The Jordan Harbinger Show - 196: Moby | What to Do When Success Makes You Miserable

Episode Date: May 9, 2019

Moby (@thelittleidiot) is a musician, singer, songwriter, producer, animal rights activist, and author of Then It Fell Apart. What We Discuss with Moby: How Moby's illustrious heritage made it imperative for him to write his own memoirs instead of passing the job off to a ghostwriter. Why, in his early fifties, Moby has not one but two memoirs under his belt. What it was like to grow up as a latchkey kid, impoverished and on food stamps, in the wealthiest city in the United States. Why Moby "was so happy" during the time he lived in an abandoned factory on the crack-infested side of Stamford, Connecticut. How Moby felt at the realization that he was making more for an hour-long performance than his New York City executive grandfather had made in a year. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/196 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! The Art of Manliness Podcast is a show that aims to help men become better men; host Brett McKay explores how to live a life of both contemplation and action while having some fun along the way. Do yourself a favor and check out The Art of Manliness Podcast here!  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. And as always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DePhilippo. I'm very excited about today's guest. Love and or Haydham, he's been one of the most defining forces of music, especially dance music as it moves into the mainstream from the 90s all the way through today. He's co-written and produced and created music with David Bowie, Billy Idol, Daft Punk, Britney Spears, New Order, Public Enemy, Yoko Friganono, Guns and Roses, Metallica, Sound Garden, even Michael Jackson, among others. Moby is in the studio. Actually, I'm in his studio. And if you're watching us on YouTube, you'll see us sitting right in front of his mixing desk. And Moby's story is just nuts. He went from Lonely Only Child to a massive megastar during a time he actually thought his career was in decline in wrapping up.

And his descent into fame and debauchery reads something like a Motley Crew bio or something. We'll start early on towards the top of the rabbit hole today and hear how he got his first job in music, the worst show he's ever done, dealing. with a lifetime of debilitating anxiety, even as an A-list performer, as well as how he dealt with being super poor and on food stamps to now being a super wealthy celebrity. Spoiler alert, he did not do so well with that, which makes for some entertaining stories here on the show today. This is one of my favorite episodes of the show lately, so I really hope that you enjoy it. And I got this amazing guest by networking my little booty off, and I'm teaching you how to do the same in our

course six-minute networking, which is free. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course is where I'm teaching you to reach out to people and build, maintain relationships. So go grab that. In the meantime, enjoy this episode here with Moby. When you get to a level like where you are, do you feel like, I better be nice because if I'm not, it's going to end up on TMZ? No, it's more just like, I think one, it's familiarity. We're like, and it might sound a little bit too narcissistic maybe, but like if you spend 20 years or more being interviewed, after a while it's just familiar. You're just like, oh, it's normal. And then I guess it's sort of like time passes and you get older and you realize like,

you just kind of like you enjoy talking to people, but you never know like in the olden days, you could sort of look at media and be like, oh, this is going to reach a ton of people. I have to be on good behavior. Right. You know, but now you never know. Like, you do something that you think is really small. Like, my friend Rich Roll has a podcast. Oh, yeah, you know, Rich?

Yeah. And I did Rich's podcast. It was one of the first podcasts I ever did. And I, to be honest, I didn't even really know what a podcast was. I just thought, I was like, sure, you're doing like an internet thing. I'll help you. And then people were stopping me on the street saying, oh, I heard you on Rich Roll. And I was like, that's weird because I had done like the Tonight Show at the same time.

No one's all. No one, right? Yeah. So you enjoy the conversation without ever knowing if it's going to lead to anything. That's funny. Yeah, Rich is a friend of mine as well. I've known him for a while. And his show, my show are similar sizes.

His, of course, is more about like vegan, fitness, endurance racing. There's a lot in there, of course, more than that. But it's similar. I read this whole thing. It's 400 pages long, or at least the version I got. I've actually never seen the hardcover version. Yeah. I was thinking, like, slow down.

man, you're only 53. And this is the second memoir. Yeah. What's the, so like the first one, it's about 400 pages as well. Yeah. Do you write these yourself or do you have somebody who's like, I'm going to do this?

When I had the idea to write the first one, one of my first questions was, and this was like five years ago, I thought, okay, now I'm 53, but then I was like 47, 48, and I was like, I assumed that the people who wrote memoirs

were like either very old, very old, very, accomplished or disgraced or trying to sort of carpe diem something you know like if you're jessica simpson at the heighty or fame you're trying to like rush out a memoir yeah but i was like i'm 48 i've had a weird life do i really does it make sense to write a memoir and i realized that memoir was called porcelain was this very discreet 10 year chunk and it was almost more about like life in New York in the 80s and the 90s, then about me. And so I wrote that.

And my first thought before writing it was, okay, I know that a lot of public figures when they write a memoir, they tell their story to someone, that person writes it down. And then the person, I can't believe I'm using air quotes twice in the interview, but the person writing the memoir, the public figure, just sort of helps the writer edit it. And then my publisher at the time, he said, you know, you're descended from Herman Melville. Oh, yeah. He's like, you kind of have to write your own book. Like, you can't be descended. And I'm not comparing myself to Herman Melville. I'm not saying that I'm just saying like when you're descended from and named after the greatest American writer, you kind of have to write your own book.

Yeah, because otherwise people go, oh, how far we have fallen, right? Yeah. And I know the bar is exceptionally. low for public figures generally. Like I remember being at some award show years ago, and Alicia Keys played piano. And she's quite a good pianist. And the people around me were like, I can't believe she knows how to play the piano. And I was like, really?

The bar is that low? That like you're surprised that the musician knows how to play an instrument. Yeah. But so, so yes, for better or worse, I wrote this one and I wrote the first one. And I don't know if either one of them are good. but I did write them. I liked it and I found myself looking up a lot of the words and I was like, this guy has a huge vocabulary and it's like,

maybe there's a ghost writer who has a huge vocabulary because you're never sure. Half the books I read are not written by the person. And I figured, oh, he's making music, he's too busy. You never know. Also, I'm middle-aged and sober and I have attachment issues. So I don't date. I don't tour and I'm sober. So I have a lot of free time.

So like my friend Peter Hook, he's in the best, It was in New Order and Joy Division. He's now written three memoirs, and they're way longer than mine. And he also is like middle-aged and sober. Like you hit middle-age and you get sober. You just have a lot of free time. So I guess I'll write another book. And then you've got to remember all these things that happened when you weren't sober.

So that may take a lot of time, too. I don't know. How did you end up getting your first job in music? I know you kind of started by living in this abandoned factory. Can you paint a picture of where you were at that time? Yeah. Well, I grew up in arguably, I think, per capita of the wealthiest town in the United States, Darien, Connecticut. But my mom and I were on food stamps and welfare.

So it's where she had grown up. My father died when I was two, and we'd been living in New York City. And my mom thought, okay, I need to go somewhere with my son that has, like, that's safe, that has good public schools. So we went back to Darien, Connecticut. But Darien, it was very odd being dirt poor in the wealthiest town in the United States. Yeah, I can imagine. But that was my lot in life. I just sort of accepted it.

