Moby put his passionate animal rights activism front and center during a lunch outing on Wednesday.
The 58-year-old electronic music artist was spotted dining out with a group of friends in Los Angeles at a vegan restaurant.
It was a fitting location for him, as the musician — who premiered his documentary Punk Rock Vegan Movie at the Slamdance Film Festival in January — proudly displayed his ‘Vegan For Life’ neck tattoo.
He was dressed casually for the lunch outing in a blue-and-white plaid button-up shirt with dual breast pockets.
He sported his standard shaved head and some close-cropped mostly white facial hair, along with black-framed Ray-Ban glasses.
Sharing his passion: Moby, 58, sported his striking ‘Vegan For Life’ neck tattoo while out for lunch in Los Angeles on Wednesday with a group of friends at a vegan restaurant
Although his neck tattoo was the most prominent and visible evidence of his animal rights and pro-vegan activism, he also had several other tattoos highlighting his positions.
Just to the side of his right eye was a small tattoo of a ‘V’ stacked over an ‘X.’
In 2019, Moby clarified on Instagram to his confused fans that the ‘V’ represented veganism — in which observers cut out all animal byproducts, including dairy products and eggs — while the ‘X’ stood for ‘straight edge,’ reference his abstaining from drugs and alcohol.
‘Straight edge because I simply can’t be a good activist if i’m lying in bed sick & hungover until 5pm every day,’ he explained at the time.
‘And of course vegan because i care about animals, human health, climate change, rainforest deforestation, workers rights, water use, famine, and all of the other horrifying things that are the result of using animals for food.’
At the time, he also debuted two large tattoos comprised of block letter running down his arms that read: ‘Animal Rights.’
Years earlier, Moby — born Richard Melville Hall — took his passion for vegan living to a new level when he opened the once-popular plant-based restaurant Little Pine in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood.
However, the location was troubled by conflict with its workers after he didn’t take care of his staff’s healthcare benefits when the restaurant temporarily shut down at the start of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in 2020, while also remaining out of contact, according to Eater Los Angeles.
Inked up: The electronic music artist wore a blue-and-white plaid shirt and black Ray-Ban glasses. In addition to his neck tattoo, he showed off ‘V’ and ‘X’ tattoos for ‘vegan’ and ‘straight edge,’ respectively
Unmissable: Around the time that he got those tattoos he also had ‘Animal Rights’ tattooed on his arms in block letters. Moby has been a Vegan for over three decades; seen October 29 in LA
Filmmaker: In January, he premiered his documentary Punk Rock Vegan Movie — about the intersection of punk music and animal rights activism — at the Slamdance Film Festival in Utah; seen with producer Lindsay Hicks
The restaurant reopened later in 2020 with Moby stepping back as a silent partner while new management ran Little Pine, but it quietly closed last year.
Though the one-time restaurateur is best known as a musician, earlier this year he premiered a documentary that he wrote and directed — in addition to shooting and scoring — titled Punk Rock Vegan Movie.
The non-fiction film charts the surprising connections and overlaps between punk music, veganism and animal rights activism.
While premiering the film at the Utah-based film festival, he shared that he hoped to give it away for free after the premiere, as he couldn’t ‘in good conscience try to profit from what is essentially a labor of love and activism.’
