Description: Growing up broke, Moby never dreamed of making it in New York.

Question: What kind of bands did you start in?

Transcript: Well when I was growing up I played in hardcore bands, you know, hardcore punk bands, and I was a little suburban teenage punk rocker, and one of my favorite bands was the Sex Pistols, but by the time I got into the Sex Pistols, they had been broken up for a long time. And then they did a reunion tour, and I went to go see the reunion tour, and it was so disconcerting because here is a band who had broken up long before I became interested in punk rock, and then I was standing watching them on stage and it was flawless. Like the music sounded great and Johnny Rotten, aka Johnny Lydon, was just this amazing front person, and then afterwards we all went out and got really drunk. So that experience of like seeing your heroes who you thought were dead and it turned out they are not dead, they are alive and in the flesh, and then afterwards going out and drinking cheap beer with them, that was a good one.

Question: Where did you first see your music going?

Transcript: My goals when I was growing up were almost nonexistent. You know, my biggest goal as a musician was to maybe at some point play a show in New York City. It didn’t matter if anyone showed up; it didn’t matter if it was a big venue or small venue; just to be able to say that I had played a concert in New York City or to have DJ’d in New York City, and maybe, if I was really, really lucky, to at some point go to Europe and do a DJ gig. Beyond that, I didn’t really have any goals. Maybe it is the product of growing up really poor, but I also, when I was growing up, most of the musicians who were my heroes were people who never achieved much commercially in terms of success so I never thought of commercial success as being something worthy of pursuing. So very simply, I just wanted to make music, and maybe if I was really lucky, play a concert in New York City.

Recorded on: 6/16/08