David Duchovny

Shortly after announcing his third album, 'Gestureland' (out August 20th), David Duchovny talked with QRO....
David Duchovny : Q&A
David Duchovny : Q&A

Shortly after announcing his third album, Gestureland (out August 20th), David Duchovny talked with QRO. In the conversation, the actor/director/musician/author discussed the new album (including stopping making it for almost a year), co-writing with his band, hopefully touring (just not Europe in the winter…), pandemic kids, this year’s Audible production The Reservoir, this year’s new novel Truly Like Lightning (and making it into a Showtime series), Bucky (F*cking) Dent (and Bill (F*cking) Buckner), Spotify’s f*cking logarithm, Zalman King, the fictional David Duchovny, and much more…



QRO: How have you been holding up during all of this?

David Duchovny: Pretty well. I was lucky enough to be able to be in New York with my son, mostly, over the initial lockdown, from a year ago last early spring. And that was actually quite wonderful, in its own way – aside from, obviously, the pandemic’s a horrible thing. To be able to spend that much time with a boy who just turning 18. It was definitely interesting, and something that I would have wished I would have decided to do, had there not been a global pandemic forcing me…

So, I was in New York for really when it was the epicenter, and through that. I got COVID in October of that year, after the summer. It wasn’t that bad for me; I mean, it wasn’t a picnic, but I didn’t have to be hospitalized or anything like that.

It was very strange. In fact, I just wrote a novella, which is on Amazon Audible. I thought, ‘Oh, I’m never gonna write anything inspired by this,’ and it kinda just came out. It was a very interesting kind of process, to kind of write my way through the story, in a way, kind of writing what it meant to me, or writing what it was all about to me. Kind of making it clear, thoughts that I wouldn’t have had, had I not tried to write this story.

QRO: Did your son graduate high school during the pandemic?

DD: He just graduated high school this past spring.

You know, it’s hard to gage the effects of the kind of isolation. Obviously, adults have it a bad, but I think kids, teenagers…

Young kids, too. Say you’re a three- or four-year-old kid. You’re supposed to start going to socialize, you know, not be a selfish monster anymore. Now you don’t get to do that for a year-and-a-half.

It’s odd to think about the developmental slowing down that might happen. And we won’t know for years.

QRO: I was just thinking that your son missed all the graduation parties…

DD: He missed all that…

For me, that was never… I mean, I’m not him; I can’t speak to that. But, to me, that was always bullshit. To me, I would miss the community of school. I had a nice experience in high school; I looked forward to going to school. I loved the kids that I was with, didn’t want to be at home.

So, I can’t imagine, if I’d had to lockdown like junior & senior year. I would have just been so miserable…

These seemingly world-changing events that make you realize the little things in life, the things we’re always talking about, are so important, but you never really act that way.

QRO: I suppose also, going to college, he will have a shared experience with everyone he starts college with.

DD: You have your generation-defining moment.

If you’re lucky! Some generations just kind of float by, and they got nothing to get in their way, or no obstacle, or nothing huge to process into art. They gotta make it up themselves.

QRO: I graduated college in 2001, and was in New York when 9/11 happened…

DD: Again, I don’t want to toot my own horn so much, but in writing that story, I kind of got to a place, without giving anything away, but I got to a place where the character was kind of realizing that 9/11 and the pandemic were similar, in that they were these seemingly world-changing events that make you realize the little things in life, the things we’re always talking about, are so important, but you never really act that way.

For, you know, a year after 9/11, I think everybody acted that way. But eventually, it wears off. That’s kind of what this character’s thinking about in the pandemic. ‘This is wonderful. I realize that my family’s the most important thing to me. Love is just the most important thing on the planet.’ And how long is that going to last, you know, three months?…

QRO: And how are your bandmates doing? Are they okay? You got COVID…

DD: Pat McCusker got COVID. Colin [Lee] and Mitch [Stewart] didn’t. And Pat struggled with it for a bit, but he’s fine now.

We were actually starting to record Gestureland right as the lockdown happened. It was actually the last time I went out. I guess it was March something. We were in the midst of recording that album, and we just had to shut down for like a year.