And then I went to University of Connecticut to study philosophy, dropped out, and then needed a place to live. And so I moved into an abandoned factory in a crack neighborhood in Stanford, Connecticut. And I didn't have running water. I didn't have a bathroom. And I paid $50 a month to what was called squatters rent. It's my third use of air quotes. It's okay.

You can use as many as you. There's no limitation here. I mean, self-imposed because it makes me feel ashamed of myself. So I lived in this abandoned factory, and my only goal was to try and, like, get a job DJing and get a record contract. And I was so happy. Like, and friends would come over and they'd be like, you live in a crack neighborhood. People are being murdered all around you. You don't have running water.

You don't have a bathroom. Like, you peen in a bucket, making music and just peered in a bucket? Yeah, in a bucket. Like, I'd buy. water at the local bodega. When the water ran out, I'd pee in the bottles. Yeah. And then there was a bathroom like a few hundred yards down the hall and it was filthy and disgusting if no one had ever cleaned it. So I would use that when I had to. But like, that's how I got started. So I was playing in punk rock bands and trying to DJ. And I got a job DJing at a nightclub in Portchester, New York.

And I was playing Monday nights and I got $25 for playing for six hours. So working out to about what It's like $3.15, $3.12. $3.15 now. That was my first professional job in the world of music. Do you ever do the hourly breakdown of what you might have made, like, at the top when you were doing 26-month-long tours and then compared to what you were making back then hourly? It might be, I probably should say no, but I actually did. Okay. There were a couple times where I found myself doing. things that were really well paying.

And I would sort of figure out like, okay, so what is like, suppose you're playing a show, let's say, like you go on tour, you play a show, you do something, it's $100,000 for a show,

which is sort of good. There's shows that pay less, shows to pay more. And then you realize, okay, so I played for 90 minutes. So, and granted, there's all the travel and touring,

but let's suppose you're just being paid for those 90 minutes. Yeah. So technically, you're making, my math is not great, but around $75,000 an hour for that show. And I remember growing up, my grandfather worked in New York City, and this was in the 70s, and he was an executive, and he made $60,000 a year. Oh, wow.

And I was like, this is really funny. Like, my grandfather, who was an executive in the 70s, I made more in an hour than he would make in a year. And that's, of course, I have expenses, but I, so that's my. my shameful, embarrassing answer your question. Yes, I have done that. And if I was cool and savvy, I would not admit to having done that. But it does. That's fine. The absurdity of like my first job in the music business was getting $3.25 an hour playing on Monday nights for like methadone addicts and drunks who just couldn't be in any way interested in what I was doing. And then the change from

that to when things became more, I guess, financially lucrative. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's funny that you did that because I would do that, definitely. But then, yeah, I get why you might be like, I don't know if I want to broadcast that I sat there on the plane and thought about this or whatever. One thing I think that's cool that you do, I saw this Moby Gratis or Gratis Moby. I can't remember the exact URL. We'll link it in the show notes, but you license about 200 or so tracks for free to students, indie filmmakers and things like that. And if the film takes off, the proceeds go to the Humane Society, which is pretty, unusual. I haven't seen that from a lot of artists, but it doesn't sound like someone who is this

sort of self-centered narcissistic a-hole that was kind of the giant middle of this book. Well, I hope that I've maybe evolved or moved past the total like drug-addicted narcissistic the a-hole. And one of the goals in the book, and I don't know if this comes across or not, but it's like it's sort of supposed to be contextualizing the roots of that self-centeredness. You know, that's why, like, I juxtapose, like, childhood chapters with adult chapters, sort of saying, like, here's the terrible adult behavior and here are the experiences in childhood that don't necessarily justify it or excuse it, but contextualize it. Sure. But now, I mean, like, I got sober 10 years ago, and I realized that the years that I spent obsessively self-involved, like, trying to be more famous, trying to get more money, trying to sleep with more people. like now I look back at that and I don't even recognize that person, but I also understand where it was coming from.

It's like those were ways of trying to like fix the things that I thought were like really broken and dysfunctional in me. And now like Moby Grades for example, it just makes sense. Like make music, put it out into the world. Don't expect to make money from it. And if you can try and be of service, try and help people. And I'm trying to do that. I'm trying to apply that ethos to everything that I do. Like I own a restaurant in Silver Lake and 100% of the profits go to animal rights organizations.

100% of the profits from this book will go to animal rights organizations. 100% of the profits from my last few records went to animal rights organizations. What I want to do ultimately is sort of say that my professional life, I only work for non-profits. you know, so like basically live a fairly simple personal life and have some investments that look after that. So that any money I make professionally will go to causes and organizations that I care about. That's the goal. But it's unprecedented. And everyone thinks it's really stupid.

So if I'd mention that to my business manager or my lawyer, they're like, are you out of your mind? Like you want to take the profits you make from music and give them all away? I was like, yeah, why not? I mean, it seems like you're doing okay, you know, until you have to worry about it. You can always change your mind if you're like, geez, I can't afford my mortgage. That's sort of the thought. Like if the apocalypse happens and I need to like buy oatmeal and raisins to stay alive for a day, I'm like, okay, I rescind that. I'm going to keep some of the money for myself.

But in the meantime, and I'm sure that I mean, you've interviewed thousands of people. We live, and I'm stating the obvious, but we live in a culture where it's like just this rampant, corrosive selfishness, you know. But what's fascinating about that to me is that the criteria of evidence is never applied to it. What do you mean? Meaning, and I don't want to name names because I don't need any more celebrity feuds, but let's pick like some celebrity, okay, let's pick the president of the United States.

Okay. Who, his ethos is one thing, how to have more fame and more blatant wealth. that's it. You know, maybe a little more power, and he's miserable, as are most of the people who try and do that. And what I'm saying is, like, it's understandable. Like, when you're young, you're like, okay, I want fame and power and wealth, and then I'll be happy. But then you get the fame, power, wealth, and you're still miserable. So the question is, as the decades proceed, why do you keep pursuing it? You know, when all evidence, you know, like when you're on marriage number four and you're battling like hypertension and cancer and all these illnesses and you're sick

and you're miserable as most a lot of like wealthy successful people are, why do you keep pursuing more fame and money? Yeah. As opposed to just sort of like saying, oh, let me look at the evidence. Like I'm not a stupid person. This over the top compulsive pursuit and fame and money is making me sick and miserable and I'm doing no good for anyone. Why do I keep doing it? I think because we've, I know this a rhetorical question, but if I can try to answer it anyway, I think it's because if you're in that situation, you go, you know, I just need more, right? Which of course looks really dumb when you're looking at a, was it six-floor, five-floor penthouse apartment with David Bowies, your neighbor, and five balconies and overlooking the park and then the Hudson River, and you're going,

there was a point in the book where you wrote this apartment that I was really excited about felt just as empty and worthless as I did. And it was like, you'd just gotten done describing how amazing this was. And someone would come over and was like, oh my gosh, just mind blown. Couldn't wait to see the other balconies. And then they left and you went, crap, I'm still myself. Yeah. And I mean, I was very guilty of that for a long time. I would think, okay, well, you know, like I went on vacation and spent a lot of money and I didn't have a good time. So next time, I'll go somewhere different and spend more money. And then you do that. And then you do that. and you're still miserable.

