At Home with Moby
he iconic musician Moby, an avid photographer, animal rights activist, and architecture enthusiast chats with LA Home's Erin Castellino. In this candid interview, he talks about his philosophy and musical process.
“We’re good at analyzing the things in our lives from a status perspective, we want to impress people with our choices, but that’s a very small part of our life.”
Erin Castellino: What brought you to LA?
Moby: I was born in New York and thought I’d live there forever, but after a visit to LA about seven years ago, I had an epiphany. I was having brunch outside in 74-degree weather and then returned to a sleeting 34 degrees in New York. It made me realize that a lot of suffering is optional. New York was becoming increasingly gentrified, pushing many artists and musicians out, so I wanted to live in a warmer place with a vibrant artist community.
The music scene in New York was a big draw for me initially, especially the punk, hip-hop, and indie rock scenes. However, as real estate became prohibitively expensive, musicians and artists had to leave for places with more space to create. Many have moved to LA or even Austin.
LA’s sprawling nature means there’s room for artists to have studios. Unlike cities with strong public transportation, where gentrification tends to happen, LA’s inadequate transport system allows for more affordable real estate in areas that are not overly gentrified.
When I decided to move, I had specific criteria: a warm winter, an artist community, and easy access to nature. Even with its vast size, LA was the only place that met all those needs.
Where do I want to live in this vast county? Initially, I thought I wanted to be by the beach, but then I discovered it was cold. Why leave a chilly place to move somewhere where swimming is nearly impossible? I love the Pacific Ocean and the coastal communities, but they’re far from the creative hubs where my friends live—90% of whom are in Eagle Rock, Echo Park, Highland Park, and Silver Lake. So, I lived in Los Feliz to be closer to them and the film and music studios.
When I first moved, I lived in West Hollywood, but I didn’t know anyone there and lacked the community I craved. I love the East Side of LA because it was developed before cars became prevalent, giving it a unique cohesion. The preservation of Griffith Park reflects this belief that nature is essential for people.
In making choices about living spaces, I wonder if we do so based on genuine needs or societal pressures. Many people build massive houses for status instead of practicality. We often prioritize impressing others over what truly enhances our everyday experiences. Ultimately, excess can detract from our ability to enjoy the simple moments in life.
When people have excess space, it can be oddly isolating. One of the things I like about living here is that I see other people. Some friends who live way up in Nichols Canyon, Mulholland, don’t encounter other people. And I think humans are gregarious, and when we don’t have human contact, we go insane. They call it Ted Kaczynski disorder, the Unabomber disorder. Neurochemically, things go awry when you don’t have human contact (even if it’s just to “say hi to your neighbor”). And this is a very neighborly neighborhood. Everyone walks their dogs, everyone goes to Trails Cafe, and everyone’s hiking.
How you live and how you utilize your living space is crucial. I had a spacious dining room and living room in my old house that I rarely used—just one or two days a year for the dining room and five or so times for the living room. So, in my new place, I converted the dining room into a library since I’d use it more often and left the living room empty, drawing inspiration from the yoga retreats we go on. Those retreats typically use multi-purpose spaces for meditation and events instead of designating specific areas to conform to longstanding traditions.
Many people prioritize appearance over actual living spaces, often in pursuit of status and wealth. This mindset can turn homes into displays of status, which has limited benefits.
It can make friends without similar wealth feel inadequate. Secondly, it attracts superficial people focused solely on status. Lastly, it compromises everyday living. For example, if I see an original Rothko in someone’s home, I wonder if spending $25 million on that was the best choice. A nice poster for $100 on eBay could serve just as well, leaving a lot more money to invest in something more unique.
Let’s talk about that because you have quite a few collections and some interesting art. When you’re paring down your world, your life, and your space – are there still certain things that you like to collect?
For me, collecting things needs a personal connection. I prefer art and items made by friends or found on the street. I don’t want anything expensive because it leads to worrying about it. The only costly items I own are a few musical instruments for work. I’d rather have a $100 couch than a $1000 couch I’d stress over if my dog chewed it. And when you have expensive art or expensive clothes or expensive anything – you are buying anxiety.
I want to talk about architecture now.
I know you have photographed and blogged about Los Angeles architecture. How did you start getting interested in architecture?
Part of it is that I grew up poor white trash, and my mom and I, for a while, lived in Connecticut in one of the wealthiest towns in the world.
We were on food stamps and welfare, living in a garage apartment. So, it made me aware of my space instead of other people’s. Technically, we lived in a one-bedroom. My mom slept in the living room and I slept in the small bedroom. My friends had 10-acre estates with tennis courts and horse paddocks. It made me very aware of spaces, how they are used, and how they are perceived.
Then, when I moved back to New York, I bought a loft in the late 80’s. I started thinking about it. Now I have this empty space, and I can do whatever I want with it; what should I do? I started thinking of the elementary variables, like light, privacy, and function and that’s what sparked my interest in architecture because the criteria by which Architecture are evaluated is both tertiary, meaning ‘how does it look, how does it photograph’, then it is also how does it meet the needs of the people who need the space.
Rarely is the criteria applied to other art because most other art is utterly elective. Architecture has this specific utility, and I love that aspect of it. Especially now, living in southern California, the vast majority of architectural choices are arbitrary. It’s so enduring and strange that we live in the desert and we have peep roofs on our houses. The only reason a house should ever have a peep roof is to keep snow off it. That’s why peep roofs were invented – it was a cold place where it snowed, and if you had a flat roof, the roof would fall in. In Southern California, where you have Norman Castles and hacienda-style houses – all these weird, different architectural styles bafflingly coexist on the same street.
It seems your interest lies within mid-century.
I like everything. I like crumbly little shacks, and I like Neutra houses. For me, Lautner was the most remarkable architect ever. John Lautner had this understanding that everything is fluid and everything, ideally, could be playful.
Lautner’s best houses reflect a playful spirit typical of Southern California, favoring creative choices like angled windows and swimming pools in living rooms, unlike the more formal styles of Schindler and Neutra. In LA, there’s also the phenomenon of mega-mansions (10,000 sq. ft.) versus giga-mansions (20,000 sq. ft.), where owners of the former complain about their neighbors’ larger homes. This seems trivial—perhaps instead of arguing about mansion sizes, they could find more meaningful hobbies or volunteer work, as these issues appear absurd against the backdrop of real problems.
You have a new album that you’re working on. How is that going? Are you touring anymore?
The question of why we do what we do is crucial. We should regularly ask ourselves whether our actions align with our values and benefit ourselves and others, rather than simply doing things out of habit. This reflects the ‘is-ought fallacy’ in philosophy—just because something is, doesn’t mean it ought to be.
For years, I kept touring despite hating it. I realized in 1999 that the lifestyle—airports, strange hotels, and unhealthy food—interrupted the life I truly valued. Eventually, I decided to tour as little as possible. The longest tour lasted 18 months, with 5 or 6 shows a week. This frustrates my manager since musicians often rely on touring for income, but my passion lies in making music, regardless of financial success.
