely. learn from watching him. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Moby, did you find ultimately that what brought you success wasn't necessarily what you wanted to do? Like, if you could do play times four, you've had other success, but like that level of success, I'm hearing maybe the music itself, maybe the, what came with that success, just ultimately didn't make you happy, or is it broader and deeper than that?

when I was growing up, as mentioned, I never expected anyone to pay attention to me or the music I was making so I could focus on music purely for the purity of music. There was no commerce involved because by definition there was no commerce involved. But then once I started being on the receiving end of attention and making money from music and feeling like my emotional needs were being met by the attention and the validation, to my great but understandable shame, I found myself thinking of music as a way to keep the juggernaut going, which I think a lot. I'm sure you've talked to other musicians who, if they're willing to admit it, will say that. like when you have success, you start looking at your next record, not by the criteria of how beautiful is it, how interesting is it, how emotionally resonant or powerful is it, you start thinking like, oh, will it get played on the radio? Will it sound good when I'm standing on stage in front of 100,000 people? Will it get good reviews? Will it sell? And that's where I went wrong. That was my sort of Faustian approach of I had a piece. I had a piece. period where I was willing to compromise my creativity for commercial gain and ultimately for emotional validation.

And it didn't work. And luckily, the turning point for me was a very simple moment. And I don't know if this is going to make sense to anybody, but it makes a lot of sense to me, is I met David Lynch for the first time. This was around 2007, 2008. and I was in a very dark place. I was actually like suicidal. I was bottoming out as an alcoholic in a really dark place.

Twin Peaks, David Lynch, Mulholland Drive, David Lynch. Mahal and drive. For anyone listening. Yes. Yeah. And so I met David Lynch for the first time and I was in awe because I was such a huge David Lynch fan. And David is really complicated and simple and equal measures. Like obviously the work that he does is incredibly complicated.

but sometimes he speaks like a child. And he said something that was like, it felt like the light of, it was just this wonderful moment where he said creativity is beautiful. And I know that might sound like something that a four-year-old would say. But when he said it,

all of a sudden, it was like the Rosetta Stone. It was like the moment when I understood there's nothing wrong with commerce. There's nothing wrong with the world. There's nothing wrong with financial success. But for me, it can't be the focus. The focus, what got me into this originally was that love of creativity, the spiritual aspects of creativity.

And if it creates wealth, great, that's fine. But in that simple moment with David Lynch, I just realized, oh, my focus has to be on the creativity. It has to have integrity. It has to be honest. and not compromised to accommodate a world of commerce that is inherently compromised. So that was the big turning point there. So I really thank David Lynch for knocking me off the path I was on and setting me on a better path. I've been in the ad agency business for 22 years.

So nothing brings me more joy than hearing creativity is beautiful because that's what the ad business is supposed to be. It used to be like that. I came up on, I worked on Madison Avenue for six years. And it was beautiful then. The ideas where it's gotten a little trashy with digital and everything else in between, ironically. Yeah. Regarding advertisements, for example, I remember, because it's very easy and quick to say,

oh, the world of commerce is cheap and tawdry and terrible. But it isn't. It has a potential to be transcendent. Like I think of this moment I had, I was in Germany in the mid-90s and I was watching TV. And a Volkswagen ad came on. that used the Nick Drake song, Pink Moon. And I found myself, like many people, crying while watching this commercial

because it was so beautiful. And Nick Drake sold more records, granted he was dead, but his estate sold more records on the back of this beautiful Volkswagen commercial than he had for the 40 years or 35 years before that. So commerce can be so powerful and effective, but for me,

I had to realize I couldn't prioritize commerce. I couldn't accommodate commerce. I couldn't compromise for commerce. I had to focus on the beauty and the integrity of creativity. And if commerce ensued, that would be great. But it couldn't be the focus. So I got some irony for you. Play was created in your closet with no commercial pressure insight.

And lo and behold, that the beauty of that creation became what it was. Isn't there a lot of irony there? It's like proving your point that without maybe that weight, you created some of your most beautiful work. Yeah, I would say that as I've gotten older, and maybe, again, this is a glib reductive thing to say, but if I had to describe especially the human condition,

it's an ironic paradox. that's the only thing that makes sense and it's almost like the universe not to anthropomorphize it but the universe is aware of this and keeps trying to remind us like you guess what everything is so everything's a paradox life is a paradox like we're so attached to life the only guarantee we have is that at some point we'll die that's a paradox and if that central paradox is the bedrock of all existence of all human existence clearly everything that follows follows from that is also going to be paradoxical. Yeah. So clearly, free of chasing commercial success, give us and people listening the difference between the music business play era and today.