And eventually it caught up with me. And I was like, oh, the problem isn't where I'm going. The problem isn't who I'm dating or where I'm living or what publicist I have. The problem is my brain. The problem is my assumption that anything external can fix my brain. And it's hard because we spend our entire lives in this culture where we're told from day one, if you have the right portfolio of stuff, all your problems will be fixed. Yeah.

Except there's no evidence that supports that idea. Right. But if you've, like, if you're some business person and everyone around you says, if you have enough money and the right home and the right mistress and the right this, you'll be happy. And you're not happy. Your first thought is, oh, I'm doing it wrong. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, oh, I'm just, oh, I'm aimed at the wrong stuff. This material stuff's not working. I need to be more famous. or my friends aren't famous enough. Or the four-bedroom apartment on Park Avenue isn't working, so I need a six-bedroom apartment on Lex. You know, the, oh, New York isn't working.

I need to move to Malibu. And then all of a sudden, you're 60 years old, and you're like, wow, I'm miserable, and I'm selfish. Yeah, and I'm 14 houses. Yeah, and then you're like, I was having this conversation with Jim Carrey, and he came to this realization. He was like, oh, the fame, the private planes, the wealth, the whatever. they're okay, but they're not making me happy.

Like, they don't fix anything, you know, and what I learned over time, I don't know if this is relevant to anything you actually wanted to talk about. So sorry. No, it is, actually. It's all in my notes. That's why I'm scratching things off as we go. Oh, and I'm sure there, if people have had that experience, like you're in a private plane, you're on, you're at some exclusive resort, you're at a dinner party with Bill Clinton and

Elon Musk and Kofi Annan. Well, I think Kofi Annan's dead now, but like, you know, with these great luminaries and you're like, oh, I'm still myself. Like, I'm still anxious. I'm still depressed. I'm still worried. I'm still, you know, like, and I, you always thought like, wow, if I'm in St. Bart's with Bono, I thought this would fix everything. And you're like, no, Bono's just a person. You know, everybody's just a person. Like, you've met how many thousands of people. Yeah. None of them are terribly great. Like, I've met lots, I've met the Dalai Lama. I was like, he's okay. Like, he's a nice guy. That's funny. But he's still human. Like, he's,

Like this idea that somehow anything enables us to transcend the human condition, like that's the biggest lie of the human condition. Yeah. You know, no one escapes the human condition while you're alive. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Moby. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard,

visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals. If you'd like some tips on how to subscribe to the show, just go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash subscribe. Subscribing to the show is absolutely free. It just means that you get all the latest episodes in your podcast player as they are released, so you don't have to miss a single thing from the show. And now back to our show with Moby. It's interesting that you realize this.

I assume it took a really long time, and I know it did because I read this. Do you now or did you back then still get excited about meeting other people? famous people. Because you, to put this in perspective, play was supposed to be your last record. Instead, it was like this massive success, sold millions and millions of copies. And you were supposed to go on tour for, what, like 30 days? And instead, you went on tour for two and a half year, two years plus or something. At that point, you're at the top of the game.

Everybody was, everybody knew who you were. There were kids in my high school that lied about like, oh, I met Moby. And I was like, okay, whatever, you know, just to be fair, a lot of us bald guys with classes, we do all look the same. Or like, you probably had a lot of people. saying, yeah, I'm Moby, if you think so, because I'm desperately trying to be, you know, like, meet some girl from my high school or whatever. And there was, yeah, that's a story for off-camera probably. But there's a lot of people that would be in your position, and you're still coming from

that place where you're this punk rock kid in Daring, Connecticut. I assume all of that must have been exciting in the moment, or does it sort of fade immediately? Oh, no, it was great. Like, like, because, yeah, 1999, I thought that my career had ended. Yeah. My mom had died of cancer. I was battling substance abuse problems. I was battling panic attacks. I had lost my record deal.

And I was making this one last album. And I was like, okay, I'll make this album. I'll put it out. I'll move back to Connecticut. I'll get a job teaching philosophy at some community college. And then all of a sudden, like, the world embraced me. And it felt great until it was taken. away. And when it was taken away, I panicked, like, someone being weaned off of a crack pipe.

Like, I was like, I want more fame. I want, like, more movie stars to invite me to their parties. I want more drugs. I want more alcohol. It's such a cliched story. The only good thing about it is that I learned a lot, both about myself and also this culture that feeds that. And I'm not maligning our culture. No, of course, I get it. The culture that says, as I, to repeat myself, like, you know, the fame, the money, the attention, the whatever, the culture that says, oh, that's all you need. Even though, as I mentioned, the people who rely on that end up depressed, miserable, or suicidal.

I feel like in the moment would be so interesting and then you look at yourself and it's, well, you know what's interesting about your particular case is in the early 90s or mid-90s, you'd had that bump where you brought a bunch of new dance music to the scene and everyone's like, oh, this is revolutionary. play comes out, is it safe to say that around 98 before play comes out, you're sort of satisfied. You're like, I'm good in music. So what happened is in 1996, I put out a punk rock record that failed. I mean, it was called Animal Rights. And it failed. Like, because from 90 to 95, my career was going up. In the 1995, I put out this album, Everything is Wrong, that was Spins album of the

year and the Village Voice album of the year. And I went on tour with red hot chili peppers and the Flaming Lips and did music for a Michael Man movie and like things were great and then I thought I'm going to make a punk rock record and things got really dark because I made this punk rock record no one liked it

the tour we did a tour that no one came to my mom was diagnosed with cancer it things got really really dark and that was before the album play came out so there was this trough of failure and then play came out and became so absurdly successful

And it was, it was really fun. And I can, I can say now, like, it was corrosive and destructive, and I'm glad that I emerged from it relatively intact. But at the time, it was really fun. It's just interesting that you were okay with kind of being done with music, but then when you hit it big, then you weren't okay with being done with music suddenly. Well, I was not so much done with music, done with, I thought that the world of popular music was done with me. Okay. So like in 98, I didn't say, oh, I had a good run and I'm done. I was like, oh, I guess I'm done. Isn't that sad? And then not to anthropomorphize the universe, but the universe had other plans.

You know, the universe was like, okay, you think you're done. We're going to give you everything you ever wanted times a billion. Yeah. And let's see how you, it's sort of like, almost like a science experiment. Yeah. Take like the insecure, anxious alcoholic who thinks he's going to, you know, like, go sleep on a futon in a co-op somewhere in Connecticut and teach community college, let's give him unspeakable amounts of fame and see what happens.