David Duchovny & band




QRO: How was making Gestureland? You had to stop in the middle?

DD: It was more than the middle. We had demos of all the songs. We’d chosen, out of like 16 or 18 songs, which ones we wanted to demo. And then we made fourteen demos, and we were choosing which twelve we wanted to really record.

And we were in the midst of recording, towards the end of it, actually. And what we didn’t have was the supplemental arrangements, stuff like horns & strings, harmonies. Those are all things you can’t do with COVID. Music, oddly is such a dangerous COVID activity. Just blowing aerosols through instruments, or your mouth…

If you’re in a small room, it was just a no-no. It wasn’t gonna happen.

QRO: So, you basically had to just wait a year?

DD: Yeah, we didn’t know what to do. Obviously, there were other things that were foremost in our minds, just surviving, figuring out what kind of world we were in.

But yeah, we just sat with those demos for about eight or nine months, until we got to the point where we were like, ‘Okay, we’re comfortable, the two or three of us in this room, we’re comfortable calling somebody in with a horn, and have him sitting down alone, do some tracks.’

QRO: You can’t do a horn with a mask on…

DD: [laughs] As much as people might want me to sing with a mask on, it doesn’t really work to record…

As much as people might want me to sing with a mask on, it doesn’t really work to record…

QRO: This is your third record. Have making & recording music gotten easier (pandemic aside)?

DD: Easier and not.

Because the first record [Hell or Highwater], I think I was just like amazed that it was happening, you know? And amazed that there were really good musicians that were playing my songs, and making them sound like respectable songs you might hear on an album, or hear on the radio.

To me, it was just kinda shock & appreciation at first. I wouldn’t very much pipe up and say, ‘Hey, I hear something different here, or I hear something different there,’ I would just say, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you…’ That was pretty easy.

I guess I’ve become a little more confident, not in my musicianship, but in my ear, and in my kind of arranging ear, and in my sense of which I have for the songs, even when I’m just me singing them on acoustic guitar. So, it becomes harder, in a way, because I give myself a little more responsibility.

It also becomes easier, because the band is really more of a cowriter, now, with me. Sometimes I don’t figure out a whole song. I’ll figure out a verse, or I’ll have a chorus. And then I’ll dump some lyrics on the guys. So, that’s easier… [laughs]

QRO: [laughs] Is the band all like, ‘Man, he was so nice on the first record. Now he’s all, “Do this, do that, write this, write that…”’?…

 DD: [laughs] ‘He thinks he’s Phil Spector…’

It also becomes easier, because the band is really more of a cowriter, now, with me.

QRO: Also, is there less pressure, this not being your debut, not being your first ‘actor making music’ kind of thing? Now you’re established…

DD: I guess? I’m not sure I think of it that way.

I remember, when we were making the first album, Brad Davidson, who’s the guy who’s kind of in my life in the music world, he said, “You know, you have your whole life to make your first album, and six months to make your second…”

QRO: Yes! I’ve had many musicians tell me that…

DD: I was amazed that I had one song. I was amazed that I had enough songs to fill an album.

And then I was like, ‘Oh my god! Should I do it again? Do I have to do it again? Do I have the opportunity to do it again?’ I didn’t feel like I could just sit around & wait; I wanted to do another one. So, I was like, ‘Okay, I should write a song.’ And I had never had that thought. It was always like, ‘I seem to be writing a song.’ That was how my life went.

And I was like, ‘I should really write two songs this month’ or something. Or, ‘Let’s get together with the band and write a song,’ and that’s a different kind of approach. Which I believe in. I really believe that necessity is the mother of invention.

I was just reading this John Lennon book, where he wanted to write a song on Monday, record on Tuesday, and release it on Wednesday. And he almost did it. “Instant Karma!” was released two weeks after he wrote it. And that was Phil Spector who did it, too.

And it’s a great song! I might say that it’s my favorite of his solo songs, one of my favorite songs of all time. So, there’s nothing wrong with saying, ‘I gotta do it,’ or, ‘Let’s do it fast!’

