The shock of an ex-girlfriend's new romance drove dance music stalwart Moby to drink and he spent a decade boozing and partying until he stopped, sobered up and moved from New York to Los Angeles for a cleaner life.

The Porcelain hitmaker recalls it took a New Year's Day phone call to turn his life around and sent him spiralling for 10 years.

He tells RollingStone.com, "I remember it very well. New Year's Day, 1995, I was visiting some friends in San Francisco. I'd just had a really contentious break-up with my then-ex-girlfriend, but I called her to wish her a happy New Year's - and some guy picked up the phone.

"I hung up the payphone, walked to a bar and started drinking. And then the next 10 years were spent drunk and crazy in New York... all sorts of crazy uptown and downtown degeneracy.

"As I got older, the consequences of drinking started to kick in: anxiety, depression, sickness, etc. So, around five or six years ago, I decided to stop. I sobered up, looked around and realised that New York had become the domain of hedge-fund managers. Artists I met were either scared and bitter because they didn't know how they were going to pay the rent, or they were parentally subsidised.

"I started thinking, 'Maybe it's time to be less provincial. Maybe it's time to leave the city of my birth and see what else is out there'."