And what happens, not surprisingly, is alcoholism, drug addiction, narcissism, bottoming out, and then eventually, like, getting sober and sitting here talking to you. Yeah. Well, I mean, hopefully, hopefully this is not at the bottom of that curve for you. I think, and I've seen some of your story. shows. I actually watched that one Netflix documentary. We'll link to that in the show notes as well. It's like behind, it's not behind the scenes. Once in a lifetime, I think it's what it's called, with Movie. And I was actually, forgive me, surprised to see that you play a lot of different

instruments. I know that's, back to your earlier point about how the bar is low, right? Alicia Keys plays the piano. It was cool, though. You play the guitar, the bongos. There's a bunch of different things that you're on there. Do you learn those on your own by missing around, or is it like when you're at that level you go, I'm going to be playing this on a Netflix. I need the best bongo guy. He's got to get over here for a week and show me how this is done. No, for me, the joy of playing music is playing music. But it's funny because when I was very, very young, I played classical music. And then I played jazz. And then I played punk rock. And so my upbringing was playing guitar. But then I became well known for making electronic music and DJing. And so people just

naturally assumed I was a DJ or an electronic musician who didn't have to play instruments. Push buttons only. Yeah. And I was like, oh, actually, my background was playing guitar and playing piano. My mom was a classical pianist. And so I grew up studying music theory and playing instruments. I'm okay at it, but I just really enjoy it. But it is funny to play a show and have people be like, wow, I didn't know you've played guitar. And it's like, I'm playing guitar since I was nine years old. Yeah. Yeah. I think the guitar I remembered from the book, the piano I remembered a little bit. But But then I was like, oh, you know, bongos, yeah, it just looks like you're slapping them. But at some point, you have to have all of these ideas about how the technique works and, you know, have rhythm and things like that.

If you're going to do it in front of thousands of people and just it's like the Malcolm Gladwell thing. It's just practice. Yeah. You know, the 10,000 hours. And it helps when you're growing up and you're a poor, weird punk rock kid in a wealthy town. Like, you don't have to worry about having a girlfriend. You don't really have too many friends. You have a lot of time to, like, play guitar, play.

drums, play piano. So it's not like I dedicated myself to it. It was more like I had nothing else to do. And I was like, might as well play guitar. Right. It was like Love Boat reruns or play guitar. Yeah, or probably both. Because I'm old, they weren't reruns.

They weren't right. Yeah, just the latest edition of Love Boat. Exactly. What's the worst show that you've ever done? I know that your first show, you only had a dog watching and the dog left before the last song. But other than that. That might sound like hyperbole.

That is actually the truth. Our audience, my first ever punk rock show with the Vatican Commandos, it would have been like the autumn of 80. And our first show, we invited friends. No one showed up. It was only John, the other guitar players, his dog Sparky, was our audience. So that was my first audience. It was to a dog. That was, it looked like you were having fun, though.

It was great. It was disappointing. Yeah. Yeah. But the worst show, that's an interesting question. because there's different ways to judge the terribleness of something. Like there's one time I played a festival. It was a dance music festival in Montreal.

And what made it terrible is we were playing in a concrete arena. And so the sound, it couldn't, nothing could sound good. And so we were playing. And like you couldn't actually hear what I couldn't hear what we were doing because it was all being reflected back at us. We actually had to stop the show, but that wasn't, like, the audience was great. Everything about it was fine, except for the fact that we couldn't hear what we were doing. I know there was one where you ended up the headliner and you weren't expecting to be the

headliner. Oh, that was my first ever electronic music show. I was opening up for the band Snap. Yeah. Remember? I got the power. Yeah. So I was their opening act.

It was their first show in New York. And it was my first big electronic music show. I hadn't released any albums or singles. This was 1990. I think it was like December 1990. And the night, it was at the Palladium, which held like 3,000 people. Sure. The night of the show, 9 o'clock rolls around.

The promoter says, oh, Snap missed their flight. They won't be here, so you're playing. I was like, so there are 3,000 people out there expecting Snap for their debut New York show. And instead, they get a skinny guy who no one's, if I walk out, the MC says, ladies and gentlemen, bad news, snap missed their flight. boo. But from New York, Moby. And I walk on, say, boo. And I walk over to my equipment. And I had like keyboards, synthesizers, drum machines. Someone had turned it all off. And I had this one piece of equipment that took honestly four to five minutes to load. So I spent four minutes in front of a

hostile audience turning on equipment, feeding floppy disks into this one piece of equipment. And I'm convinced, this is why I'm bald. Like, just the terror and the misery of that. The show ended up being okay. And there's one weird little codicil to that is the sound check is still the weirdest sound check I've ever done. Because, you know, sound checking in the palladium, completely empty. I'd never done a real sound check before. I do my sound check and I hear a voice saying, Moby.

I'm like, oh, there's someone here. And I walk out and it was my boss, Yuki. I was also DJing at this club, Mars. Yuki was my boss. And Yuki was with a friend of his. And I walk out and say, hey, Yuki, and I look over and his friend is Miles Davis. Oh, wow. So technically, my first ever electronic music show was to an audience of two people,

Yuki and Miles Davis. Miles Davis wouldn't shake my hand or talk to me. Really? I mean, also dressed in this beautiful suit and he was, you know, it's Miles Davis. But I think it's funny that, yeah, so my first punk rock show was to an audience of one dog, and my first electronic music show was to Miles Davis. Wow, that's a lot of pressure. You're right.

That may actually be while you're bald. Yeah. Is it truly used to teach Bible study? Because when I look at parts of this book, I'm like, okay, 400 drinks a month was kind of the height of it, according to your estimation? I think math. Yeah. About that. So it's like 15 drinks a night.

But sometimes I was too hung over to drink or too sick to drink. So like, but on average, 10 to 15 drinks a night. Yeah. So, okay. So that ends up being six nights a week. We don't have to do the exact math. I just pulled sort of. Between 300 and 400 and 400.

Yeah. That's a lot, I think, more than average. Yeah. And there had to have been a point at which you thought about this and went, what the hell is going on? I used to be this, like, devout Christian. This doesn't fit with that. Or is it just such a slow, slippery slope that?

you never quite get there. It was, yeah, well, my, my devout Christianity, which was like the late 80s into the early 90s, when I taught Bible study and went on Christian retreats. And to this day, I still love a lot of the tenets of the teachings of Christ. You know, forgiveness, humility, mercy, compassion, non-judgmentalism. Like, these are all wonderful things to aspire towards. I don't know if in a 14 billion-year-old universe saying, that we as humans who are around for a few decades can say exactly who the architect of the

universe is. Like I have a sort of hopefully what's like a humble agnosticism. But for me, even when I was like in the depths of the heights of my Christianity, however we want to look at it, for me it was never moral. It was more existential in a way. And what I mean by that is like like growing up, I don't know, Europe bringing, but like a lot of people are brought up with this idea that like religion is about morality. Yeah. You know, like, don't do this, do this. Don't do this.

