(Paris) “Defending animals is my job now”: Moby, electro star, will return to the stage in Europe in the fall for the 25th anniversary of his cult album Play and will donate the profits to organizations sharing his fights.
These are the American’s first concert dates in more than ten years. Moby, 58, is also releasing a new album on Friday Always Centered At Night, named after his label created in June 2022, which sees him collaborate with numerous artists.
“But 99% of the show on my European tour in September will be based on the albums Play (1999), 18 (2002) or Hotel (2005), I want to give people what they want to hear, otherwise it would be selfish,” explains the artist, contacted by AFP by video from the United States.
The hits from the Play album, sold more than 12 million copies worldwide, such as Porcelain, Natural Blues and Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?, will resonate at the Zénith in Paris on September 24.
His tour will also visit Manchester, London, Antwerp, Berlin, Düsseldorf and Lausanne in September. “Groups like Radiohead, who no longer play Creep (one of their hits), I don’t understand,” continues the artist.
Moby has a huge “Animal” tattoo on one arm, “Rights” on the other. “I also have “Vegan for life” on my neck, I have been vegan for 37 years,” confides the musician. “I love making music, but it’s a peaceful and happy refuge for me, not really a job anymore, defending animals is my job now.”
To defend the cause close to his heart, Moby acts “strategically”, seeking to “identify” where he can help the most between the “political, philanthropic, media, etc.” spheres. “.
“I don’t like going to Washington, but I go there sometimes to lobby the American administration,” he explains. He admits that the presidential race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump complicates things.
In the Biden camp, “there are well-meaning people, but they are afraid to do something that could help Trump: if they openly support veganism, they may lose voters.”
As for Trump, Moby doesn’t think “he’s interested in anything other than him, he’s a sociopath, a narcissist and he hates animals because they can’t do anything for him.”
In 1996, the musician released an album called Animal Rights. And in 2023, he directed Punk Rock Vegan Movie, a documentary showing the links between the punk scene – where he comes from – and the animal cause.
“I grew up surrounded by chaotic humans; I learned at a very young age not to trust human beings,” he rewinds. “Animals are not irrational, if they are angry it is for a reason, unlike humans.”
“When I was 19, I said to myself ‘you can’t love animals and eat burgers, that would be like loving children and eating them’. In 1984 I became a vegetarian, in 1987 a vegan.” He even owned a vegan restaurant in Los Angeles, which closed during the COVID-19 crisis and was unable to reopen afterward. He sold the premises and it is the family of Billie Eilish, star of new pop, who must relaunch it.
On one of his new titles, Where is your pride?, we find Benjamin Zephaniah, British actor-singer-poet, seen in the series Peaky Blinders and who died at the end of 2023 following a brain tumor.
“It’s funny, I didn’t get closer to him because he was an artist, but firstly because he was a vegan activist. Then he became a friend and afterward, I said to myself, “hey, we could collaborate”,” confides Moby.