Like, is it, is it sneaky? Is it bad? Because, like, I talk to people and there's this jaded perspective, I think, with a lot of it, with the royalties and everything's like that. I'm going to qualify it.

a little bit by saying I don't fully trust my perspective because I'm an old guy. I'm 57 and it's unfortunately too easy for me to glorify the world of music 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago. I will say there's some objective support for the idea that things used to be better. If you look at like the top 10 songs and albums from 1969, it was let it be. It's the Beatles. It's the Rolling Stones. It's Creedence Clearwater Revival. It's Marvin Gay.

It's transcendent music that spoke to people as opposed to now the world of pop music is, I'll say this politely, 90% of it's garbage. The criteria then was how can you change the world through music? The criteria now tends to be how can we get kids to do a TikTok dance to it. So I will say the quality of the music, and there are people making remarkable music out there, but a lot of the pop music, considering Let It Be was a top 10 song compared to the top 10 songs now, it's really hard to make the case that the quality of the music has benefited from the current state of the music business. But to your question about music business itself, for the longest time, to state the obvious, it sold plastic. From wax cylinders in the early 20th century to vinyl to seven inches, to cassettes, to eight tracks, to LPs, to CDs, to mini-discs. It was the business of shipping and selling plastic. And that obviously changed in the early 2000s with lime wire, with now.

And then here's what's so interesting, I think, is in the early 2000s, into about 2008, people thought, oh, the record business is done. The music business is finished. It's wrapped up. Like, it's entered the realm of, like, broadcast news and free jazz. Think of poetry slams, things that are just going to be greatly diminished. But then, like a weird phoenix, the music business can. came back and is now generating more money than it ever has without having to make plastic. And I just find that so interesting that as an industry, and I wonder if there's analogous

lessons that other industries can learn. Other industries struggle. Look at the music business, which was more abundant in about 2008 and now is more successful than's ever been. Yeah. I think a lot of that's social media and other platforms of growth and awareness and all that. When they stop fighting the downloads and the streaming, I think they embraced it. It came around. It doesn't mean the quality improved, but I think the money that can generate the awareness that it's able to generate.

Yeah, and the idea that what, and I was just talking about this with a friend of mine who runs a big song fund. And one of the things that makes music so remarkably unique, it's one of the only art forms that lives everywhere in a person's life. For example, if I watch a movie, you don't watch a movie in the shower. You don't watch a movie when you're driving to work. You don't watch a movie at a funeral, unless you're a sociopath. So the fact that music lives at festivals, but it also lives in churches.

It helps people sleep and it wakes them up. They listen while they're making breakfast and while they're having sex and while they're dancing and while they're getting tattoos and getting their haircut. And it's so interesting that music, it's the only creative art form that lives everywhere in a person's life. And I think that's one thing that the music business has woken up to is realizing like, oh, we don't need to sell people plastic. We just need to make music available for wherever people want to listen to it. Yes, that's definitely true. Sorry, I know I'm rambling on like a crazy person.

No, it's good. Talking with Moby and Lindsay Hicks, co-hosts of the most. Moby-Pod, which we're going to get to in just a second. You did mention everywhere, and you did mention movies, and I would be remiss to not bring up the BORN franchise and the song with that. Talk briefly about the impact of that or how that came about. It's so recognizable. And, like, people may not even know about play, but know that song because that franchise

was just the mega hit. Yeah. You know, again, the bedrock context of all this is that I never expected anything. I never expected to make music that people paid attention to. so everything that's happened has been surprising. But to Lindsay's earlier point, this idea of irony or paradox is, so the song Extreme Ways,

that's in all the born movies, when it was released, it failed. It was the first single from the album 18, which was the follow-up to play, and it was everybody in the world was paying attention. attention to me. And the record labels were spending tons of money to put it in perspective. The video for Extreme Way is cost just shy of a million dollars. And it got played once for good