QRO: You had taken some time away from acting when you made 2017’s Every Third Thought. Were you do any acting work when you were writing/making Gestureland?

DD: Yeah. Well, the pandemic certainly…

Mostly, these songs did, because there’s been a couple years between albums, I haven’t really sat down ever, except for maybe three weeks ago, I said to the band, “Let’s just sit down and try to write a song.” And we did.

Most of this stuff was just stuff that would happen, or I would play in my trailer, jot down a few notes. Usually while I was acting – or writing. Anything.






QRO: Are you looking to tour Gestureland any time soon?

DD: I would love to. It’s just a matter of figuring out the safety of that. Obviously, we’re not at the end of this thing, we’re learning new things all the time. That’s a fluid situation.

I think again, Brad Davidson had said, “Let’s tour Europe in the winter.” I was like, “Again? Europe in the winter? [laughs] Why can’t we tour Europe in the late spring? Why can’t we tour, you know, South America in the winter?…”

QRO: [laughs] That’s for your Australian tour…

DD: [laughs] Yes, exactly…

We did a little tour of Australia in 2018, probably, and that was in the wintertime, and that was wonderful! I hadn’t spent that much time in Australia. But that was cool, to go from city-to-city, and meet people, and play music. I’m into it – it’s just a matter of logistics, health…

We did do a winter tour where we started in Moscow in like February… [laughs]

QRO: [laughs] Exactly when you want to be in Moscow…

DD: I was like, ‘Didn’t Napoleon understand that that is bad? Didn’t Hitler also know this is a bad idea?…’

QRO: How much do you get to tour, given all the other stuff that you do?

DD: It’s like that, trying to fit it into somewhere. They haven’t been these mammoth tours; they’ve been like carve out three weeks and go.

I have the utmost respect now for bands that tour. It’s not easy. I’ve gotten sick every one. I got shot up with steroids, for my [throat]…

Which I like – makes me feel like a real rock n’ roller, when I’m getting shot up before…

We did do a winter tour where we started in Moscow in like February…

QRO: Have you thought about doing any livestreams or such?

DD: I guess we have. We thought about kind of doing Zoom stuff, but the sound is so bad on Zoom – I guess if we could all be in the same room. The idea of trying to be rhythmically on with Zoom, I think pretty tough. I guess people are doing it.

My brain doesn’t like immediately go to that kind of a thing, but I’m not against it.

Any way, I would love to play the album. I would love to play these songs.

QRO: Have you played Gestureland in front of people at all yet?

DD: No. For the album release party of Every Third Thought, I’d just written “Pacific Coast Highway”, so we played that. I think that’s the only song that we’ve played in front of people from the album.

QRO: Do you have any plans for release day, August 20th?

DD: Can’t do the album party…

I’m sure Brad has some quirky ideas to try to figure that out, but I’m not aware of any. I’m probably fucking up by not knowing…



David Duchovny

QRO: How was making The Reservoir Audible production?

DD: Well, I actually got to go into a studio, which was different. Because I recorded Truly Like Lightning, the Audible version of that novel that came out in February. So, I recorded that in December or January in my apartment. They came in, COVID protocols, I left the apartment, they came in & set up a sound area for me, they wiped everything down, and then they left…

At the point, every morning, I’d get up and do six hours, and try to record. It’s a really long book. So, I did that in my daughter’s room – she’s out of the house now, she’s in college, so I took over her room, making the sound room there.

With differing results, I think. Obviously, the chance to go into a studio is way better than something they can set up. I think we all did the best we could. I haven’t listened to it. I’ve seen some comments that, you know, ‘Sound quality is not as good as it could be’ – Well, you know, it was fuckin’ COVID, I was in my apartment, we did the best we could…

But Audible, I got to go into a studio. It was fun to have somebody kind of directing it, or producing it. Kind of giving an outside voice to things that I don’t necessarily see in my own work. I can tend to just give it short shrift. Especially if it’s the written word, and I’m thinking, ‘You know, this should be read. This shouldn’t be listened to.’ But Audible, obviously, that’s what it is, to be listened to. So, I tried to really focus on the live story-telling concept of it.