Don't do this. And for me, morality and ethics only enter the equation when your actions affect someone else or another thing. You know, so whatever you do to yourself, there might be some cosmic moral criteria that can be applied to it. But truly morality and ethics only are applicable. rationally when your actions have consequences outside of you. But I understand what you mean with that, I think, where you're thinking, screw this, I'm going out. I'm, this is debauchery, but it's really, I'm the one who's got to deal with this.

I'm not hurting anyone, which may or may not really be the case with alcoholism, but I can see that rationalization and not saying, look, it's not in the Bible that I can't do this or maybe it is, but look, I'm not stepping on other people or stealing their money to buy alcohol. I'm just doing it to myself, so it doesn't really matter. Yeah, I mean, because, for example, I've been a vegan for 31 years. And in around 1995, I'd been a Christian, I'd been a hardcore Christian for eight years, I'd been sober for about eight years, I'd been a vegan for a while. And I stopped and almost like, tried to have like a rational assessment of my choices, my worldview. and I thought, okay, well, I'm sober, but is my sober just sort of like arbitrary morality?

Now my sobriety is based on a simple fact that I'm an old-timey alcoholic. But back then, it felt more like, it was just like, I was like just an uptight, judgmental Christian dick. And now I'm just an uptight judgmental dick. And so I started drinking again. I started being very debauched and promiscuous, but I never stopped being a vegan. because I realized like, oh, that's different. Like if I'm a debauched, awful alcoholic narcissist,

I'm mainly just hurting myself. If I was to go out and eat animals, I'm actually contributing to the suffering and death of animals. And it's like, I can't do that. So again, it's like that, like there's this sphere of me. And if my actions hurt me, that's okay. It's when they affect other people. that's when I think personally I have a problem with it.

And what was really upsetting is when I got sober to realize how I thought I was just hurting myself and sort of referencing what you mentioned. Like, turns out my alcoholism, narcissism, entitlement was really hurting a lot of other people. Sure. You know, friends, family members. And that was horrible to realize that, to be like, oh, I thought I was just destroying myself. I was actually like really causing a lot of pain and misery to other people. why in the 12 steps, the ninth step is making amends. Right. Yeah. And that's a really intense process when you fully accept that you have harmed other people. It's very, it's a really,

it's intense, but important, but it's very unpleasant. I would imagine you go through that slowly so you don't call 10 people a day and have them tell you how crappy you are and how you ruin their life. Yeah, most of them, most people are, when you go to someone and really admit the nature of your wrongs, like what you've done wrongs. Like what you've done wrong. rarely do they get mad at you usually they get very emotional and say thank you oh wow at least i mean like every now and then someone's like no you were a dick you're still a dick i don't ever want to see you again i'm like fair fine okay because it's not about them it's about you at that point yeah you never that's the other thing about and i don't want to make this just like another

middle-aged sober guy talking about 12 steps but one of the beautiful things about making amends is you can never mention anything the other person did. So, like, if you killed my dog, punched me in the face, stole my car, set my house on fire, but I kicked you in the shins, when I make amends, all I'm allowed to do is say, I'm sorry that I kicked you in the shins. I'm not allowed to, there's never but. What if they bring it up, though? Sorry, let your house on fire.

If they bring it up, you're allowed to say, like, okay, I forgive you if you want to. But, like, it's a really interesting process because, you, like, I had an ex-girlfriend and we were terrible to each other. Like, really... Is that the back and forth, the one you left to the tea shop? Like, we were unfaithful to each other. We weren't at times not very nice to each other. When I made amends to her, I didn't mention anything else that she had done.

I didn't say, oh, I'm sorry, I cheated on you, but you cheated on me. It was just simply, I'm sorry, I cheated on you. That was wrong, and I apologize. Wow. that would be such a heavy-duty process. It's intense, yeah. What sort of habits or quirks do you think you still have from growing up as poor as you did? I mean, you were like watering down your orange juice, watering down milk, which really sounds gross, by the way.

But I guess, you know, you get needs to do what you got to do. What sort of weird quirks do you have now? Like, are you secretly watering down your orange juice, even though you're living in this amazing place right now, just because that's how it should taste? Well, it was the case that years of drinking watered down. juice, milk, whatever, one of the consequences was that whenever I drank normal orange juice, it tastes very syrupy to me.

But now, I mean, hmm, I guess most of us have irrational relationships towards money. And I still, like, if there's a room in my house and I'm not in that room, I turn off the lights and make sure that the air conditioning or the heat's turned off. like I'll go over to friends houses and they'll have like their entire house will be lit up and they'll have like air conditioning going in rooms that they're not using and I'm like

what is this like absurd indulgence? I'm like if I'm not in a room I turn the lights off so at night there's usually only one room of my house that has lights on and if I go to another room then you turn on the lights there and that's or I used to have this house in upstate New York and when I had parties this was pre-sobriety so I'd be very drunk very high but I'd walk around the house turning off lights and rooms if no one was in that room. Wow. That's that's serious. That's beyond habit. That's like almost like it's like old man like like like you live through depression. Yeah. Like don't throw that away. Dad, it's just a wax paper from a cereal box. We kind of use that. Yeah. Yeah. That is that must. Was there any point that

you were cognizant of that in the moment where you went, this is ridiculous. Actually, yes. my manager, Eric, who I've worked with now for 20 some odd years, and the strength of our relationship is we just insult each other. And at one point, he, I was doing something so irrational around money. Like, I think we were at a health food store in the UK, and I was looking at like comparison shopping, organic blueberries. And I was like, well, these organic blueberries are three pounds. and these are three pounds 15. He's like, you do know you've sold 20 million records. You're allowed to just like ignore that 50.

I was like, no, like you have to get the three pound ones because you save 15 cents. Yeah. So that still happens quite a lot. Like I'll go to the, I'll go to Gelson's, my local supermarket. Sure. That plays, by the way. To Ching, if you're not sure about Gelson's, not cheap. But like, I'll go and I'll be like, oh, yeah, like organic oranges.

is they're two, 79 a pound. I guess I can get two. So it's still, I, you know, like, I grew up poor watching my mom buy food with food stamps, and like that's still in my DNA. It's like epigenetically. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

That's funny that you should use the word epigenetically. It is that maybe there is something to that with money. I know there's stuff like that with smoking and other habits. But essentially, like, I mean, our genetic code, I mean, what do I know? I know my college drop out. But like our genetic code. people will say like, oh, those are your genes.

I'm like, no, your genes are constantly, they're like switches that are constantly like going in this direction, going in this direction based on environment, exposure to things, thoughts, etc. When I found that out, I was extremely disappointed. I don't know. How did you feel like, hey, all that stuff you did, that was bad. Your genetics can't, not only can they not protect you from that, you probably screwed it up for your kids. But it's also a three, what, three and a half billion year genetic process.

it's really good at healing and self-regulating. Yeah, that makes me feel better. Like, I take it. I have a ton of friends who are like full-blown drug addicts, like did tons of acid, tons of crack, tons of crystal mess. And then they fathered children, the children are fine. Not always, but like it's amazing how self-protective this organism will be if you let it. Yeah, yeah, if you let it.

