Deep Media

Conversation with Moby: Loves David Lynch, Intimidated by Eno

Photo by Bryan Derballa/Wired.com

To write about the tale of flotsam love that comprises the video for Moby's "Mistake," I sat down with him for an hour and a half or so at a cafe on Lafayette Street in Manhattan. He had a pot of Earl Grey tea and I had—well, actually I don't remember what I had. But here's what he had to say, starting with a dream sequence inspired by my digital recorder. 

Moby: I used to record my dreams a long, long time ago. I read some interview with Andre Breton or one of the surrealists about how they would try and document their dreams. And at first I would try to write them down. But if you wake up at four in the morning and you’re half awake, taking up a pen and writing something down doesn't work. 

Rose: I've done that, actually. 

Moby: And then I had one of those crummy old micro cassette recorders. Now I’ve got one of these. [He points to my Olympus digital recorder.] But it's—not to sound like a crazy hippie, but it's great because I never remember my dreams. So I started recording my dreams as a way of gaining access to the subconscious. Somehow I feel like that might be therapeutic. Or turn me into a raving psychopath. 

Rose: So, any interesting dreams? 

Moby's ‘Mistake’ Tells a Tale of Flotsam Love

"One of the nice things about the demise of the music business," says Moby, sipping tea at a sidewalk cafe in downtown Manhattan, "is that a big production doesn't matter any more. Like in 1998, it seemed the criteria for determining the worth of a music video was how big the production was. Now the only thing that matters is the idea."

We're discussing the latest video for "Mistake," a track from his Wait for Me album that's being released as a single tomorrow. The song starts off as a synth-heavy, down-tempo ballad and gradually morphs into into an all-out rocker, replete with clanging guitars and propulsive drums. With this as a backdrop, the video — which Wired is presenting today in an exclusive preview — provides an oddly touching narrative involving a lemon and a tennis ball. Made by a friend who had never picked up a videocam before, it's a sidewise tale of flotsam love that's as quirky as anything Moby has ever released.

"I just think it's — I mean, it's just adorable," he says, his face scruffed with a week's growth of salt-and-pepper beard, his baseball cap and plastic-rimmed glasses on the table before him. "But it is safe to say that when I was writing the song, I never envisioned a lemon riding a sea cucumber in search of its lost tennis-ball love."