Songs Without Jokes

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Yeah. I was thinking about the live show and how it moves around a lot. I do some comedy songs and I do a bit of this comedy banter between me and the audience, so there’s a lot more than just the songs. The drummer described it as a variety show in a way. What’s fun is the audience doesn’t quite know what’s gonna happen. I’m kind of feeling that out, though. We could do a whole set of just our songs, but that might be less appetizing, or less exciting, I think, for the audience. Listening to the music you made in Flight of the Conchords, it is very multi, whether it be multi-genre or multi-instrumental, it’s just all over, whereas your new album sounds very focused and a bit like Wings. Yeah. It’s cool. It’s great. Someone in the band suggested that we make an album at the end of the tour. That’s a pretty cool idea. We’re recording them, so we have the little demos. It would be a publishing nightmare. By the end of season two in 2009, Bret claims, “we were very burnt out” and “finding an idea that we hadn’t done was harder than it had been in the past.” Bret had also had his first child. “Making a TV show and having children is just not very compatible,” he explains. “We’d work 12-hour days for weeks straight. I was definitely more interested in being around for my family.” The idea of sporadic, brief tours was far more appealing, between writing songs for Kermit and Fozzie Bear. Yeah, the bands I’ve spoken to have all said that holding anyone’s attention for a full 45-minute set has become a bigger challenge.

There’s also a strong ecological thread to the record, with the ironically jaunty ‘This World’ detailing the pollution and corporate lies resulting in a “broken” and “bleeding” planet. Piano ballad ‘Up In Smoke’ uses wildfires as a metaphor for a torched romance. For inspiration, Bret only had to look up. The Australian wildfires of 2019 sent an apocalyptic smoke cloud across the South Pacific to New Zealand. I’d had this idea of wanting to do something different and I mentioned it to Lee one day,” he remembers. “And he was so positive and enthusiastic. He said: ‘That sounds great, I’m in!’ It was a cool moment for me, because his enthusiasm for the idea and his willingness to be involved gave me this real boost of: OK, I should do this! I should go for it!” Well now that you’ve seen the rise of the internet, how has that changed New Zealand’s cultural frame? If You Wanna Go” charges out of the gates like a classic Randy Newman kiss-off served sunny-side-up, with an instrumentation that somehow manages to sound contemporary and vintage all at once. “A Little Tune” is a vampy, barroom piano romp with a great big smile, loads of style, and nary a yuk. And the driving, synth-laced rhythmic pulse and bathroom stall wisdom of “Dave’s Place” offer a sense of groove and strong, understated vocals that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Dire Straits record.Today, Bret is busy at work on some animated movies and several labour-of-love projects including a theatre adaptation of George Saunders’ surreal political comedy The Brief And Frightening Reign Of Phil and a bubbling-along fairytale musical. The kind of imaginative, experimental and off-beat pitches that tend to excite Hollywood’s ideas guys but terrify its money men. When some vim and energy are injected into the mix, the results are much more pleasing: “If You Wanna Go” has an infectious Randy Newman sprightliness; “Dave’s Place” tips its hat to Flight of the Conchords’ “Inner City Pressure” but comes with a Springsteen-like drive; and aforementioned highlights “This World” and “A Little Tune” stand out for their bright jazzy tones, being the definite takeaways many listeners will return to. How has your transition from comedy been? I can’t think of very many comedians who transition into serious musicianship and I imagine it’s because of how daunting that is. Yeah. I mean, after doing Conchords for such a long time, I’m comfortable doing banter and being funny. I mean, the audience almost expects it. This is sort of a new bit for me, singing songs without jokes in it. No punchlines. That’s different.

Yeah, he’s been in all sorts of stuff. He’s a brilliant actor, but this was a comedy role. A sort of broad, stupid police comedy. Anyway, that was a funny example of how New Zealand was isolated and connected in different ways. I grew up before the internet, you couldn’t just look things up, and since Sledgehammer was on primetime and from America, it was the biggest show in New Zealand, we just presumed it was the biggest show everywhere.At one of the gigs, it ended up being a song called ‘Australian Vampires Make Better Lovers’ based on this woman whose partner was in Australia, and they like dressing up as vampires. Nah, there hasn’t been anything like that. There are some comedians who are pursuing serious musicianship, but it doesn’t happen often. Do you know Tim and Eric? Tim has done a few albums. Hannibal, too.