That's the key, right? You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Moby. We'll be right back after this. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps us on the air and keeps us going and keeps my puppies in kibble. So to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals. And don't forget the worksheet for today's episode. That link is in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com slash podcast.

And if you're listening on the Overcast player, please click that little star next to the episode. It really helps us out. And now for the conclusion of our amazing episode with Moby. You know, we talk a lot on this show about imposter syndrome. Are you familiar with that at all? Have you heard of this? Yeah. And from the book, there's a little excerpt here.

Hopefully I can just quote it because this is like, at the height of your success, according to the book, you're having this thought. It said, I wanted to stop the show and patiently explained to the movie stars and the beautiful people that they'd made a mistake. They were celebrating me, but I was in nothing. I was a kid from Connecticut who wore secondhand clothes in the front seat of his mom's car while she cried and tried to figure out where she could borrow money to buy groceries. I was a depressed teenager whose first band had played a show in a suburban backyard to an

audience of zero people and one dog. My brief moment of rave fame had come and gone in the early 90s. Now it was 1999. I was an insecure husband, a wilting house plant of a human being. But we kept playing and the celebrities kept dancing and cheering. So this is like the height of your Is it safe to say it's like the height of your fame in a way? It's sort of the beginning of that high fame period.

And this is how you felt. I mean, how much of that is hindsight for the book? And how much of that is like, nope, I'm pretty damn sure I felt that way. Oh, I felt that way. Yeah. But the weird thing is in the few years that followed, things started to go wrong when I stopped feeling that way. Like there was a period around 2002.

where I started to feel not confident, but sort of entitled. Entitled, yeah. You know, and that's when things really went wrong. So the sort of like the self-deprecating imposter syndrome, it might not have been empirically supported, but it was healthy. The arrogance and the entitlement that came a few years later, that's disgusting. That's a funny observation that totally makes sense. right? Because if you feel like, wow, I shouldn't be here, I'm lucky to be here, hey, maybe I can

enjoy this for the time being, although it's hard because I feel like I don't belong here. That's better than, do you know who I am? Let me in here right now. And there's plenty of those moments in the book, too, that are kind of cringe-worthy, right? Yeah. You're cringing right now. Just anybody, I mean, it's just, it's disgusting. Yeah. There's one particularly funny one in there where you wander into this backdoor of some club, and they're like, you can't be in here. And you're like, don't you know who I am? And they're like, we don't care. We're counting credit. card receipts. This is an office. It was so humiliating. It was this bar lit on 1st Avenue or second avenue might still be there. And I was very drunk. And I saw people going into this room. And I was

like, lit has a VIP room. I was like, why didn't anyone tell me about this? And so I stumble in and it was dark and shadowy. And I'm standing there drunk and stumbling. And I, they're like, get out. You can't be in here. And I was like, you know who I am? And the moment those words, left my mouth, I was like, oh my God, I just said it. Like, I said those, those words that only, the only time anyone says those words is when you're entitled, arrogant, narcissistic douchebag whose best years are behind you. Yeah. And I was like, even in my drunken state, I was like, I can't believe I just said those words. And then, yeah, they said, this is an office. We're counting credit card receipts. Yeah, like there's nothing in here. You literally don't even

want to be in here. Yeah. And here you are like trying to. throw the weight around. And yeah, at that point, it seems like it would be great if that was like, well, I had a wake-up call and then I straightened my life around. There's another 100 pages or so in the book after that. Well, yeah, that was 2002, where they're about. And I didn't get sober until 2008. So there was a good six years of descending from that.

You know, like the bottoming out, like that was nothing compared to like the bottoming out that happened later in the book in my life. I assume you don't lose your memory. memory when you get drunk because there's a lot of details in here where I'm like, I would not have remembered that at all, especially if I was drinking for the whole time. I'm sure I've forgotten lots of things. Yeah. But there's also the process of when you write about yourself, when you write a memoir, I think of it, if I'm going to sound like a real pretentious, like, lit major. It's like this Proustian mnemonic cascade. And what I mean is like you remember one thing and that thing triggers a whole bunch

of other memories. And also, a lot of our past is very repetitive. You know, so like saying, oh, in 1999, as I was walking up Fourth Avenue, I was wearing jeans and black sneakers and a black hooded sweatshirt. I was like, that's because I wore that every day. Yeah, right. You know, it's not like, hmm, what was I wearing on that particular day? Like, I wore the same thing every single day, you know? Yeah, good point. Like, it's a safe bet that you were bald and had glasses on at any given day in the last 20 years or something. And it's like, oh, and I came home, and worked on music. I was like, I did that every day.

Right. Like, right. But then the unique stuff, I don't know. I guess the other, I also, I hope that I'm accurate. Like I'm remembering as best I can. But who knows, maybe there is some divine entity that when I die is going to like copy edit my life and say like, that never happened. What do you talk? Like, like, oh, you remember this completely wrong.

But I'm like, you do your best. I guess it doesn't matter for purposes of the book. It all illustrates a similar point. The imposter syndrome for you went even, I mean, it was more like pathological. This isn't something that high performers get imposter syndrome all the time. Pretty much everybody who's not just like narcissistically entitled to the endth degree has a feeling of imposter syndrome. I hear it all the time from Navy SEALs to like these big billionaire CEO types. This though goes beyond that.

There's an excerpt here that says, I had been worthless for why else would my father kill himself and leave me? And I'd grown up worthless. For why else would my mother run into the? the arms of terrible men. The parties in promiscuity and platinum records hadn't changed the essential facts. I was inadequate and unlovable, and it was time to stop pretending otherwise. So you actually at this point talk about how your brain, you think your brain wanted you to be alone because you had panic attacks, you couldn't have like close friends. You'd gotten rid of by fighting with them, I assume, all of your older friends and all your relationships.

How did you start to attack that? You got sober for sure, but what else do you do in the situation. That's a big question. Yeah. There's so many ways to approach and unpack that. And I guess on one hand, this might be a weird analogy, but if you ever bought a rolled up carpet, have I personally, that seems like something my wife would do, but I don't know if I ever have. But like if you get a rolled up rug, rolled up carpet, you bring it home, you put it on the floor and it stays rolled up. Oh, right. And then you unroll it and it rolls back. And you unroll it and it rolls back. And you keep unrolling it. And then like you put books on the corners to try and train it to stay flat. It takes a very long time for it not to even like curl up at the edges,

meaning that the form that it held when it was made is the form that it wants to go back to. And I think that's true for psyches as well. So like all those things were true and are true, and you have to, I guess, skillfully assess them. Like, say, like, okay, are any of these things supported by evidence? You know, they might have been true 30, 40 years ago. Are they still true? And if not, how can we try and move past them? We, maybe I just referred to myself as a royal we.

