The Real-Life Diet of Thurston Moore, Who Can’t Find a Good New York City Egg Cream Anywhere

Thurston Moore’s habits are dictated by where he is in the world on a given day. When GQ meets up with him in New York, in a Union Square apartment borrowed from an unnamed associate, he’s a bagel boy. “That’s kind of how I start my day here, usually,” he says, “with a total New York style bagel.” In London, where he lives with his partner, Eva Prinze, bagels are an impossibility. At home he opts for simple granola with yogurt, or when he’s feeling fancy, a “breakfast butty”—essentially just a breakfast sandwich with a very English name.

For a man who is seemingly always on the road, the Sonic Youth co-founder, solo artist, recent memoirist, and aspiring novelist remains surprisingly consistent. When he’s at home, it’s a tuna sandwich for lunch followed by a few hours in his writing room, cracking away at his novel. It’s time to wrap when his two dogs come barreling into the room, at which point they take a stroll. Afterwards, it’s time for dinner, a movie on his laptop, and some New York Times puzzle games before lights out. For a rock star, Moore keeps things decidedly mellow. “I like waking up early, because when you sleep in, all of a sudden it’s 12 noon. You’re like, ‘Oh, no, I’m missing the world.’ I love getting up early and going out,” he explains.

Moore recorded his new album, Flow Critical Lucidity, in Switzerland with his new band, a group that includes My Bloody Valentine’s Deb Googe. Ahead of its release today, GQ caught up with Moore about his secrets to living a meaningful and wonderful life.

For Real-Life Diet, GQ talks to athletes, celebrities, and other high performers about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.

GQ: How’s the new band sounding these days?

Thurston Moore: We always have fun. We’ve all been through the wars together through the 80s and 90s, particularly Deb G [Debbie Googe] and myself. She was the bass player for My Bloody Valentine, and still is for all intents and purposes, whenever that group goes out again. We feel like playing together is [a way of] continuing to be creative without having to wave our hands in the air and say, ‘Look at us, look at us.’ We already did that. We don’t really have to educate anybody to exactly who we are or feel competitive at all with anything happening in our contemporary world. We just have a group that’s awesome and I write the music and make most of the decisions about what goes on, as opposed to it being a democratic group like Sonic Youth was. I don’t feel like I need to replicate that or repeat that again in my life. That’s something you do at the beginning of your years, and now, in my mid-sixties, I don’t feel like I like to be in a band, a one for all, all for one kind of thing. I appreciate the fact that the musicians I play with, including Deb, are really responsive to the songs I bring in.

Had you completed writing the album by the time you were done writing your memoir?

I think it was happening slightly concurrently, but for the most part the book was done beforehand. The bulk of the book was written during the pandemic. As soon as the library started reopening, it was fortuitous. I was writing in South Florida in a little house that my mother had rented before she passed away, and I was taking care of it. It was close enough to Fort Lauderdale and their library had microfilm of the entire run of the Village Voice. It was a 30 minute drive away from where I was writing. As soon as it reopened, I was able to go there and access and get my chronology straight with a lot of the Sonic Youth and New York City stuff.

The record was done just after that pandemic year, in 2021, I think. I was at an artist residency in Switzerland just outside of Lausanne, which we had been to before. It was a residency that helped my band play locally around there, and I knew some of the people. It was right on Lake Geneva with the Alps in the distance and Montreux across the water. It was very extraordinary and beautiful. It’s usually a six-month thing where you can actually get work done. It’s a wonderful thing in Europe—they have these privately funded art residencies. It’ll be somebody who has deep pockets and they’ll create these places for artists to live and work. Some are funded, I think, by art councils that are government-sponsored, something you don’t see here.

Yeah, God forbid we do something like that here.

That has always been interesting to me. When I first started touring Europe, I would sometimes talk with musicians who had problems putting records out, and I would say, “Well, why don’t you just put it out?” And they’d be like, “We didn’t get funding.” I would say, “Just use your own money. Save your pennies and do it.” I can’t think of one underground band in the USA that was dependent on funding for records.

You’re visiting New York right now. Does your diet change when you’re traveling?

It’ll depend where I am. This morning? I get a New York bagel. With the schmear. That, to me, is the perfect New York beginning of the day. I try to make it a little healthier by grabbing a fistful of blueberries with my espresso, but I definitely stop with one because if you have two, you’re kind of pushing the limits. That’s kind of how I start my day here in New York, usually with a total New York style bagel. I live in London, so over there it’s a different story.

Bagels aren’t so good, huh?