QRO: Why put it out as an Audible production? Was it just the one thing that you hadn’t done yet?…

DD: No, it was just serendipity. I wrote this thing. I thought it was a short story, but then it kind of got long. Then I started Googling, “What is a novella? What is a novel?” I was like, ‘How many words?’ You know, I want to know the law: How many words is a novella? I was like, ‘Oh, this is more like a novella.’

I brought it to my publisher, and my editor was great, he loved it, but he said, ‘We just don’t do things of this length.’ So, I was like, ‘Eh, it’s a tweener!’ And I thought about publishing it as a short story, but it was too long. So, I was like, ‘Oh, shit! I really shot myself in the foot here…’

And then, Jess Walker, who’s a writer friend of mine, he suggested Amazon Audible, and I didn’t even know about it. It was the first I’d heard of it. I was lucky that they were into it.

Audible, I got to go into a studio. It was fun to have somebody kind of directing it, or producing it. Kind of giving an outside voice to things that I don’t necessarily see in my own work.

QRO: You also released a book this year, Truly Like Lightning. When did you write that?

DD: That was done before the pandemic. That was finished probably by late fall of 2018?

And then, we wanted to hold it until after the election. It could have been published before the election, but my publisher decided that nobody was gonna read fiction before the election. So, kinda held it until after. And at that point, not knowing that there was a pandemic coming, either…

QRO: And it’s being adapted into a series for Showtime – which you’re gonna be in, but you’re not adapting it yourself?

DD: I’m part of the adaption. I have collaborators to write with me.

Because again, it’s almost like I was describing the experience of doing Amazon Audible. It’s like it’s nice to have another set of eyes, looking at my stuff. Because I do enjoy other people seeing stuff that I may or may not have intended. I have enough sense to go, ‘Great idea; not so great idea.’ And I welcome it.

I didn’t want to try to do that first work of adapting my novel to a screenplay. My skin kind of crawls thinking about that…

QRO: Have you ever heard from Bucky (F*cking) Dent [about your novel of that name]?

DD: [laughs] I never heard from Bucky. I wish that I had. I hope that he knows that I don’t think of him that way.

I know he understands at this point, that it’s an affectionate moniker.

He’s like symbolic in the book. At first, he’s like this villain, cause he destroys the dream of the Red Sox Nation, but then the father, who is this big Red Sox fan, as he’s dying, he comes to this realization that: Bless him. Bless him, Bucky Fucking Dent, because life isn’t about winning. Life’s about losing. The Yankees, back then, they don’t know about losing.

It’s like it’s nice to have another set of eyes, looking at my stuff. Because I do enjoy other people seeing stuff that I may or may not have intended.

QRO: My dad, he’s a Red Sox fan. I remember ’86…

DD: So, you’re dad’s waiting for the sequel, Bill (F*cking) Buckner?…

QRO: [laughs] Yeah!

Now that the Red Sox have won some World Series, it’s not so bad…

DD: Yeah, I know. I wrote the novel – I first wrote it as a script. I wrote it in 2003, I think, the script. And then they won it! I was like, ‘Those motherfuckers – they ruined my movie!…’

Then it sat around for a while, and I felt, ‘It can work as a novel. With a kind of coda at the end.’

QRO: Like in that Jimmy Fallon movie [Fever Pitch], or on Lost, setting up [Jack Shepard] as a Red Sox fan before they won, crashed on the island, and just laughed when the bad guy told him the Red Sox won the World Series…

I was just watching the All-Star Game, and the Dodgers manager was Dave Roberts! He’s done lots of other things, but for some people…

DD: Stolen base…

I remember, because the Yankees had them 3-0, and they were beating them like 16-2, 14-1. And after Boston won two games, I was like, ‘Oh no… This is starting…’ It just seemed…

It’s a great running gag, and you hate to see it end.

QRO: Yeah. I remember then when the Cubs won…

DD: I’m of the opinion that the Red Sox fans secretly miss losing.

QRO: It’s a little weird…

DD: They’ve just been so good for so long now.

