Q&A Moby

By Sora Song

Artist, author, restaurateur and musician Moby is releasing a double album, Hotel, on March 22.

Did you really write 250 songs for this album?

Yeah, I've always been kind of an overachiever. But of the 250, a lot of them were just bad, so it was pretty easy to get rid of those.

Will you release the rejects? I might make a punk-rock record or a really sort of tacky disco record--under a different name.

I read that your single Beautiful is about Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson. True? Well, it's about the idea of celebrity couples who just stare at each other and just compliment each other on the fact that they're so attractive. I had this idea of a not very bright celebrity couple, but it's not about Nick and Jessica. I don't know them. They might secretly be Rhodes scholar rocket scientists.

How is your restaurant [Teany, in New York City] doing? It's actually worked out really well. What we've learned is that whenever I suggest something, it ends up being disastrous. Like this fantastic Middle Eastern plate that I designed--one of our first customers, Susan Sarandon, loved it. I think she almost licked her plate. But it was so expensive to produce, we basically lost $2 every time we sold one. The only labor I'm qualified for at the restaurant is busing tables.

So you have a restaurant and a book [Teany Book].Yeah, it comes out at the end of March. It's very hard to describe. It has some recipes in it. It has cartoons. You can open it up anywhere and be entertained.

Are you going to start selling clothes too? I kind of feel like the world is already suffering under the weight of too many celebrity-clothing lines.