reason. It's bad. So we spent a million dollars on a video shot at Andrew's Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert and no one watched it understandably because it's just not very good. And I thought, oh no, radio's not playing it. MTV's not playing it. The record's not selling. very well. What in the world? It was a failure, a very public failure. And then my friend Doug Lyman made the first born movie. And with Frank Marshall and a few other people, Kathy Nelson, they came to me to license this song, but no one expected the movie to be successful. And it became hugely successful. And all of a sudden, the song was like this well-known part of the first movie. So here's where I think it gets a little funny. They

came to us to license it again for the second born movie, not because they wanted it to be the soundtrack or the theme of the movie, because they had run out of time to license anything else and they knew I'd say yes. So it very accidentally became this well-known part of the Bourne franchise because when they were finishing the second movie, they ran out of time to license another song. I hope the price tag went up as the popularity increase. Not that much surprisingly because I'm always so flattered that anyone would listen to my music or want to license it.

I think one of the reasons I've licensed a lot of music is because I don't charge that much for it. It's good to know. I have a lot to remember that with the brands we work with. I can hear Southside on a few commercial spots. Yeah, sure. It's yours. So, Lindsay, talk to me about Moby-Pod. What we've we talked briefly about at the beginning.

What are you guys hoping to do with the show? Where is it all going? I know it's broad-based, but talk to me about Moby Pod, what you've done to date and any of the future episodes. Something that's been really fun is that we came in not, the plan was to not have a plan. So we are just doing what feels right in the moment. The last episode we released, Moby and I decided to write a song on the, as the episode. The episode was just us writing a song from scratch. And I'm not really a musician.

I did some pretty epic musical theater in college. But I'm not a musician. And it was really interesting to do that with Moby and get to kind of mine different forms of showing his knowledge, all of the things that he knows how to do because it's very rare that you can sit and get granular with Moby about how he makes a song. And we had done it before for a different project.

And the whole time I was like, God, this is fun. This is so cool. I wish we had a place to put that. And now we do have a place to put it. But we also, we had some amazing guests. Our next episode is with a psychiatrist named Kirsten Thompson, who is an amazing human being who, her first day working in finance was on September 11th, 2001. She then became a surgeon.

and now is this amazing psychiatrist. And we also had Dan Butner on the show who wrote the book The Blue Zones, which, if you don't know about it, it's so fascinating. It's about longevity. He figured out these spots in the world where more people were living two and beyond 100. And we had Ed Begley on. He'll be the next one after Kiersen Thompson that we release to talk about his sustainability efforts and his vegan diet and all of the amazing things he's done in the world of renewable energy. So it's this awesome place where we can just do whatever we want us. We can get as serious as we want.

We can also get as silly as we want. And it's nice to have that space to do that. That's the one of the thing about podcasts. Especially when you have built in interests, bringing Moby's name to it. But then, like I said, I went into it going, okay, it's Moby. So I'm going to listen. And Moby's come on the show and Lindsay's come to show. I want to know who these are.

But then listen, I'm like, I have found myself. I went down the rabbit hole. I was like, so you guys got to keep at it. Moby, how are you feeling about where it's gone and where you're headed? It hopefully is a continuation of what we were talking about, which is that moment in 2008 when I had to get sober. I realized I was on a wrong path. I was pursuing, I was really involved in some very shallow pursuits.

And the question was, what's next? And I read an interview with the Dalai Lama, and it annoyed me so much, which is funny, because I've met the Dalai Lama. He's a delightful person. But this interview, what annoyed me, and I might be the only person in history who's ever said they were annoyed by the Dalai Lama. I think so. I love it. But it annoyed me so much because he was talking about the importance of service. And at this point, this was 2007, 2008, I was like, no, I don't want to be of service.

I want to be selfish. I want the world to glorify me and make me the happiest person who's ever been. But then as time passed, also when I started getting sober, I realized, oh, this is that paradox that we're talking about. The more people pursue selfishness, the less happy they are. the more people pursue philanthropy, altruism, service, the happier they are. And so I found myself focusing more on trying to be of service. I opened a restaurant here in Los Angeles called Little Pine that got shut down during the pandemic, but we gave the money to charity.

