David Duchovny Creates A Story In Every Song

Actor, author, singer David Duchovny has his total entertainment background to fall back on when he writes a song.

The X-Files/Californication star is about to release his third album and he tells Noise11.com that every one of his songs has its own character and story.

“Every song has a story,” David tells Noise11.com. “I say that to the band. It is different how I come at it to how they do. They are real musicians and I’m a newcomer. I’m coming at it from a storyteller perspective and I try to think of every song as a play or movie. Every time I sing a song it is a different character to me. I haven’t name them. I don’t know their back history. In my mind every song is its own world, its own story, its own character. I don’t want it to move. I don’t want to consciousness in the first line of the song to be the same when you get out of it. I want it to have some kind of movement”.

Watch the Noise11 interview with David Duchovny

David has The Beatles and Stones template to fall back on. “I try to take what is personal to me and change it musically and lyrically to what people can latch onto in a neutral way,” he says. “I don’t want to get in the way of the lyric and say ‘this is my experience, hands off, this is my life’. How do I make my life everybody’s life. That is the genius of really good songwriting to me. When I was growing up I’d go ‘how did The Beatles write that song about me?’. ‘How did the Stones write that song about me? They don’t even know me’. That is my approach. I write personally but I try and translate it as universally as I can. I either succeed or I don’t but that’s what I am traying to do”.

Now that David Duchovny is three albums in he is building quite the catalogue of songs. “When I first started I only had 12 songs when I started touring so I played them all live. Then the second time I toured I had 24 songs so I pretty much played them all as well. Its not like I have a back catalogue I can go through and just play the rockers. Its not so much an idea ‘this is going to be a great live song’ but we are aware once we start making them that ‘this is going to be fun, that’s a first song’. I can’t wait to play that as a first song”.