Listen to Moby on Batanga

Richard Melville Hall, also known as Moby is an American DJ, singer-songwriter and musician. He plays keyboard, guitar, bass guitar and drums. After eight top 40 singles in the UK in the 1990s, he released the album Play in 1999, which sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. His follow up albums, 18, Hotel, and Last Night sold 6 million copies and have achieved gold and platinum status in over 30 countries.

Moby was born in Harlem, New York, and raised by his mother in Darien, Connecticut. According to him, his middle name and the nickname "Moby" were given to him by his parents because of an ancestral relationship to Moby Dick author Herman Melville: "The basis for Richard Melville Hall – and for Moby – is that supposedly Herman Melville was my great-great-great-granduncle."

He has also released music under the names Voodoo Child, Schaumgummi, and as a member of the bands Vatican Commandos, AWOL, Caeli Seoul and Gin Train.

Moby started playing music when he was nine years old, originally studying classical guitar and music theory, and eventually learning piano and drums.

From 1982 to 1985 Moby was in a hardcore punk band called the Vatican Commandos, who released an EP called Hit Squad for God. He was also in a Joy Division-inspired post-punk group called AWOL, who released an eponymous album in 1983.

From 1988 to 1990 Moby was house DJ in such clubs as Instant Gallery, The Beat and Willow Street in Port Chester, NY. After years of pursuing a record deal he signed a recording contract with Instinct Records in 1989. During this time, Moby lived in an abandoned factory in a crack-infested neighborhood in Stamford, Connecticut, and his loft in the abandoned factory had neither running water nor heat.

His first single for Instinct was "Mobility," but it was the second single, "Go," a progressive house track using the string line from "Laura Palmer's Theme" from the TV drama Twin Peaks, which reached the UK top ten in October 1991 and earned him his first appearance on Top of the Pops. Some of his other singles in 1992 and 1993 were "Next Is The E", "Thousand" and "Voodoo Child." In 1991 and 1992, he remixed The Prodigy, Orbital, Erasure, Michael Jackson and Ten City.

In 1994 Moby signed with Mute Records and released an EP entitled Move. This became his second appearance on Top of the Pops. He then released his first album, Everything Is Wrong, on Mute Records in 1995. The album earned early critical praise (Spin Magazine named it Album of The Year) and some commercial success. He followed this up in early 1996 with the double album Everything Is Wrong—Mixed and Remixed.

In 1996 he released a punk rock album called Animal Rights and toured Europe with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden. The single "Come on Baby" from Animal Rights was Moby's third Top of the Pops performance. It was notable for its very aggressive look and sound. In 1997, he released I Like to Score, a collection of his music that had been used in movies.

In 1999 Moby released the album Play. The album had moderate sales after its release, but eventually went on to sell over nine million records worldwide. Many of the songs on the album were licensed to films, advertisements, and TV shows, but the majority of licenses were to independent films and non-profit groups. Moby performed three times on Top of the Pops with singles from the album.

In 2002 Moby released the follow up to Play, 18, which earned gold and platinum awards in over 30 countries, and sold more than four million copies. Moby toured extensively for both Play and 18, playing well over 500 shows in the course of four years.

He founded the Area:One Festival in 2001, a popular touring festival that features an eclectic range of musical genres. The Area:One tour featured: Outkast Moby, New Order, Incubus Nelly Furtado and Paul Oakenfold. Area2 tour (2002) featured David Bowie Moby, Blue Man Group, Busta Rhymes, and Carl Cox.

In 2001, Moby also earned the ire of rapper Eminem after Moby called Eminem's music misogynist and homophobic; Eminem later satirized Moby (among others) in Without Me, declaring "Nobody listens to techno!".

In 2005 Moby released Hotel. Instead of his relying on samples for vocals, all of the vocals and instruments were performed live in the studio, by Moby and vocalist Laura Dawn. Hotel spawned two of Moby's biggest European hits, "Lift Me Up" and "Slipping Away," both of which were #1 European singles. Hotel went on to earn gold and platinum awards in over twenty countries, with global sales of over two million copies. In 2007, Moby started a rock band, The Little Death, NYC, with his friends Laura Dawn, Daron Murphy, and Aaron Brooks.

In 2008 Moby released Last Night, an eclectic album of electronic dance music inspired by a night out in his New York neighborhood (the Lower East Side). The singles from Last Night include "Alice," "Disco Lies," "I Love To Move In Here," and "Ooh Yeah."