The two-time Golden Globe winner’s tour will include songs from his debut album, Hell or Highwater, as well as tracks from his next record, which is coming in in fall 2017. His music consists of self-penned tracks, firmly embedded in his uniquely lyrical, troubadour style.“Making this record is a dream come true, but I never had this dream – it’s still a shock when I think about how all this music happened,” said Duchovny. “What I do know is that I feel these songs represent the truest expression that I’ve ever been able to achieve and I look forward to sharing it with everyone.”
Tickets for the tour are available now– www.davidduchovnymusic.com
David took some time to chat with us about embarking on the 2017 tour, his upcoming new album, the possibility of more X-Files on the way and more!
Q: How happy are you to be back out on the road and testing out some of your new material?
David Duchovny: Yes, of course! We’ll be doing the “Hell or Highwater” album mostly, but there will be five or six songs from the new album that we already recorded, but we never really worked on as a live band. It’s going to be a lot of fun to put them up there and I think they are a little tougher and a little more musically produced than the first album. It’s been an interesting process to get them up on their feet live.
Q: How far along are you in the recording process for the next album?
DD: I’m done with the recording. We are really just rehearsing for live performance now.
Q: We were reading that the target release date for the upcoming album will be the fall of 2017, correct?
DD: Is it the fall? I was thinking the spring (laughs) We’re done!
Q: What is the recording process like for you? Can you choose one or two songs in particular and tell me what the mindset was like when you were putting the album together?
DD: The second album differs quite a bit from the first album, as with the first album I probably had four songs that I left off of it. The second album is probably four songs from my first run at writing songs plus eight of the newer ones. I think there will be some similarities to the first one, but also a new direction and some new styles and some new lyrical obsessions as well which I hope will make it interesting. All of my songs start with a chord progression that I like and then hearing a melody over that, that I’ll hum and try to figure out some words for what I’m humming. With the second album I brought them earlier to my band rather than just finishing them alone. It was more of a collaborative effort with the new album.
I worked with Colin Lee and Pat McCusker and Pat will come up with whatever riff he thinks needs to be in there and Colin will work on the bridge or the harmonies and it will get away from me in a good way.
Q: Awesome. We felt the first album was very thought-provoking and it definitely brought out several different emotions. We don’t want to say it was all sadness because there were certainly some elements of joy in there. Have you gone in a different direction emotionally with the new album, because we feel all music invokes some kind of emotion.
DD: Yeah and I think most songs are sad and they can make you sad. The great thing about music is that somehow a sad song makes you happy. Some kind of magic happens. I will say that the unrelenting kind of bleakness that was in the first album is not there, as the second album has more light in it. Less rain, more light (laughs).
Q: How therapeutic is the creative process of writing music for you?
DD: It’s hard for me to gauge that. I think I rather view it as not therapeutic for me, but therapeutic for other people. I think what happens is, if my intentions are clear and pure and my talent is enough then a connection will be made and that’s therapeutic. The fact that I get to make a connection is therapeutic for me as well, especially in a live setting. What’s most therapeutic aside from the cathartic display of ones emotions or dealing with ones emotions for me is just the chance to be creative. You know, to lead a creative life and to keep creating stuff in different media. That to me is the only therapy I’ve ever really known.
If I get to be creative whether it’s as an actor, director, writer, or musician I feel better and hopefully other people feel better too when they consume it.
Q: Is it hard for you to switch hats? We know you’ve done some directing and you’ve written a book as well. Is creating music a different process?
DD: Yeah, it’s very different. Making TV or film is the most collaborative thing that I do because you have over 100 people who you are collaborating with easy, whereas, writing a novel is the least collaborative thing I’ve done. I mean I worked with an editor, but that’s when it’s done. Nobody has had one word to say about what I put down on my page, so between those two, the non-collaborative and the totally collaborative is music which is where I do spend time alone in my room writing songs, but then bring them to two or three trusted people and then collaborating it further and then turning it into something we can play in front of people professionally or even record.
Q: A show like “Californication” did a wonderful job at using music to push forward the storyline and used alternative versions of classic track. How involved were you in all of that?
DD: I wasn’t, but I guess my involvement was educating myself about Warren Zevon at the time because I had just kind of stumbled across him at the time I was doing the pilot. Tom Kapinos, whose the creator of the show, also didn’t know Zevon, so it worked out that we found out about Zevon as we were making the show and used a lot of his music during the show. In terms of the covers. that was all Tom. Tom is a big music fan and is an actual guitar player himself and Marilyn Manson was on the show and of course Lemmy from Motorhead was on the show and again that was all Tom being a huge music fan. I think the only song or songs I might of pitched was “High-Flying Bird” the Elton John song and a Zevon song at some point.
Q: Is it ever surprising to you which songs of yours that fans tend to gravitate towards?
DD: Yeah, I mean it’s always surprising what people relate to musically. That’s kind of the beauty of lyric writing in a song is you leave enough of it unsaid so that people can make it their own.
Q: What other upcoming projects do you have in the works for this year. We know the tour is getting ready to kick-off with dates on the west coast and some on the east coast as well.DD: We are talking about doing more “X-Files” soon and then I have a couple of projects that are really in the beginning stages that I don’t have anything really interesting to say about at this time, but I want to do in the next couple years.
Q: Just for fun! How likely are we to see an “X-Files” musical episode. You know Mulder dueting with some aliens!
DD: (laughs) I don’t know about that, but I’m definitely going to pitch my own music for the soundtrack. We’ll see how far I get!
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