You do not get a bagel in London. I have sincerely attempted to figure out where the New York bagels are, or even the Montreal bagels, for God’s sake, but they do not exist. So I’m sort of stuck with the granola and coconut yogurt alternative.

So you eat breakfast every morning?

Yeah, I do. I can really feel my blood sugar attacking me if I don’t. I know people who just subsist on cups of coffee until mid-afternoon, and maybe they get a taco afterwards. I go postal if I do that. I am really into just having granola and yogurt. It’s the way to go. Or if I really want to have fun, I’ll have a breakfast butty, which is fried egg and whatever else you want to put on it. It’s toasted and warm and comfort food. I generally try to do a slow-burning breakfast. I think that’s important. I think that really works the best.

Are you an early riser?

It’s a little hard to say because I travel so much, so my universal clock is always being challenged. Flying from London to the East Coast, USA, I generally will allow two or three days to acclimate before I have to actually start working. This time I flew in and cooled out in Florida. I got things together and then flew to Denver, Colorado and did a week long teaching gig in Boulder, Colorado at Naropa. By the time I got there, I was somewhat okay. Flying into the States is good because you’re waking up at 5:00 a.m. You’re getting a jump on everything. Going further out West, you’re just up at the crack of dawn. I love getting up early and going out, especially on days with really beautiful morning weather. You can see people going to school, going to their offices, and there’s something very encouraging about seeing that there are still people working and it’s not just robots.

Is it weird walking through a part of New York that you used to be so close to?

Sometimes? I lived on 13th Street between A and B in the 70s. Now it’s hipster coffee shops and too-cool-for-school bars and stuff. I don’t recognize it. It’s just the way it is. Is it for better or worse? I don’t know. I mean, it certainly feels safer. I didn’t feel very safe living there in ‘78, ‘79, but I was young enough where I could deal with it psychologically. I don’t think I’d want to live in a situation like that now in my life.

How did you get around when you lived here?

I like walking around the city quite a bit because I never had a car. I moved here when I was 19, and I didn’t have a car until I was in my forties. It was great. I remember having a child and then contemplating living in Western Massachusetts, so they could go to a fairly progressive school that would actually open its doors without having to beg for your child to go there. It made sense, but I always retained a foothold in New York City, even the 10 years living in Northampton, Massachusetts. I always consider it the true home for me, as I lived here for over 30 years. I love living in London though.

Do you walk a lot in London?

Yeah, I do. I don’t have a car there. I use the train system, bus system, and anybody over 60 years old rides all of that for free. I get free medicine. The rest of the world has it figured out. There’s no pharmaceutical ads on TV because there’s no real industry over there.

Is walking your main form of exercise?

It’s certainly a form of meditation, and of course it’s a form of exercise. That’s probably the primary exercise I have. We have two dogs, so they get walks twice a day and they get extensive walks, so there’s a lot of walking going on, a lot of walking along the Thames.

Do the dogs dictate your days?

Completely. It’s all about taking care of them. Well, they take care of each other. They just wrestle all the time. I’ve been in writing mode, working on a novel, and of course they come barreling into my little space that I have to write. Two cannonballs smashing into the wall.

Do you approach writing as a nine-to-five job?

My discipline is not that strict, but I do find that I like to start writing mid-afternoon and work into the early evening. I guess you would know as a writer, there’s something about accomplishing a few hours of writing. There’s really nothing like it, as far as rejuvenation in a way that’s just intellectually satisfying.

When you write at home in the early afternoon, are you eating lunch before?

I do. I can write on a full stomach. I make sure I’m not preoccupied with thoughts of eating or anything like that.

Do you make lunch at home?

My midday lunch thing will generally be a tuna sandwich. It’s the best. A grilled cheese sandwich. That, to me, is really good. I mix orange juice with tart cherry juice, a couple of ice cubes. When I’m writing in England, I love to have a small pot of PG Tips black tea. Nice. I can sip on that once in a while.

Is that caffeinated?

It’s very caffeinated, so I have to be careful with it. It’s the classic South England tea. If you’re from the north, you drink Yorkshire. There’s a war of teas for sure. I was playing a gig in Manchester and we had PG Tips on my rider, and in the dressing room there was the PG Tips box next to a Yorkshire Gold box. On the PG Tips box, somebody had drawn a skull and crossbones with a magic marker. It said: “Do not drink. Poison.”

They take it seriously out there.

They’re very distinct. They’re both highly charged blacks, but they certainly have a distinct genetic quality to ’em. But I prefer PG Tips.

So you just have a low-level buzz throughout the afternoon.

