Born as Richard Melville Hall on 11 September 1965, this multi instrumentalist is best known as Moby. Hall is the great-great-great grandnephew of Herman Melville, who wrote Moby Dick. That is how he chose the name Moby.



Moby is a real multi instrumentalist: drums, percussion, guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals - Moby does them all.



Though Moby is well known for his flirts with techno, rock and modern dance music, he was also (briefly) in the punk bands Flipper and Vatican Commandos.



When he couldn't get his songs on the radio, he started licensing them for commercials to get them exposure. His album Play is the first to have every song used in commercials. The ads gave the album a huge boost in sales.



Moby also records under the name of 'Voodoo Child'.