Moby Has Opinions on Justin Bieber and Donald Trump and You’re Going to Hear Them

Moby (aka Richard Hall) has written a book about his life called Porcelain: A Memoir, which means that instead of touring the EDM circuit, he's hitting all the talk shows to promote it. Last week Hall chatted with Larry King, and made the not-so-shocking revelation many people attending electronic music events take drugs.

This week the veteran artist stopped by The Agenda, a current events program that airs on Ontario public broadcaster TVO. Hosted by Steve Paikin, the program is exactly what you'd imagine a government-funded Canadian talk show to be: polite, earnest, and usually pretty boring.

Hall seems to think every question is a "great question," but unlike King, Paikin doesn't call him out for pandering. Much of their conversation is focussed on the current state of the music industry, and while the producer and musician seems to want to avoid coming across as a bitter, middle-aged, former pop star, he can't quite seem to stop himself from whining about how things are "these days."

Hall offers up the theory that there are now a lot of B-grade artists, because computers made it too easy to make music.

"There's a lot of very benign mediocrity out there," he complains at one point, conveniently forgetting that much of his own catalogue could be similarly described.

Hall also sucks up a bit to the Canadian audience by admitting that he googled how to immigrate to Canada when Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination.

"Just imagine if America went to college and read some books: that's Canada," he recalls telling his girlfriend, calling the billionaire businessman a "orange buffoon."

At one point, Paikin asks what advice he would give Justin Bieber, and the artist answers that Bieber should prepare for the "gravy train" stopping at some point.

"It would be sad if ten years from now, twenty years from now, he's bitter and incapable of going to the grocery store," he says. "And just sitting around, like, doing whatever, and complaining about the current state of pop music."

Which sounds pretty close to what Hall spent most of the interview doing.

Benjamin Boles is on Twitter.