Moby rose to fame with the rave anthem 'Go', so it may come as a surprise to many that he has been touring European rock venues with Soundgarden. Christopher Holder talks to the man about 'doing it for real'.

"There was one gig we did recently in Liverpool, where the show itself was pretty good, but the way it ended was amazing. We were doing our encore when someone yelled out for the song 'Sex Bomb' by Flipper, a band I was in for about two days when I was 16. The rest of the band didn't know it, so I taught them 'Sex Bomb'. And I started inviting people on stage to sing the song, because it only has five words in it — 'She's - a - sex - bomb - my - baby' [counting the words on his fingers] — yeah, six words in the whole song. Eventually there were 25 people on stage. It was complete chaos. I was being carried, playing my guitar, over the heads of the audience — amazingly the guitar stayed plugged in. I mean, this was real chaos where people could have got hurt, things could have got broken... that can be the mark of a good show."

Hold on there, this is Moby right? Who with the tune 'Go' lifted a string line from the Twin Peaks theme and was lifted to techno pop stardom?

The very same.

All of which, on face value, gives Moby the dubious distinction of probably being the highest profile dance music defector around — one year he's playing to thousands of ravers and the next year to thousands of festival goers supporting The Red Hot Chilli Peppers at Lallapalooza.

"I lost interest in the dance scene a couple of years ago and I hated playing raves and playing dance events. A lot of the reason why I hated them was because of the technical side of it. You play a rave and really the focus of the rave is the DJ, and it's such an easy job for the PA company — show up carrying the 'coffin' with the turntables and the mixer in it, and a PA, and that's it. Suddenly you try and bring a band into that situation, and they don't want to hear about it. It's kind of ironic that we will play venues for 400 people that will have great technical support, but you'll play a rave for 10,000 people, making tons of money, and they can't even be bothered to supply DI boxes."

But there must be more to gigging satisfaction than a DI box when you need one?

"When I had a more computer-based show, I was stuck with what the hard disk gave me, and the show didn't vary night to night very much. Right now, playing with a band, there's a huge amount of flexibility, you can play songs faster or slower, you can rearrange the set, and you can make things up on stage. That's really an important side of it to me; it's also just that level of going out and being able to scream at the top of my lungs and be surrounded by volume and by people."

BRITE HALL

If you are unaware of Moby (or Richard Hall as he was christened) and his background, don't be fooled into thinking that here is a computer geek/bedroom musician who picked up a guitar and got lucky. Moby has been around some time, learning his trade with a succession of dodgy bands in the '80s, including a speed metal outfit, The Vatican Commandos, the aforementioned Flipper (nothing to do with the sea-going mammal), and at one point was guitarist for art-rockers Ultra Vivid Scene. So, far from being a techno traitor, Moby's return from his sojourn in the realm of synths, drum machines, and hard disks on stage, could be seen as a homecoming to his spiritual and musical roots.

In fact, the Moby I caught up with at the Leadmill in Sheffield was a Moby that looked to have long since severed all ties and allegiances to the dance music scene and is enjoying a jubilant reunion with guitar-based rock. Consummating the reconciliation is a new album, Animal Rights, and a year of touring, with Moby and his three sidemen making their way across the UK and Europe in their own right and as support for Soundgarden.

I don't want to stir the pot too much, but on a recent browse through the Dance section of one of the Oxford Street music 'superstores', I noticed Animal Rights sitting there under 'M', along with the Minogue sisters and M People.

"You can tell these people a hundred times [head in hands groaning]... aarghh. It's so discouraging."

This must be something that you have come up against quite a bit though.

"Decreasingly so. People just don't think, you know. They see a Moby record and think, 'the last one went in the Dance section, put this one in the Dance section'. But it's so idiotic, they obviously haven't listened to it. Oh well."

"... real chaos where people could have got hurt, things could have got broken... that can be the mark of a good show..."

If there were any record store owners in the audience at Sheffield expecting a rave, their illusions were soon shattered, as a satanic figure clutching an angle grinder took to the stage, by way of a crowd warm up. The crowd weren't so much warmed up as burnt at the stake, by Ultraviolence's banging sequenced distortion, not to mention the fountain of sparks from the grinder, as it chewed into a steel pipe that was mounted on two milk crates. You've heard of Happy Hardcore, or perhaps even Slightly Miffed Hardcore, but what about Totally Hacked-off Hardcore? It would go some way to describing the on-stage angst that culminated in a tempo lesson, with the speed of a four-on-the-floor distorted 909 Hard Kick pattern mercilessly cranked up to 2,000,000 bpm. Subtle? Perhaps not, but difficult to ignore (for those interested, at that tempo the pattern sounds a bit like a computer error message).

Moby then took to the stage, with his guitarist, bass player, and drummer, and immediately embarked on a voyage through his latest material from the LP Animal Rights. Moby displays a obvious rapport with the crowd; the core is comprised of real aficionados, there to welcome Moby back into the bruising mosh pit of the rock scene. He speaks with a gentle New England lilt, addressing the audience like he might a favourite cat, but will then proceed to wade into a screaming wall of sound, breathlessly recounting the horrors of sexual betrayal and the gruesome homicide that must naturally result. The musicianship may not be of virtuoso standard, but the act is as tight as a pair of cycling shorts and the emotion palpable. All compelling stuff.