How can I move past them? And sometimes you can. But also accepting, oh, that's okay. Like every now and then, that carpet that's been laying flat, still the edges curl up. And you're like, yeah, okay, put some more books down. Hopefully don't trip over and hopefully it doesn't cause too many problems by curling up at the edges. But because I think a lot of people when they look at like self-improvement, they think, oh, everything that's wrong with me, I have to fix. Yes, that's for sure.

So that's why self-help makes us so freaking miserable. Yeah. It highlights new shit that we didn't even know we had to fix and now we found that. Yeah, as opposed to saying like, what are real? issues to fix? And what are practical ways of addressing them? Instead of saying, I'm going to fix every problem I've ever had and any evidence of that indicates that I'm even worse than I thought, as opposed to saying like, oh, we're human. We make mistakes. We are largely formed in our formative years. That's why they call them formative years. And then you get older and you're like,

okay, so guess what? Yes, I will probably always have issues around intimacy. I'll probably always feel to some extent like a second-class citizen, I'll always have a degree of imposter syndrome, it's okay. I still function. I still go out into the world and I try and be of service. I try and be a good friend. And I love a lot of things about my life.

And I'm like, it's a sense of acceptance of the things that are, I was going to say insidious, but almost more intrinsic in a way. Yeah. Okay. That's a good answer to this question. Because of course, the self-help answer is, well,

did all these different things, and here's three weird tricks to get rid of all your self-loathing or whatever you want to call it. I love the analogy of the carpet. I'm going to definitely be using that in many areas because that is, that really makes sense, I think, for a lot of us when we think, well, I'm supposed to get over being shy because now I'm a speaker. And it's like, no, you being a speaker and going out on stages, those are the books and the tables you're putting on the carpet. But if it curls up, because it's Friday night and you just want to stay home and watch Netflix. You don't have to be like outgoing now. You don't have to change your identity. And it's skill. It's circumstantial and contextual and you have to be very skillful and say like,

oh, am I staying home to watch Netflix because it's a choice? Right. Or am I staying home to watch Netflix because it's an unhealthy compulsion? Like, am I avoiding something because I think it's terrible? Or am I avoiding it because I'm terrified and I'm playing to some like old fear that probably should be dealt with? Right. And it's really, real it. And hopefully in this process, not to sound like too much of a new age hippie, but hopefully in this process, you start to gain compassion for everyone, because everyone who's not a narcissistic sociopath deals with the exact same thing. Like, everybody's confused. Everyone has self-doubt. And if you don't, something's wrong with you. Yeah, that's a, that's a relief to hear, I think,

for a lot of people. Yeah. And it's different when I say it or when somebody else says it, but it's, If you still have it when you've sold 20, how many millions of copies of records have you sold? Do you even know? 20-ish? Yeah. When you sold 20 plus million records and you still have that, it's okay that you have that, whatever you're doing now, right? Like, it's fine.

It either will go away or it won't, but getting more is not going to be the thing that makes it go away. Yeah, and just look at all the people who got more and more and more. Yeah. Michael Jackson, you know, like, they're Donald Trump. Like, I'd rather be someone who sort of, like, wrestles with the human condition, wrestles with feelings of inadequacy, as opposed to someone who pretends that that doesn't apply to them and goes out and tries to, like, keep conquering the universe and having more and more and more. And then you end up truly broken, like almost unrecognizable as a human. I know every interview with you degenerates into this, and I'm almost ashamed of myself for asking, but I feel like I have to. What the hell was the Eminem thing?

Okay. That was so weird and it still is. I have a feeling like when I'm assuming we're all still around and there's electricity in 100 years, like if I'm 153 years old, I'll be doing an interview and the person will be like, so whatever happened with you and Eminem. Yeah. Who's now the president of the United States? Yeah.

Yeah, that's Secretary General of United Nations, Marshall Mathers. So basically what happened was in the late 90s, if you remember, pop culture, became weirdly misogynistic and homophobic. Yeah. And I'm neither a woman nor a gay man, but I was really taken aback by it and offended, especially alternative rock. Because alternative rock had been REM and Nirvana and the cure.

Yeah. And then all of a sudden it was like bands singing like about like abusing and brutalizing women and beating up gay people. And I started doing interviews saying like, this is horrifying. Like how is it that? pop culture is embracing homophobia and misogyny. Like, just to prove how wrong it is, just replace that with anti-Semitism and racism. Oh, yeah. Good point.

You know, like, like, so that person who's singing about brutalizing a woman, replace woman with Jew. Yeah. Would they still get played on the radio? That person is talking about beating up, you know, of gay people. Replace that with blacks. Would they still get played on the radio? And so I was sort of trying to make this point of, like, how is, like, bigotry is always wrong.

discrimination is always wrong. It doesn't matter who you're discriminating against or how much money you're making for your record company. And I mentioned some M&M songs as being examples of this. The context is I thought Eminem was kind of like smart and interesting and talented. And I thought he was playing a role of a sort. But the thing is, his 12 year old fans didn't know that. So when his 12 year old fans heard him espousing violence towards women, they just assumed he was misogynist. When his 12 year old fans heard, he him espousing violence towards gay people, they assumed he was homophobic. And so I did sort of single him out a little bit. But with the understanding that I actually respected him and thought he was very smart and really an odd, interesting public figure, he did not take this too well. Yeah. And it really came to a head. I did an MTV interview and they asked that question, like, what's going on with you and M? And I said, I jokingly said, I don't know, maybe he's gay and he has a crush on me. Oh, that did not go over well. And then he tried to attack me in an MTV. video awards, but like time has passed and like he became like this huge. I mean, he got more and more

and more successful and I went in the other direction and sold like fewer records and became more obscure. So like I doubt he even remembers who I am. But also he's done a lot like he's done like a lot of interesting political stuff since then. And I have to be clear, he was not the worst offender as far as homophobia and misogy go. And I think he was certainly probably brighter and more self-aware than most of the other musicians who were being egregiously homophobic and misogynistic. One thing that I thought was definitely strange was at the MTV Music Awards. I guess you guys saw each other and he handed you like a drawing. Yeah.

Of him strangling you or something? He did it twice, yeah. It was like a draft on the back? It was actually really well drawn. And he handed me, sort of say like, I hate you so much. I drew a picture of me strangling you. And I was like, I almost want to say like, this is really good. Yeah.

It shaded really well. Yeah. Yeah, like quite figurative, cartoonish, but interesting. But the fact that he had done it twice, I thought was actually really sweet. It's kind of funny. He was like, I can't hand this to Moby with all these scribbles on it. Hold on. I'm just going to do another version of me killing.

Here, here's me killing you. By the way, I got to go up and get my award now and talk a bunch of shit. And like, I hate you so much that I had to draw myself strangling you twice just to make sure it really captured the essence. Right. I thought it was a showbiz beef the whole time. Me too. I thought it was.

