The Crimson: How do you feel that if someone was walking down the street and mentioned your name [in conversation], that a passerby might instantly recognize your name and know who you are?

Moby: I think it's, on one hand a little bit overwhelming, on the other hand it seems quite natural. [I'd have] a variety of responses. The degree to which I'm a public figure is very manageable and it's very nice [that] it enables me to meet people and I don't have to question people's reasons for them wanting to get to know me.

I have some friends that sell millions of records and I think it would be kind of depressing to sell records to people that you wouldn't want to be friends with. Most people who buy my records--most Moby fans--are very smart, very aware, very wonderful people...so when I meet them, we become friends.

C: I assume that you sold more records when you released the Mission of Burma cover single ["That's When I Reach for My Revolver"].

M: No, that was actually one of the lower selling records I've had.

C: So that single didn't do too much? A station like WBCN would play that single now, but they had never played Moby music before that. Do you feel that exposed you to a different audience?

M: Oh yeah, definitely. But it's nice because it didn't translate into millions of sales, it was just sort of like robbing the base a little bit in a very nice, manageable way.

C: So you think maybe it brought in people who wouldn't have been exposed, but that, now that they are, maybe they really like it and really get into it.

M: Especially because my background, as far as making records, is sort of more in an electronic/dance realm and the Burma cover was a rock song...so it's those people who wouldn't otherwise be exposed to electronic dance music. But then again I make so many different types of music I think I'm a fairly confusing artist.

C: Are you confused or just confusing?

M: Oh no, I'm not confused at all. I just like lots of different types of music and I don't feel the need to do one type of music at the exclusion of anything else.

C: Are you trying to cover a lot of bases?

M: I'm just interested. I love playing punk rock and I love playing disco and I love writing classical music...that's my background: I've been playing classical music since I was nine years old. And I played in hardcore punk bands, I was a hip-hop DJ for awhile and techno DJ for awhile. I've done a lot of different things and I like to bring all of that into the music that I make.

C: Seeing that you have so many different styles, do you think that your music has evolved along the way or just gone in cycles?

M: It's a combination of the two. I think it's hard to say because I don't think the music I'm doing now is quantifiably better than the music I was doing five years ago...some of it is, some of it isn't. I can't point to a evolutionary process.