LA based music journalist Lily Moayeri spoke with Moby in 1999 – the same year that his landmark Play album came out.  This article continues our From The Vault series of interviews. Crucially, this interview was conducted before Play had been released. 

To set the scene, a few years earlier, Moby’s rock album Animal Rights had been released, and after its launch he had been dropped from his label. Several labels rejected Play and at launch it entered the UK Top 40, but it wasn’t until several key tracks were licensed for commercials that global sales picked up.  

A critical success at launch, the TV commercial exposure eventually gave Moby a mainstream audience and Play remains one of the biggest selling electronica albums of all time. It is also listed as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time by Rolling Stone.  

In 2025, we know the impact it had on music makers, sampling and blending live instruments with music samples. For those involved in making music, the impact of Play can be felt clearly 26 years on.  

Below are extracts from the interview and you can find more from Lily and her archive podcasts at Pictures of Lily. 

On the recording and music making process 

Regardless of what type of what type of music I’m working on I use the same equipment. Whether I’m making a techno record, a punk rock record, classical music, or whatever type of music. It’s all made just by me and in my studio with the same equipment. I’m not a technophobe at all, but then I’m not a technophile either. From my perspective, I’ve never really changed. Because I’ve been making music since I was eight years old and my musical background is really weird and varied, I’ve never really chosen one type of music at the exclusion of anything else.  Even when I was known for making dance music, I was still making different types of music. It’s just that the label that I was signed to wouldn’t let me release it.  You know, when I made Go I was still playing drums for punk rock bands, and I was still writing quiet classical music at home. I just didn’t have the way to put it out. I guess it’s eclecticism, if that’s what you want to call it, but it seems like my natural way of making music. I don’t think of it as eclectic, like with this album Play.  

On Success 

I hope this doesn’t sound like bad musician cliché, but I think I define success differently than other people might define success.  I mean, I’m the most fortunate musician in the world. I live in New York. I own my own house and record in the studio, and I have enough money to take my friends out to dinner. I’m able to work with some of my heroes and I’m able to make music, right? To me, that’s wonderful success. But when I started making records my expectation was to sell a few thousand records. So I can’t complain.  As shy and retiring as I can be, I quite like being the centre of attention. 

On Play 

There are songs that are based on these old vocals that were recorded in the early 20^th century: Honey, Natural Blues, Find My Baby and Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? and Run On. The vocals for those songs were recorded in the 20s, 30s and 40s. The other songs that have vocals are me singing, except for the last one – My Weakness – which is from a church service in Africa. The vocals – the ones that I sing live and the ones that involve the old samples, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I think maybe I’ll have to rework them so they’re not quite so vocal heavy. I can remix them so the vocals are more part of the track, as opposed to being the focus of the track. 

On Axl Rose and asking him to produce Guns & Roses 

Well, I met with him and he asked me to produce their next record. We had a really nice rapport and a nice time together, and he played me the music they’re working on. It was really nice. I liked it.   But I don’t see myself as a producer. I think of myself as a musician. That’s all I’ve done for 25 years, so A. I’m not qualified to produce a Guns & Roses record and B. I like making my own records – I don’t want to give that up to work on someone else’s record.  I don’t know how they work. Axl works really strangely. He’s very talented and I like the music they’re making, but they work very slowly. I like to work very quickly, so it might have been a tense working relationship as it progressed. At the time, it was Axl and Duff and a bunch of guys who had not been in the original band. 

On going out 

In New York, all of the big dance places are really far away. On the west  side, like Tunnel, so only tourists go there. I’m quite provincial so If I can’t walk home from somewhere I get reverse claustrophobia. I went to see U2 a couple of years ago in New Jersey and I was sitting there and I was kind of bored and if I was in New York, I would just go home but I couldn’t. I don’t have a driver’s license so I can’t drive.  

On study 

I did a philosophy major and a photography minor but I dropped out and made music. I went to two different schools and went part time and full time – I guess I’d be a junior if I went back.  

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