Kind of. If I take a break, I’ll go down for a yogurt. I realized the power of actually stretching your legs when you’re writing. An hour will go by very quickly, so maybe I’ll take a walk around the block or something. We don’t really go out and eat as much as we did earlier in our lives. I’m really into superfood succotash plates. I find those really satisfying. I’m not much of a meat eater. I’m not a vegetarian, but I don’t eat Shake Shack burgers and milkshakes every day.

Every once in a while you’ll eat meat?

Every once in a while. Yeah. I’ll go wild.

Are you an aspiring vegetarian?

I used to be a vegetarian for many years, and I went to the dark side, during the pandemic, while being situated in South Miami. Latino Cubano food culture is extremely meat based. I started bringing that back into my diet. To this day I feel conflicted about it. I don’t feel like it’s the best thing, but I have A blood type. That kind of protein is supposedly beneficial to my blood type, although it can be certainly replaced with vegetation and is probably better for everything else in my body. I try to be conscientious as much as I can about what’s going in there.

Does your diet change significantly when you’re on the road?

Yeah, of course it does. It is really defined by finding the right time to eat, because I think consistency is really key in diet, and also key in sleep. When you go on the road, it’s completely inconsistent. Your sleep schedule and your eating schedule is just chaotic.

Are you in a bus or in a van?

I’ve been in all situations. Vans, buses, cars, trains, planes. There was a period with Sonic Youth where we were able to have a caterer who followed the tour. The caterer was always there. In some ways I found it to be a little annoying because I like exploring the restaurant culture in any city we go to. When Mark Ibold from Pavement was playing bass with Sonic Youth, he was great to be with because he’s a dedicated foodie. He would get up at the crack of dawn in any city and go seek out the fresh markets because he was really interested in regional food cultivation. That was great. I would get up with him sometimes and make the rounds and try these different foods out. Even going to Shanghai or something, he was just like, “Yeah, I’m going to eat the cricket at the food stall.” I was like, “Well, go ahead. I hope you make it to soundcheck alive.”

When you’re done with dinner, are you back to writing?

No, usually not. There’s nothing I enjoy more after dinner than to watch a film and then conquer the New York Times crossword puzzle. Oh, I love it. And then I do The New York Times Wordle and Spelling Bee. I’m really into word puzzles. I find I lose a lot of sleep doing late night Wordles.

Spelling Bee is tough. When I visit my parents they’re always trying to reach the Genius level.

If I have to honk out before hitting Genius at this point, I don’t care. There was a point where I was just like, “Ah, damn, it’s going away soon.” It’s a great thing to do with your partner. It’s fun.

In terms of movies, are you watching Criterions, old films, mainstream releases?

Everything. I definitely like to check out buzzworthy films. I used to love going to the cinema. I feel like my audio processing is really challenged from years of using a high volume amplifier. I can hear, but I have issues deciphering. It’s almost like every film is mumblecore. I’m just like, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ Watching television at home has become the preference because everything has closed captions.

What’s the last good movie that you saw?

I thought The Beast was good. I thought Challengers was good. I think there are great movies being made.

So you are crushing movies almost every night of the week.

Oh yeah.

When you’re in New York, are you cooking? Are you visiting your favorite restaurants?

I’m definitely getting good eats. Cooking in New York? Forget about it. Fran Lebowitz said something like, “You don’t live in New York City to cook. You don’t live in New York City to put plants or trees in your house. If you want some plants or trees, move to the country.” You live in New York, get rid of the plants and the trees. They don’t belong here. Stoves don’t belong here. You have the greatest restaurants in the world. That’s why you live here. I love it. My dictum is that there are too many great places to eat. I’m a big fan of Robert Sietsema, the food writer who I know. He was in this band that was called Mofungo, which is the perfect name for a band that he would’ve been in. Robert’s such a great food writer. He finds the back-of-the-bodega tortilla guy or Samosa guy. I love that. But I will follow any lead. New York Magazine just parsed out that all the best crushed watermelon is in Chinatown. I was like, I’m there. It’s the journey for me. I am constantly in search for the best slice, or who’s making the best bagel, where the best egg cream is. It’s kind of hard to find the best egg cream. It used to be a thing, and now it’s not so much a part of the geography of New York anymore.

A good egg cream is hard to find. I haven’t tried the one at S&P but I’m intrigued.

For me it was Gem Spa, but those days are gone.

What’s for lunch today?

What are you gonna do?

There’s a great diner close to here, on 16th and 3rd called Joe Jr. Fantastic Cheeseburger. Maybe I’ll do that.

I’ll go to Joe Jr. Immediately.