Moby busks in London's Sloane Square

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Moby made less than he did as a student when he made a surprise busking appearing in Sloane Square last night.

The international superstar stunned commuters as he played an impromptu 40-minute set.

But he made less money busking unknown student in 1980s America, he told thelondonpaper.com afterwards.

Despite being in one of London's most exclusive districts, the techno DJ made just £5 or £6.

Back in the 1980s, he said he and student pals played for a similar amount of time until they had collected $5 to buy cheap vodka - the equivalent of $12.70, or more than $£6 in today's money.

However Moby revealed he loved playing for bemused commuters, saying the unprepared show was "random" and "spontaneous"

He he said: "At the most I was given maybe £5 or £6, but that's fine because I was obviously not doing it for the money. I'm sure it has gone to a worthy cause.

"I still like busking. When I was at University I used to busk all the time to make money to buy liquor. Together with friends we would play Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin covers until we made enough to buy vodka.

"The sole goal of busking was to make enough money to buy liquor, and it was not top of the shelf stuff, it is the vodka drunk by homeless alcoholics.

"We would make $5 in about an hour, go out and get drunk and then do it again the next day.

$"It was in 1983 and we were not very good - the thing we quickly found out was that people would pay you because they enjoyed the music, but they would also pay you because they wanted you to stop."

Moby, who began playing just after 5pm this evening, started off with well known tracks, such as 'Honey', 'Natural Blues' and 'Why does my heart feel so bad', but soon began to run out of material because he, and singer Joy Malcolm had not rehearsed.

He continued: "It was good. we did not announce anything and I did not even tell any of my friends in the UK, so it was very impromptu.

"We ran out of actual singles, so we started improvising and playing the Blues. Joy started making up lyrics - she's fearless."

The international star, who sold 9 million copies of his hit album 'Play', said today's gig was little different from his days in America, playing guitar outside - except for the miserable weather.

He said: "In New York during the summer we used to spend out time outside drinking beer and strumming on the guitar and the only downside today was trying to play guitar in the cold, which is quite painful.