ANIMAL INSTINCT

A listen to Moby's new release, Animal Rights, is bound to be not what you would expect, no matter what your musical tastes, or how well-informed you are on Moby's latest musical leanings. It's by no means a typical hard rock/grunge recording despite the fact that all the elements are there — heavy guitars, distorted vocals, pounding drums, and crashing cymbals may all be the requisite parts, but the sum still isn't towing the line of normal American hard rock sensibilities. A quick look at the album sleeve tells you why: Produced and Engineered by Moby, Guitars by Moby, Drums by Moby, Keyboards by Moby. This surely belies a techno musician's approach to rock, the 'everything by mine own hand' caste iron grip on the record's destiny, which in turn is surely not compatible with the more communal ideals of touring, and having to loosen the grip on the creative reins. Moby explains: "We have a kind of tolerant and benevolent dictatorship. I'm the boss, but at the same time, the people I play with are really good at what they do, so I give them a lot of freedom within the constraints that I set out for them. I make most of the creative decisions, but I think they feel they can do whatever they want within those constraints. I mean, it's more of a band than in the Benny Goodman sense of the word, where you hire musicians because of their expertise, and you pay them a salary and sacrifice a lot in rapport in the process. It's not a democracy either, but in many ways, it's a much easier working environment because of that — we don't get into fights over creative decisions or set lists or anything, because that ultimately comes down to me."

"If you're spending £4,000 to get a cheap vocal sound, something is a little messed up."

Were you tempted to bring some of the production techniques found on Animal Rights on to the stage, such as the distorted vocals?

"Well, in the case of the vocals, it wouldn't be practical." Moby then went on to describe the signal path of his vocals as they went through a torturous and overdriven tour of his studio's processors and EQ. The result is a wonderfully transparent flow of aggression that floats effortlessly over the mix, but admittedly wouldn't be practicable for live applications.

You haven't dabbled with guitar pedals for your vocal effect?

"I think it's becoming kind of clichéd at this point. I like it when vocals are a little overdriven naturally, that can be really cool. But at this point it seems that almost every record you buy, one or two of the songs, or all of the songs, will have distortion on it. To me, it's a cheap way of making a mediocre vocal sound more interesting.

"Saying that, I like the Beastie Boys. They get distorted vocals, because they use terrible microphones. They use little plastic condenser mics from Tandy. I think that's a much cooler way than using a distortion algorithm on a [Eventide] DSP 4000. If you're spending £4,000 to get a cheap vocal sound, something is a little messed up."

I notice you wear earplugs. How do you find that affects your on-stage monitoring?

"Well for a start, the stage level we have is overwhelmingly loud. It's kind of a ridiculous situation: I wear earplugs, but because I wear earplugs it's got to be twice as loud. A lot of the reason I wear earplugs is because they cut out a lot of the high end from the drums that make your ears ring and cause the damage. But I love sound pressure, so whoever is doing monitors for me, they just suffer (see Moby On Monitor Engineers box). I've had situations where a really good monitor engineer will come in and EQ the stage setup conventionally, and that's not how I like it at all."

Have you looked into buying the new earplugs that offer attenuation with a flat response?

"All the custom-made earplugs attenuate between 15 and 20dB, while I like 'fishbowl' earplugs, you know, industrial strength ones, so it makes you feel like something's really wrong with your hearing." Each to their own I guess.

"Could we wind this up now? I want to have a wander around the club before we head off to Bristol."

Yes, of course.

As we made our way out of the backstage bunker, Moby fished his 'fishbowls' out of a pocket, making a point of showing them to me with some parting advice: "Don't go anywhere without earplugs, it's just not worth the risk". With that, he popped them in before entering the main room melee.

I ventured to respond with the well-worn truism: 'Well, I guess our ears are our livelihood, aren't they?' "Yeah, and it was great to meet you too," came the smiling reply.

The pleasure was all mine.

...GUITARS

"My guitar setup is amazingly simple. I have an Ibanez Roadstar guitar. That's my main guitar that I've had for 12 years and have become really attached to. I've thrown it, I've jumped on it, and it just hasn't broken down. I have a Strat that I use as a backup guitar, which may even sound a little better, but just doesn't feel as nice as the Ibanez. That's going into a Boss Super Distortion Feedbacker pedal. It's not a great sounding pedal, but what I like about it is that the dry sound and the overdriven sound levels feel similar — it feels organic. Because with some pedals the dry sound and the distorted sound just have nothing to do with each other — the dry sound is really clean and the overdriven sound is way too heavy. It's also durable. You can kick it really hard and it doesn't misbehave.

"For backline, Bubba (rhythm guitar) and I both use [Roland] Jazz Chorus 120s; primarily because they're loud and dependable. If it came down to sound alone, I'd be using Mesa Boogie stuff — but on this tour, we're renting equipment from Matt Snowball ('he's great'). Mesa Boogie is the best sounding guitar amp I've used. I can't stand Marshalls; I think Marshalls are worthless. Marshalls give you one sound and that's about it. Oranges are pretty good, as are Fender twin reverbs, but not for the sort of stuff we're doing. While the Jazz Chorus is a very usable solid sound and, although I wouldn't use it for recording, for touring bands, It's got that transistor dependability. Keep all the tone settings right at 12 o'clock, you don't touch anything. The only thing I would touch is the volume control! On the other hand, using the Mesa Boogie combo, there's too much control — which is great for a recording environment, but on stage, you don't need all that flexibility. The only thing I like about that is being able to use a natural overdriven sound rather than a pedal. I prefer organic distortion. All, our bass player, uses two Gallien Krueger amps, one 15-inch cabinet and a 4 x 10 inch cabinet."