Turns out Agent Mulder is one hell of a crooner

Turns out Agent Mulder is one hell of a crooner

By Reed Tucker
February 1, 2018 | 4:34pm


David Duchovny performs in Paris in 2016. Redferns

The truth is out there. So is a new David Duchovny album.

It may surprise fans of “The X-Files” to know that its star has yet another career, as a singer and songwriter. (He’s also a novelist.) His second album, “Every Third Thought,” is due out Feb. 9.

It’s a collection of roots-rocking originals from someone who first picked up a guitar only six or seven years ago to pass the endless hours in his on-set trailer while filming Showtime’s “Californication.”

“I always loved music and I wanted to be able to play the songs I grew up with,” Duchovny, 57, tells The Post. “I chose guitar because it’s portable. A piano is hard to lug around.”

The native New Yorker learned to appreciate performance in his early 20s, when he tended bar at Radio City Music Hall. It was there he saw Marvin Gaye, Bette Midler and Prince, among many other greats.


Duchovny is perhaps best known for his portrayal of FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder (with Gillian Anderson as Special Agent Dana Scully) on “The X-Files.”20th Century Fox Licensing/Merch

The first tunes he learned to pick out on guitar? “Broken Arrow” by Robbie Robertson and “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1” by the Flaming Lips.

Duchovny says making music not only helps keep boredom at bay, but gives him something he can’t get in acting.

“I get to write my own words and have control over what’s coming out of my mouth,” he says.

Many of the songs on the guitar-forward, mid- and down-tempo “Every Third Thought” tackle “love, loss, death and my dad.”

“Sometimes I’ll have a subject in mind, sometimes an image,” Duchovny says. “It just spins out.”

The creative control must be welcome to someone who says he once auditioned for all three lead roles in “Full House” — and was turned down for all of them.

Duchovny doesn’t actually play on the album, which was recorded at a studio in Brooklyn. He says his guitar work isn’t yet sharp enough. Instead, he’s been concentrating on his singing, taking lessons and doing 25 minutes of voice work a day.

He wrote his first song a few months after picking up the guitar.

“I was looking for the easiest songs to play, and I was noticing certain progressions,” he says. “It was like, ‘Not all songs are like [those by the band] Yes — they don’t have 60 chords … why can’t I come up with a melody?’”

The result was “The Things,” a track on his 2015 debut “Hell or Highwater.”

“I felt so proud of myself,” he says. “I recorded it on my GarageBand app on my phone.”



Duchovny is well aware that there will be some eye-rolling at the thought of yet another actor coming out with an album.

“I’m under no illusion that I’m not using my celebrity in another area to draw attention to this. It’s a great opportunity to get the music out there,” he says. “My heart is pure as far as music is concerned. I’m not telling you I’m Pavarotti. I’m just trying to make some beautiful songs.”

Duchovny also has music to thank, at least in part, for his latest gig — another shot at playing FBI agent Fox Mulder on “The X-Files,” which was brought back in January for an 11th season.

Like “Will and Grace” and “Roseanne,” it’s been revived for a renewed life on TV.

“I think [the trend] started with music — bands started getting back together and touring as big as they used to,” Duchovny says. “As our generation has aged, they like to revisit their youth. That would explain some of the appetite.”

Duchovny will soon launch a tour in Australia and New Zealand. He’s pretty sure it won’t be as cushy as his life on the set.

“It’s Ubers and taxis, and it’s not easy,” he admits. “It’s not Bon Jovi.”


New York Post