It was basically being run. It was a for-profit, but the profits went to charity. and I try to keep doing this is to do things for the right reasons. And it just, it creates a bedrock of integrity that I find so much more satisfying and rewarding than trying to disingenuously pretend that I'm like doing the right thing while not doing the right thing. And so regarding the podcast, on one hand, the impetus for starting it, was the idea that, and maybe I'm really stating the obvious, you probably know this better than anyone, is controlling your platform in this environment is so important and essential if you care about communicating with people. Because as we know, the algorithms on the other

platforms change all the time. Like one minute Twitter is suppressing people's content. Then it's allowing all sorts of crazy people to say whatever they want. One minute Instagram has a certain algorithm, then it doesn't. TikTok has an algorithm, then it doesn't. They are constantly changing. And the idea of having platforms that can bypass these other platforms become so essential, especially if you want to create meaningful content. And the wonderful thing, and again, I know you know this better than anyone,

and with a podcast is if people listen, that's great. But even if they don't, you're having remarkable conversations with people you care about. And you're having these wonderful conversations where people listen to each other. Because Ryan, I don't know what's like when your friends get together, but I have some really smart friends. When we meet up, we're idiots. We meet up and we eat vegan pizza and we tell stupid jokes. Like, it doesn't matter. They might have IQs of 165 and work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab.

laboratory. When we're social, we're idiots. And there's something wonderful about a podcast where you listen. You ask, we think about what we're going to talk about and you really listen. And like Dan Boutner, who started the Blue Zones, when we had him on, I've known Dan forever. I learned so much about him. And I saw a side of him that I'd never seen before because we weren't just joking around eating vegan pizza. No, it does. People ask me all the time, Why did you start the podcast? I started it because I wanted to have conversations and I thought it would be good for business.

It's been great for business. But more than that, I've gotten to have conversations. In the beginning, I'd get to do and get to choose. But then suddenly, now it's like, I get to talk to Moby and Lindsay Hicks and listen. And like my phone's turned off and I got my headphones on. And I'm like listening and absorbing and like having this real dialogue. And in our lives now with so many distractions,

there's so little that I crave this. now. Can I do it two to four times a week, but I love it. And because it forces, it doesn't force me, but it allots time to do that. And now with the ability of our show being popular, getting to have the depth of conversations with childhood idols and musicians and everything else, it's a wonderful experience. Yeah. And I think it's interesting because on one hand, podcasts are, they live in the, I'm stating the obvious in the most basic way, but they live in the same world of content as other media. But I, given my limited experience with Lindsay, hosting this hosting MobyPod, I actually, and I'm going to sound like such a hippie, and I'm sorry,

but there's something potentially sacred about it. Like when you're speaking, we're listening. Like, we don't interrupt each other. It's this really wonderful moment where you get to sit down and have a very, really intentional, remarkable conversation. So I wasn't expecting that. we started Moby Pod, but I've been really satisfied. And I think Lindsay, I presumptuously think Lindsay has as well, but how meaningful it can potentially be. Yeah. We've had friends.

Yeah, friends I've known for years and I'm suddenly learning things about them that never would have come up in regular conversation. It's deepened relationships and people I'm meeting for the first time. I feel like we walk away friends, good friends at the end of it. So it's a great, it's a great medium. And even for just me and Moby when it's just he and I, we can be as silly or go down rabbit holes of conversation that we probably never would have gone that in depth had we not been in this space for this reason.

And to get to talk about things we really care about, like animal rights, like helping people be healthier and more, like Moby has this incredible knowledge of the human body and diets. And this is now a place where he can put that information. So it's really been a fascinating endeavor. And I'm very excited to get to do more of them. That's awesome. I own a plant-based wellness company called Vacay. That's the hat I'm wearing can relate to that.

Oh, nice. Oh, nice. That's awesome. Yes. So Moby, what's the future of the music? Are we going to have another round? Are you going to unintentionally because you're not chasing fame? Are we going to have a resurgence?

Is there any desire for that to happen? I know you're not chasing it. but I'd probably be okay with it, wouldn't you? I'd be okay with it. I make tons of music, but I don't tour and I don't really do much promotion. So I make music and then once I've made it, I don't pay attention to what happens because there's one recurring, there's a variable here, which is both unavoidable but very scary to me.

And that variable is ego. And I'm sure that I don't think it's possible to bypass the ego. I don't think it's possible as a human to have a life without ego. But I know that in my past, I've lived a very ego-driven life, and it was bad. Like, I suffered, the people around me suffered, my relationship suffered, my family suffered, my health suffered. Like, the more selfish and ego-driven I was, it makes me think of, did you, grow up watching Bugs Bunny. Oh, yeah.