And you’re outspending the Yankees…

QRO: Yes! I think about that with the Mets: They’re the underdog to the Yankees, yet they’re like the third-highest payroll!…

I’m of the opinion that the Red Sox fans secretly miss losing.

And you’ve also got a movie coming out, Judd Apatow’s Bubble

DD: I think it’s coming out either early in the new year, or holidays this year, on Netflix.

QRO: So, in 2021, that’ll be an Audible production, a new book, a new album, and a new movie – just gonna be a lot of press work?…

DD: [laughs] You know, the way I am, I always want to be working on something. If everything comes out at the same time, I’m like, ‘Shit – I got nothing! Now I’ve got to get to work…’ I always feel that way, ‘Oh shit, can we hold that a little while, make it seem like I’m still being busy?…’

So, it’ll look like a really busy year, but as you know, things take a while to make. And when they come out is not really indicative of when the work was done.

QRO: Can you work on one thing during downtime from another, like write music while in the trailer, like you were saying?

DD: Music, I can do it anytime, I think. It seems like ‘Have guitar, will travel’ – I can do that.

It’s hard to write a sustained piece of fiction without really just doing that.

It’s also hard for me to just work on set as an actor, and have time or the bandwidth to really do anything deep or that uses a deep part of myself.

I can’t really do two things at once. I can kind of edit while I’m doing those things, or maybe rewrite a little bit?

But no, I think they take the same part of myself, different forms of it. So, I think I’d be silly to try to do it.

QRO: Was it tough when you started putting out books & music? There’s this stereotype, ‘Oh it’s an actor trying to be an author/musician’, like when musicians try acting…

DD: It’s easy to insult a person like that. It’s an easy kind of label or handle to hold onto. So, I recognize that. So, I try not to take it personally. Unless the person is really leveling a legit criticism.

It annoys me, but so what?

QRO: Earlier this year, I interviewed Michael C. Hall (as part of his new band, Princess Goes To the Butterfly Museum – QRO interview) – I’m trying to collect former Showtime stars…

DD: [laughs] Yes…

Well, that’s the thing. I’ll look at my Spotify page, and it’ll say, ‘If you like this, you might also like’ – and it’s all actors! To me, that really annoys me…

I understand it’s the logarithm, some kind of a logarithm, but that’s exactly the point: The logarithm is a stupid motherfucker, and it’s just going after the most obvious kind of links. These are all actors! ‘Oh, you seem to like music made by actors,’ which is a ridiculous thing to even think.

It should go, ‘This is a type of music or genre that you can fit into some genre, and you look into some other of that genre.’ So, it’s not just people that like to have easily labels; it’s also logarithms…



David Duchovny’s lyric video for “Layin’ on the Tracks”:





QRO: Who put together the video for “Layin’ on the Tracks” (QRO review)?

DD: [Shaun Durkan]. It’s all stock footage. I gave Brad, again, a bunch of images that I thought would be, just in my head. I knew we would go to stock footage, so I said, ‘Here’s some ideas.’ And then [Durkan] came up with some really cool stuff, b-movie shit that you’d never seen.

I remember wanting to see, you know, the classic ‘bad guy tying the woman to the tracks.’

QRO: You had to delay the record release, but this was released before the election. Was it nice to at least get something out?

DD: Yeah, that was just kind of personal to me, in the sense that I haven’t really written songs that are pointedly political. I don’t think that’s pointedly political; it’s obviously somewhat political.

I just thought, ‘You know what? I’m not somebody who broadcasts my political opinions so much, but I wanted to kind of go on record before the election.’ To me, it was like a snapshot of where we’re at.

QRO: I saw you on Kimmel where you said that you turned “maybe two or three votes”…

DD: [laughs] I might’ve turned them the wrong way!…

QRO: [laughs] That was a lyric video – have you ever done a ‘proper’ music video?

DD: No.

QRO: Have you thought about it? You could direct it…

DD: I’ve thought about it, because I could, but I’ve just tried to figure out, ‘What would I do?’

