As of a few years ago, David Duchovny had never played guitar, and he
had barely sung a note in public since flunking a choir audition as a
kid. It started when his split from wife Tea Leoni left the 54-year-old
actor with unaccustomed free time, thanks to joint custody of his two
kids: "I thought, 'Maybe I can learn to play guitar to amuse myself. That was the motivation."
What was the first day in the studio like?
Horrible. At one point, I was just lying on the ground underneath the mic, yelling that this was all a mistake.
What's behind your line about "mediocrities for hourly fees"?We've
all paid for a little therapy, haven't we? I had a professor who said
they called them shrinks because they make things small. They shrink
everything. That's probably the most specifically angry I get in any of
these songs.
"A man of words is a man of lies" is a nice lyric.That's
the English-literature guy in me: Words are just an approximation.
That's one of the great things about music: It kind of fills up the
distance between the words and what you're feeling.
What's it like to have Fox Mulder follow you around for all these years?
At
one point it was frustrating, and I feared being typecast. Now, it's
just kind of funny. I was going to sing last week, and New York is where
I get the best recognitions, and this guy goes, "Oh, shit! It's homeboy
from The X-Files!" That's the way I like to think of myself: homeboy from The X-Files.