Yeah, like I didn't think anyone was taking it too seriously, and I was mistaken. Yeah. Well, I think he recently, I can't remember what movie this was, but he did a bit where he came out as gay. It was fake, obviously. It was like a Seth Rogen movie or something. Like, did Eminem just say he was gay? So it's kind of come in this weird circle because that would have been brand nuclear implosion back when he had said those things. And now he's kind of like joking that he's gay.

And the other... The other odd thing is I feel like if we had grown up together we would have been friends because our upbringing were really similar. You know, like single moms,

weird levels of confusion and poverty. Yeah. And in a way, we both embraced musical genres very foreign to our upbringing. So he embraced African American culture and hip-hop. I embraced African-American culture

and dance music. But like I said, like, so there's weird parallels. So maybe, Maybe someday when we're 80, we'll just, like, sit on the porch in Boka. Yeah. And, like, drink virgin mojitos and say, like, ah, we're just a couple idiots. Yeah, like sober, sober dudes.

Yeah. Because he, yeah, there's a whole lot there to unpack. I now see how young we all were back then. Because I was doing the math in my head. And I was like, okay, so back then, da-da-da-da, you were, because I'm 39. Now I was like, wait a minute. If I was 33 and I had made that much money and was on stage ever, there's no. there's no way I would have handled my fame better than you did, which is kind of scary.

I think, I don't know. I think people, I handled fame and wealth really, real, like, like, disastrously. Yeah. But in a way that, like, I learned, and I feel like it sounds like such a cliche, but like, I wouldn't trade any of it. Like, I wouldn't go back and make fewer mistakes. I wouldn't. Really? Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Like, I, like, because I have this belief that if you are happy with who you are and happy with where you are, largely, when I say that, I don't mean necessarily materially, I mean, like, in terms of perspective, and in terms of worldview, and in terms of understanding, like, your perspective, your worldview and your understanding are 100% the product of every experience you've had. So you can't go back and tinker. Like, you can't resent the experiences if you're happy with what they've produced. That's true.

Although I think a lot of us would love to go back, edit out a lot of the traumatizing stuff, and be like, I still would have ended up here. But that's a lie, right, that we tell ourselves? I don't know. I mean, when I look back at my life, I sort of feel like I learned very little from success, and I learned a lot from fame. Like, success is so delusional. Success says, like, oh, you're great. Go do it again. And fame is like, you know what?

are more complicated than you thought they were, let's take stock of really what happened. You know, like, fame is such as like a flattering, delusional voice and success. You've said that music is now your hobby and your job is activism. In fact, I think you might have said that earlier in this very interview. I guess we'll see when I edit this. But what's next for you? I mean, you're focused on the animal rights. It seems like that's what's keeping you going and not necessarily all these awards out there that

I'll put in my Instagram story because they're all nice. hallway. I didn't know, this might sound word, I didn't know where else to put them. They'd been sitting in storage for a long time. And a friend of mine said, like, why he's just hang him up? I was like, okay, sure. So, like the temple of narcissism out there. It's, but it's funny that you mentioned that. My wife and I, who's my wife, Jen, who's right there that she's a recurring character on the show, I said, you know, he's got all his awards and they're just kind of like jammed on a shelf. And then they're all two inches away from each other on the wall. And some of them are so low, you'd have to like lay on the

floor to see them. And I go, I bet he just doesn't. care about this stuff anymore. I mean, I think it's interesting. It's funny. Some of them look nice, but like, they used to be a lot more important to me than they are now. And there's also sort of like a slightly aging faded sadness to them. You know, like most of the awards are for the album play, which came out 20 years ago. So it's not, it's like a temple of narcissism. It's not necessarily a temple to like modern relevance. But to your, the question of like, so what now is, it's It's a hard question to answer without sounding even potentially like more of a Southern California New Age self-involved cliche.

But like the only two things that matter to me really, I hope, I think, are understanding and service. And what I mean is understanding, I don't know how to describe the universe. I don't know if it's God. I don't know if it's cosmic energy. I don't know what it is. but it's really interesting. And all the weird ways in which it's revealed, like material ways like quantum mechanics,

astrophysics, the workings of a cell. You know, like, say, like, these things are fascinating. What do they tell me about the energy creating them or sustaining them? So that's really interesting. And the other is service because, like, one of the things that I find so frustrating is that every problem facing humanity is a problem created by humanity. Yeah.

And you'd think if that was the case, we would just stop. Like the fact that we keep doing the same stupid stuff over again with horrible consequences, I mean, as individuals and collectively. So I live to sort of like try and understand whatever that energy is that can make a cell work, that can make light a particle in a wave. Like, that's fascinating. But also trying to like do what I can to sort of like be of service and help while I'm here. Because it would just be nice to live.

in the world where like we weren't destroying the only home that we have. Yeah. And I've one small issue is before we started talking, I drank a lot of tea. Oh yeah. Now you really have to pee. So my question is, do we keep going and I don't pee or do I go pee and come back? I would say that either we can wrap it here because this is a good place to do that. And then you can pee no matter what. Because I worried about that. And I just want to say thank you very much. Oh, my pleasure. having us over to your house. This is awesome. I've been a fan for a really long time. I read the whole book recently, and it was good, and it's been a pleasure getting to know you through the book and here today. Well, thanks. Yeah. And two of the good things about the book,

it's got a nice little blurb from Stephen Colbert. I saw that. That's cool. Most importantly, it's got pictures. Oh, I read the PDF. In color. Wow. You see? So you don't even have to read the words. That's right. Just like read the blurb from Stephen Colbert, look at the pictures, put it on your coffee table. Maybe someone will be like, oh, you read books. Yeah, well, I'm going to have you sign this one. If you want to pee before that, that's fine. Yeah, I'm going to go pee because, boy, it's like, it's bad. Do it, man. Thank you. Thank you. Great big thank you to Moby. His new book is titled, Then It Fell Apart. It was a good read. It was kind of fun. He's a really good writer wrote it himself, as you heard on the show. And if you want to know how I managed to book all these

great people and manage my relationships using systems and tiny habits and get great guys. And like Moby and be able to have all these great opportunities. Well, I'm teaching you how to do that for free in our course, six-minute networking. Even if you think you don't need networking and relationship development, I promise you when you do need it, it'll be too late if you haven't dug the well before you're thirsty. So go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash course and go ahead and start that off.

It takes six minutes a day, quick crying, no excuses. Speaking of building relationships, tell me your number one takeaway here from Moby. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. There's a video of this interview on our YouTube channel. channel at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. And this show is produced in association with Podcast One, and this episode was co-produced by Jason Porcelain DePhilippo and Jen Harbinger. Show notes and worksheets are by Robert Fogarty, and I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger.

Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is you share it with friends when you find something useful, which should be in every single episode. So please share the show with those you love and share the show even with those you don't love. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show, so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with

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