David Duchovny
David Duchovny’s career has led him from acting to novelist and then to songwriting. Jess O Sullivan talks to the star about his life-long love affair with words
Jess O Sullivan talks to the legendary actor about his life-long love affair with words
For any actor who has played an iconic character in a long-running television show, being taken seriously in another role is di cult enough; changing discipline altogether - almost impossible. David Duchovny, however, is the exception to the rule. A er eight years playing Fox Mulder in e X-Files, followed by seven seasons as Hank Moody on Californication, with a number of director and producer credits under his belt, we were introduced to David, the writer. Hardly a surprising turn, considering he has a Master’s in English literature from Yale University. He published his rst novel, Holy Cow, in 2015, which enjoyed a spell on New York Times bestseller list, closely followed by two more, also popular, books. at same year, more surprisingly, we also met David the musician when his self-penned debut album, Hell or Highwater, was released to warm critical reception. Yes, it seems David Duchovny is a ‘triple threat’ when it comes to being damn good at putting words together. Not only that but he refuses to limit himself in the medium in which he does it.
“I tell my kids, ‘We’re here to express ourselves on this planet. We’re here to communicate. Don’t let anybody tell you that you can or can’t, or that you can only do it one way, or to shut up.’” Currently, making music is David’s preferred form of expression, which is why he has been largely absent from our screens of late. At 58, he is about to embark on the European leg of his tour to promote his second album Every ird ought. “I guess maybe I’m jaded in little ways, but I’m just not cynical when it comes to expression.”
It’s 10am New York time and Duchovny has dialled into his interview himself. When I express some surprise at not hearing his publicist, Erika, at rst instance, he explains casually that, “Yeah, she got stuck on the subway.” e door buzzes during the conversation, as he lets Erika in mid- ow and unperturbed. “He is the best,” she tells me a erwards. “Started his schedule on his own. Wish they were all so easy.” It’s this unpretentious and laid-back attitude which has helped Duchovny in his transition to musician. He was prepared to accept that there would be some who would sco that Mulder now makes music. “It is hard, but on the other hand there’s really nothing I can do. I feel like if I’ve learned something doing 30 years of acting, or being a public person, it’s that you can’t really force a change in perception. You just have to do your best work and make sure it’s good. You can’t push it and you can’t get p*ssed o if people want to take the p*ss because you’re trying to do something new. It’s just got to roll o you and you have to go, ‘Well this is about the music. is is about these songs. Let’s just sincerely make this music the best that it can be and just roll the dice there.’”
Drawing his in uences from the great folk rock artists and his musical heroes such as Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, David is quietly con dent in his song-writing abilities, but he recognises that his guitar playing will never earn him any awards. He is perfectly okay with that. considering that he stopped playing guitar at 10 years old and it took him another 40 years to pick it up again. “My guitar playing is not very good, and it’s never going to get very good. It’s good enough to throw chords together and write songs and that’s really all I care about. I don’t care about becoming a virtuoso – it’s too late for that. I have a facility for throwing chords together, and melodies and lyrics, and I bring it to the musicians who make it so much better than I can make it.” His ability to play, write and sing has come a long way from strumming chords in his trailer between takes, to what organically became his rst album. Of course, that happened more quickly than it might for other artists, due to the currency of his name and his access to a talented bevy of collaborators behind the scenes. “You know, to be completely honest, that’s how every musician starts. I just happened to start with a name that people know. Anybody out there, any musician that you respect, any musician that you say is brilliant, pretty much just started in that room playing by themselves and getting better.”
It’s said the second album is harder and Duchovny agrees on the one hand and
disagrees on the other. “ ey say you have your whole life to make your rst album and then they want the second one in a year. So I had 54 years to work on the rst one and then I only worked a year and a half on the second.” He says that when he rst started writing songs, he wrote 20 in a few months but a er that initial spurt it slowed down. He is due to record his third album soon and he’s had to discipline himself to sit down to write. “ e rst songs that I wrote just sort of came out of me. ey were just there. Working on the third album of songs was the rst time that I’ve actually sat down and thought, ‘Oh sh*t I’ve got to write a song.’”
e upside to making a second album is the absence of the rst-time nerves that come with introducing your edgling music to the world, and then performing those songs in front of a new audience. at is why he is particularly looking forward to his gigs on this time around. “I feel like that anxiety [of the rst album] is probably gone.” Duchovny has made a concerted e ort to keep his songs personal rather than political. One gets the feeling that he is more interested in exploring the limits of his creativity than courting controversy. “ ere’s no escape from politics these days. Before people were interested in [politics] and they talked about it, but it didn’t dominate culture the way it does now, which I think is a real shame because the art that we’re getting is all sort of political. And there’s a place for that, but not the dominant place.”
He considers the Smartphone factor when performing. A phone’s power to create unintended consequences from spur of the moment utteriances makes him wary. “I would say I’m a little more inhibited than I’d like to be. And I’m not just talking about cursing. Being in the moment, you have to let go a little bit and it’s a tough time to let go. You can’t control where it goes. It’s unfortunate, but it is the way it is, and it’s not going to change, so we have to adapt.” at being said, Duchovny takes his role as front man seriously and ultimately wants to orchestrate a decent evening for people. “It’s kind of like being an emcee. Yeah, there’s the music, which should be great to listen to, but on the other hand you’re with a thousand, sometimes 3,000 people and they want to party, so you don’t want to give them medicine.”
Whether Duchovny turns his hand to something else remains to be seen, but for now he is doing what feels right to satisfy his creative urge. He has faith that whatever eld he’s in, people will recognise that everything he does he tries to do with authenticity. “I guess I’m a little unful lled in some way or restless, naive or curious or delusional, maybe a combination of all those things. Maybe I’m looking for new ways to say the same thing. But there is this strange and wonderful thing that happens when you get good words on a melody and it’s working. ey’re kind of li ing each other up. e music makes the words better and the words make the music better.”
David Duchovny will perform at e Academy, Dublin on Wed 20 February. His latest album Every ird ought is available to download.