Moby

Richard Melville Hall (born September 11, 1965), known professionally as Moby, is an American musician, songwriter, singer, producer, and animal rights activist.

He has sold 20 million records worldwide.

Richard Melville Hall was born September 11, 1965, in the neighborhood of Harlem in Manhattan, New York City.

He is an only child of Elizabeth McBride (née Warner), a medical secretary, and James Frederick Hall, a chemistry professor, who died in a car crash while drunk when Moby was two.

His father gave him the nickname Moby three days after his birth as his parents considered the name Richard too large for a newborn baby.

The name was also a reference to the ancestry Hall says he was told by his family, though he is not directly related to Herman Melville, author of Moby-Dick. Moby is distantly related to David Melville, inventor of the first United States-patented gas light system.

Moby was raised by his mother, first in San Francisco from 1969 for a short period.

He recalled being sexually abused by a staff member at his daycare during this time.

This was followed by a move to Darien, Connecticut, living in a squat with "three or four other drug-addicted hippies, with bands playing in the basement."

The two then moved to Stratford, Connecticut, for a brief time.

His mother struggled to support her son, often relying on food stamps and government welfare.

They occasionally stayed with Moby's grandparents in Darien, but the affluence of the New York City suburb made him feel poor and ashamed.

After taking up guitar and piano at age nine, he played in several underground punk rock bands through the 1980s before turning to electronic dance music.

In 1983, he became the guitarist in a hardcore punk band, the Vatican Commandos, playing on their debut EP Hit Squad for God.

In 1983, Moby graduated from Darien High School and started a philosophy degree at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut.

Around this time he had found the instruments he had learned "sonically limiting" and moved to electronic music.

He spun records at the campus radio station WHUS, which led to DJ work in local clubs and bars.

Moby grew increasingly unhappy at university, however, and transferred to State University of New York at Purchase, studying philosophy and photography, to try and renew his interest in studying.

He dropped out in April 1984 to pursue DJing and music full-time, which started his interest in electronic dance music.

In 1989, he moved to New York City and became a prolific figure as a DJ, producer and remixer.

AllMusic considers him to be "among the most important dance music figures of the early 1990s, helping bring dance music to a mainstream audience both in the United States and the United Kingdom".

His 1991 single "Go" was his mainstream breakthrough, especially in Europe, where it peaked within the top ten of the charts in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Between 1992 and 1997 he scored eight top 10 hits on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart including "Move (You Make Me Feel So Good)", "Feeling So Real", and "James Bond Theme (Moby Re-Version)".

Throughout the decade he also produced music under various pseudonyms, released the critically acclaimed Everything Is Wrong (1995), and composed music for films.

His punk-oriented album Animal Rights (1996) alienated much of his fan base.

Shortly before his mother's death in 1997, Moby learned from her that he has a half brother.

His first job was a caddy at a golf course.

Moby took up music at the age of nine.

He started on classical guitar and received piano lessons from his mother before studying jazz, music theory, and percussion.

Moby found commercial and critical success with his fifth album Play (1999) which, after receiving little recognition, became an unexpected global hit in 2000 after each track was licensed to films, television shows, and commercials.

It remains his highest selling album with 12 million copies sold.

Its seventh single, "South Side", featuring Gwen Stefani, remains his only one to appear on the US Billboard Hot 100, reaching No. 14.

Around this time he was the lead vocalist for Flipper for two days; Moby played bass for their reunion shows in the 2000s.

Moby formed a post-punk group named AWOL around the time of his eighteenth birthday.

He is credited on their only release, a self-titled EP, as Moby Hall.

Moby followed Play with albums of varied styles including electronic, dance, rock, and downtempo music, starting with 18 (2002), Hotel (2005), and Last Night (2008).

His later albums saw him explore ambient music, including the almost four-hour release Long Ambients 1: Calm. Sleep. (2016).

Moby continues to record and release albums; his twenty-first studio album, Resound NYC, was released in May 2023.

In addition to his music career, Moby is known for his veganism and support for animal rights and humanitarian aid.

He was the owner of TeaNY, a vegan cafe in Manhattan, and Little Pine, a vegan restaurant in Los Angeles, and organized the vegan music and food festival Circle V. He is the author of four books, including a collection of his photography and two memoirs: Porcelain: A Memoir (2016) and Then It Fell Apart (2019).