So, I’ve never really had it come to me, [snap] ‘Oh, this is the video for that song!’ If that happened, I might consider it. Because there are certainly some videos that I love.

One of the ones that I think is actually an influence on “Layin’ On the Tracks”, even though we just use stock footage, is maybe my favorite music video, “Tonight, Tonight” by The Smashing Pumpkins. They used the [Le Voyage dans la Lume], first sci-fi/fantasy film. That’s just so haunting to me, and such a great match for such a great song, that I thought, ‘Oh, it would be great to have a great match to a great song.’ “Losing My Religion” was a great match for a great song.

But I just haven’t had that.



It’s also hard for me to just work on set as an actor, and have time or the bandwidth to really do anything deep or that uses a deep part of myself.







QRO: And I kind of have to ask you what you think about the recent UFO disclosures from the government…

DD: I don’t really follow it. I mean, my understanding is that, they’re not denying or confirming. I guess that’s what it is, right?

My personal belief remains the same, which is what it has always been since we started the show, which was that, I’d be surprised if we were the only sentient beings in the vast universe. That would be unbelievable…

QRO: You chased UFOs in the nineties, these days are making music – are you swapping career paths with (current UFO hunter/former Blink-182 frontman) Tom DeLonge?…

DD: He hasn’t contacted me. I’m not aware if we’ve switched positions…

I didn’t know he was into that.

QRO: You were in The X-Files revival, and the new Twin Peaks – when is the Red Shoe Diaries reboot coming?…

DD: People wanna know that. People do wanna know.

[Red Shoe Diaries creator] Zalman King was a good friend, and passed a number of years ago now. For whatever faults that show has, to me, it means so much. First of all, as a job. I needed to live, I needed to work, and I needed to work on my craft, at that point. Zalman, he was a nut, in the best sense. And he was an enthusiast of people, and of life. Being able to work as a young actor with Zalman, he just kind of filled me with curiosity, and excitement, and confidence. It’s weird to say, because, you look at my work on the show, you’re not going to see the results of that.

He was a great sensibility, for me. And I never really got to thank him, in quite this way. But maybe his family will read this article, or come across it.

Zalman [King], he was a nut, in the best sense. And he was an enthusiast of people, and of life.

QRO: That was on Showtime, and obviously Twin Peaks and Californication, and Truly Like Lightning

DD: That’s also Showtime. Seems to be my home.

QRO: Like Don Cheadle, who did House of Lies and now Black Monday

DD: Yeah. It goes beyond loyalty. I think they have their tastes.

They also know who’s made successes for them. It’s not just, ‘We like that guy.’ It’s also, ‘That guy made us money…’

QRO: Have you had any of your music in a film or TV show that you’ve done?

DD: Yeah. Chris Carter surprised be my having a cover made of a song from the first album called “Unsaid Undone”, and he put that in one of the revival X-Files we did.

And then, I did a small part in this show that’s coming out on Netflix, that my friend Amanda Peet has created, called The Chair, staring Sandra Oh. I cameo as a guy who shares the name as me – a fictional version of myself. And she’s using “Mind of Winter” from this new album.

QRO: Do people want you to play a fictional version of yourself ever since [you did it famously on] The Larry Sanders Show?

DD: Well, Garry [Shandling] started doing that, on the show, when kind of he opened up the door for celebrities to almost make fun of themselves. He was really the first one to do that.

And I waltzed in and did what I did. And I remember people saying, ‘Well, people are gonna think you’re gay,’ or, ‘This is you, because it’s your name.’ I was like, ‘Well, so what? There’s nothing with that.’

In a way, it’s such a move now. It’s almost tired at this point. I feel like it kind of ran its course with the whole Jimmy Kimmel-Matt Damon-Ben Affleck thing. Was like, ‘Okay, now we’re done…’

But this was less me making fun of myself, and more satirizing, in this case, it’s a university that is trying to call attention to itself by hiring a famous person to teach a course. The satire is more of what universities have to do to remain relevant.

And also, you know, a celebrity who wants to be considered a serious writer – like myself. So, it wasn’t just a kind of glib thing.

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