You remember, and I feel like this is a cartoon that sort of describes our current zeitgeist. There's one where Daffy Duck, they meet a genie, and Daffy Duck gets turned into a tiny little duck. Sorry, this is spoiler alert at the end of the cartoon. And Bugs opens a clamshell and there's a pearl. And tiny little Daffy Duck runs in to grab the pearl. and he's just yelling, mine, my, mine. That to me is the sort of the feral, selfish ego that I know is within me. I have to avoid it.

And I don't trust it. So to that point of if someone said, hey, do you want to go on tour and play for millions of people and be celebrated and go to red carpet events, my honest answer would be, yeah, there's a part of me that would love that. But I don't trust it. And I don't, I want to make a concerted effort to not be on the receiving end of that attention. I like the health and sustainability of living a normal life, of going to the grocery store, of going hiking, of talking to you guys, of playing with dogs and cleaning my kitchen. Like, I don't have a housekeeper. I clean my house because it's this humble meditation that I really love.

So I just think I've also just done something quite interesting. is I've just had a very ego-driven soliloquy about how I don't trust ego. So thank you for accommodating another paradox there. But do you have TikTok? Because you wouldn't even have to leave your house if we just blow, are you on TikTok? Like every other music?

I'm on all the social media. I'm not really on. I posted the TikTok a few times, but I'll be honest. I don't think demographically, it's for me. I'm going to sound like such an old. person, but every time I've tried to open TikTok, I'm like, why are these people yelling at me? Everyone's so loud. So I think I need like TikTok for old people where they like, it's just people

who like wear cardigans and watch old episodes of 30 Rock. It's quiet and calm because I find TikTok just be way too noisy. You don't have to watch it. You just need to create for it. I can see you blowing up on TikTok and the music discovery part of it, but I won't push you. That's just my industry. But I can see it. That's bagel the dog. Bagel has some pretty strong opinion. Oh, I heard about bagel on the podcast. Yeah. She's a very big deal over here. I love it. We're going to everybody keep up with all things. The show, you personally, Lindsay and obviously, Moby, I'm sure they can find you easily, but give us some locations everybody can keep up there and that's happening. Yeah, Moby on all the platforms. I left

Twitter when Elon lost his mind. He and I, we were old friends. And I, I just, I don't know what's going on. Yeah. But something happened. And that the Elon who everyone knows now was not the Elon I've known for a long time. And like when he started posting insane conspiracy theories to his trillion followers, I was like, I don't want to be a part of this. So I left Twitter.

But the other platforms certainly are not ethically much better, but they seem a little more neutral. If Mark Zuckerberg starts posting insane conspiracy, series about Paul Pelosi, I probably would leave that Instagram and Facebook as well. But for now, those are like safe spaces for me. Lindsay, about you. Yeah, Wobie is very good about posting about the podcast. So every time we come out, he makes a big post because he has a lot of followers. And I don't.

But I'm at Lynn Hicks. If you want to watch what I do, I post mostly about bagel. So it's very valuable information going on over there. Hey, the dog and animal content gets some of the best, the highest, Asia sometimes. Yeah. You never know. They have their own channels and everything else now.

I know. Their personalities live through their host. But guys, it's been a joy. It's been pleasure hearing more about the podcast and both of you and Moby. It was truly, I don't, someone like yourself comes on, people say these things. But I have, but I'm telling you it was on like repeat, play, then the soundtrack and then all the stuff. A true fan and someone that respects your artistry.

And for someone that grew up, that probably had no business. enjoying everything that you did, like some of the influences I had are so, like, left field. But I think you just totally flipped the expectation of electronic and dance music and how beautiful it could be, but how interesting it could be. And it's been great, really getting to know you better. Oh, thank you very much. That makes me, like, I'm thrilled to hear you say that. And it was a, yeah, I'll speak on behalf of Lindsay and I. Sorry, Lindsay, I assume you agree with this. It was really wonderful talking to you. Like, this was great. Thank you so much. Awesome. Hey, guys, you know where to find us, the radcast.com search for

Moby. You'll find all the highlight clips from today. If I'm links to their show and links to everything else, I'm at Ryan Alford on all the platforms. Blowing up on TikTok, even if Moby doesn't want to. We'll see you next time. To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at the radcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account,

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