One-on-One with Moby
From Vegetarian Times; July/August 2008
Relieving animal suffering motivates this music maker BY TRACEY PEPPER
The title of Moby’s 1996 CD, Animal Rights, spells out an issue that has been important to the Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, and musician for more than 20 years. Vegan since 1987, Moby, 42, donates all the money he earns from the licensing of his music for commercial use — including selections from his latest CD, the dance-floor-friendly Last Night, to the Humane Society of the United States. He is also collaborating with the organization on a book about the ethical, environmental, and social impact of meat production.
VT: Who introduced you to the concept of vegetarianism?
My mom. She was an aspiring vegetarian when I was growing up. At that time I had nothing but ridicule for the idea of being vegetarian. I was ten years old and all I wanted to eat was Burger King. My mom would try and sneak tofu into my food and I would be outraged. I thought it was my right to have a diet that consisted of pizza and meatloaf. Then when I was 19, some friends of mine saw an aminated short called The Animal Movie, which convinced them to become vegetarians. Based on their testimony, I decided to as well.
Why did you decide to take it a step further and become a vegan?
Basically it was the same criteria that led me to be a vegetarian, which was essentially that I liked animals and didn’t want to do anything that contributed to their suffering. The more I found out about chickens kept in battery farms and cows kept in cages for their milk that’s what led me to be vegan. I know that I am one of seven billion people on the planet and the way I choose to eat might not have global repercussions, but given a choice between one action that creates suffering and one that doesn’t, it just makes sense to choose the action that doesn’t create suffering.
How does being a touring musician affect the way you eat?
I eat quite differently when I travel than when I am home. Where I live in New York City, there is a Whole Foods two blocks away, a 24-hour deli that sells lots of organic vegan stuff, and at least 15 vegetarian or vegan restaurants, like Angelica Kitchen, Tien Garden, Kate’s Joint, Caravan of Dreams, and Quintessence, within a 10-block radius of my apartment. So being vegan is easy when I am at home. But whenever I travel I bring my own food. The world would seem like such a friendlier place if I knew that no matter where I went I would be able to eat.
You’re one of the few musicians who has been highly identified publicly with veganism. What has that been like for you?
There’s a positive side to it, in that I’ve been able to reach people and talk about what led me to become a vegan, but it has also subjected me to a lot of ridicule. The moment you identify yourself as a vegan, people naturally assume you are a judgmental moralist. And I hope I’m not a judgmental moralist. This is how I have chosen to live my life, but I don’t want to be didactic in the way I approach other people’s lifestyle choices. People seem to respond to veganism as if the moment you become a vegan, you’re a scared hippie from 1973 who goes to sleep at 9, wakes up at 6, and eats nothing but buckwheat, groats, and bean sprouts. But it does seem like that perception of veganism has been changing over time.
Although it’s not a vegan organization, you work closely with the Humane Society. Why?
Even though some of what they do is seen as ‘selling out’ by the animal rights community, from my perspective, the Humane Society is trying to decrease suffering, especially on a legislative side. So if that means working to have animals treated better in stockyards or battery chicken farms, then, granted, animals are still being killed, but at least they are being treated better before they are killed. I think you have to deal with the world as it is. We are talking about something like 15 billion animals in the United States alone, who are currently being held in stockyards, slaughterhouses, and battery farms. It’s nice to be idealistic, but we have to look after those animals who are currently in the system. In a perfect world, animals wouldn’t be used for human purposes, but we don’t live in a perfect world.
What do you think about the Humane Society’s success in getting the USDA to order the largest beef recall in history after they released an undercover video showing animal abuse at a California slaughterhouse?
If a very small animal-rights organization had generated that video, I doubt there would have been the media uproar around it. But when the HSUS released that videotape, it was part of a well-planned campaign that prompted the recall and got the USDA to swear to install more inspectors and video cameras in slaughterhouses. And that’s one of the reasons I work with the Humane Society, because they are so effective. Through their efforts, Ben and Jerry’s, who were using hundreds of millions of eggs a year to make their ice cream, decided to switch to using eggs from cage-free chickens. That is so powerful.