The X-Files’ David Duchovny tours latest album in Australia and NZ
A COUPLE of lessons and some online tutorials and David Duchovny became a guitarist. But his songwriting skills were surprisingly more innate.
U on Sunday
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MUSICIAN and songwriter Harlan Howard once famously described country music as being “three chords and the truth”. It’s a sentiment David Duchovny can no doubt relate to. The award-winning actor, writer, director and filmmaker, best known for playing Fox Mulder on long-running science-fiction drama The X-Files, has decided to add singer-songwriter to his skill set.
Duchovny first picked up the guitar about six years ago when he was playing Hank Moody on the TV series Californication, a role that earned him a Golden Globe in 2008. Duchovny managed to convince Tom Kapinos, the series’ showrunner, to make his character an aspiring guitarist, which resulted in a couple of free lessons, but mostly he taught himself – with a little help from some online tutorials.
“Well I was teaching myself guitar – mostly – and I was teaching myself just by learning songs that I liked and I would just look at songs and if there was a chord I didn’t know I was like, OK, I’ll learn that song next and that way I’ll learn that chord,” Duchovny tells U on Sunday.
“I was going through songs like that and eventually I was seeing that rock ’n’ roll is … I use the word simple – it’s simple, it’s not easy, but it’s simple. And I thought, well maybe I could throw some chords together, and maybe if I could throw some chords together, maybe I would come up with a melody.”
Duchovny has completed a Masters in English literature at Yale University and has also penned two novels – Holy Cow: A Modern Day Dairy Tale and Bucky F*cking Dent – so it’s no surprise to learn writing the lyrics initially came more naturally than the music.
“I’m comfortable with words, less comfortable with music, so I was like, well, let’s just start throwing chords together and see if I hear anything,” he says. “I was surprised that I heard melody on top of certain chord progressions that I would throw down and that was fun, and I would just do that in my lounge room and before you knew it I had 10 or 15 songs I had written.”
It was some time before Duchovny felt comfortable enough to consider recording the songs and initially he had modest ambitions about where his compositions would end up. After recording some songs with Keaton Simons – a young family friend he describes as “a terrific solo artist and really amazing guitarist and singer-songwriter” – he was satisfied with the results, but didn’t necessarily expect to take it any further.
“I didn’t think about albums or anything like that, it was just ‘oh, I’ve got a couple of songs I did on my phone’.
“But after that, Brad Davidson, who’s managing me as a musician now, said ‘well let’s work these with a band and let’s see what sound we can come up with here – I really think there’s material here’.
“I was like ‘if you say so dude, we can try it.’ And that’s when I met (Berklee College of Music alumni) Colin Lee, Pat McCusker and Mitch Stewart – that’s the core of the band that recorded the first album.”
After recording that album – Hell or Highwater, which came out in mid-2015 – Duchovny’s version of “three chords and the truth” was out there, and the album earned positive reviews and favourable comparisons to the likes of alt-country outfit Wilco and alternative rock band R.E.M.
On one of the standout songs from the album, Positively Madison Avenue, was a sardonic take on modern consumerism that the singer wrote after seeing a television commercial Bob Dylan made for Chrysler, which aired during the 2014 Super Bowl.
Despite the song being a broader comment on 21st century commercialisation, many websites and news outlets latched on the “Bobby Dylan was selling cars” refrain and misinterpreted the track as a personal attack on Dylan, rather than the broader social critique he was intending it to be.
When asked if he thinks most critics missed the point of the track, Duchovny pauses to consider his answer, then says: “You’re nearly bringing me to tears by saying that because unfortunately, I think we live in a world where people are just looking for beefs and attacks and personalisations of things.
“In no way was it an attack on Bob Dylan; but it is an attack on the world that we live in and I thank you for getting that and not trying to turn it into a Twitter beef, which is where everything goes these days, unfortunately, because we have this idiot president here that does it; we just live in a very unfortunate time that way.”
Duchovny has just released his second album, Every Third Thought, which he describes as “more of a collaborative songwriting effort”, and Australian and NZ audiences will be the first to hear songs from the record showcased live when he kicks off his tour – which includes a performances at Eatons Hill Hotel, north of Brisbane on March 1 – later this month
When U on Sunday catches up with Duchovny, he is still partway through the second season of the X-Files revival, which is currently screening on Foxtel’s showcase channel in Australia. Duchovny is full of praise for the franchise’s creator Chris Carter and the writing team, and feels this series – the show’s 11th season in total – felt more unencumbered than the six-episode tenth season that aired in 2016.
“We’re doing 10 episodes this time rather than just six, so there is more of a chance to spread out and do standalone stuff and not just do so much of the mythology and the backstory stuff,” he says.
“I think last time felt kind of like a comeback; it was more like announcing we were back, and then we were gone, whereas this is more like, OK, now you know we’re back, you know what we do, now we’re going to do it.”
When asked if there is anything he is eagerly anticipating about his trip to Australia, Duchovny is quick to respond.
“My experience with Australia is they appreciate it when you make the trip, it’s like ‘hey mate, thanks for showing up’, and I like that.
“I’m also big beach guy, so I’d love to see some of the great beaches. I’ve never really scuba-dived or anything like that, so I’d love to get out in the water ... and not get eaten by sharks.”
David Duchovny, Thursday, March 1, Eatons Hill Hotel, tickets from $79.90 at Ticketmaster. The X-Files, Thursdays 7.30pm, showcase, Foxtel
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