I'd also like to see Jemaine continue acting in more films and maybe go his own way in music. But, I still want Flight of the Conchords.
Anyways discuss this in the comment section below.
Video Kid album cover obtained from Loop and then edited.
"What's going on with the HBO show 'Flight of the Conchords'? Will you do a third season?
We've said no, but I don't know if anyone was listening. I think people might just ignore us and force us into it. They'll inject us with something that makes us do it. If you see us in a season three you'll know that we're probably under hypnosis."
Anyways, looks like there's no chance for a season 3, but I kind of expected that. Lets just hope it might happen, if not maybe a movie. Twitter user conchordsnet wants to know if you want a season 3 of FotC? Go here to vote.
IE: How did you come up with the idea for the film?
Jason: The film is inspired by the song "Careful with that axe, Eugene" written by Pink Floyd. My girl friend wanted to skip it during a road trip and I came up with some spiel about how it was an important piece of music, due to it's important, under current safety message - this blatant lie failed to work.
IE: What films or filmmakers inspire you?
Jason: I love both comedy and suspense equally which may explain why I'm a big fan of the Coen Brother's work and Alfred Hitchcocks film's. I love the showmanship that these filmmaker's bring, they want to entertain their audience and be liked. I also love anything directed by Steven Spielberg.
IE: What is next for you?
Jason: We're currently putting together the finance to shoot a comedy-crime-caper feature film, which has Jemaine Clement from HBO's Flight of the Conchords attached. The New Zealand Film Commission have also funded the writing of a couple of my feature treatments.
There doesn't seem to be a release date at the moment, late 2009 to early 2010 seem logical, but I'll keep you all updated as more info comes in.Conchords Cast Flies into DeathSource:Screen DailyMay 15, 2009
Lightning Media is reinforcing its upcoming distribution slate with a horror-comedy called Diagnosis: Death.
The tone of director Jason Stutter's film is said to be in line with Peter Jackson's early works. The story, co-penned by Stutter and Raybon Kan, concerns two people undergoing a radical treatment for cancer. Locked in a medical facility over a weekend as guinea pigs for a drug trial, they discover the clinic may pose more harm than they could have imagined. The drugs cause hallucinations. Or are they seeing ghosts for real? Struggling with their senses, they must team up to solve a haunting secret.
The Flight of the Conchords Bret McKenzie, Rhys Darby and Jemaine Clement star with Raybon Kan, Jessica Grace Smith and Suze Tye.
Flight of the Conchords are motherflippin' Webby winners, thanks to you! We're taking home awards in the "Television" and "People's Voice" categories. Couldn't have done it without your stunning Lip Dubbing skills. Oh, and your votes.Anyways check out Webby Awards for more winners.
- Any bloopers/behind the scenes stuff in the S2 DVD?
Yes. I’m going to put on the gag reel we showed at our wrap party in December – HBO approval pending. But we’re trying. Am very conscious that the last DVD had nothing on it because of its rush release for the Christmas market so this time we are trying to do more – we are also including deleted scenes. We’re not sure about a commentary as B and J are too busy finishing the album. We’ll see.
- What are the parts of the show that you most enjoy directing? Do you have a tender soft spot for any particular scenes or gags that didn't make it to the final edit (or even the final script)? And what bits do you dread directing? Is it the parts where Bret has to dance and sing at the same time? It is, isn't it? Go on, you can tell us. We're very discreet.
There’s no particular part of the show I like shooting more than others. They all have different appeal to me…most scenes that didn’t make it don’t make it because they’re not as good as the scenes we put in the final cut (as you’ll hear every director say on every DVD commentary of everything you ever see..) but there are genuinely times when there is no room for a scene which we then cut purely because we have too much story. In season 2 there is a scene between Bret and Eddie his boss at the sign company that I really liked in TOUGH BRETS but we didn’t have time to include it. It will be on the DVD though I think. In fact most of the deleted scenes on the DVD have an element of that time pressure to them.
Buckle up and prepare for landing
4:00AM Sunday Mar 08, 2009Flight of the Conchords stars Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie have been getting used to fame since their self-titled sitcom made it big in America. But it's not quite the same for their hapless characters in much-awaited season two, debuting on Prime tomorrow. The musicians are still struggling to "make it" in New York - and in one episode even contemplate prostitution to pay the bills.
View: It's been reported that the second season of Flight of the Conchords was proving to be your "difficult second album"?
Clement: When I heard we got the first series I couldn't sleep for three nights. I thought we couldn't do it. Then halfway through the first series they asked if we'd do the second one and Bret had heart palpitations.
McKenzie: I've never had such a physical reaction to a piece of information. I got a tic.
Clement: They wanted us to start writing episodes right then.
McKenzie: I had a panic attack. I think 'difficult second album' is an appropriate term: we'd spent years developing the first songs with no time pressure and suddenly we had to write 20 new songs in six months.
AdvertisementAdvertisementView: Where do you get the inspiration for the stories from?
Clement: We'll often try to think of famous bands, what's happened to them. And we'll try and think of things that have happened to Bret and I on tour.
McKenzie: There's one episode this season that's loosely based on when we stayed at a fan's house. We'd run out of money - it was a complicated situation. We'd come to L.A. to do some shows, but we'd paid for ourselves and we literally didn't have enough to pay for the hotel.
Clement: Bret did a brief cameo in Lord Of The Rings and the first thing she wanted to do was to watch the extended DVD of LOTR, which she'd just got.
McKenzie: So the three of us were sitting on the couch watching my deleted scenes. Which was pretty weird.
Clement: And she'd say things like, "Bret, there's another 40 seconds of you in the 'making of'."
View: So she really was [stalker fan] Mel?
McKenzie: Mel is an amalgamation of a dozen fans we've had over the years.
Clement: But it's growing. More women are being added to the character the more we tour. I got [sent] a ceramic bust of just my lips the other day.
McKenzie: We get hundreds of pictures, pencil illustrations, so many different pictures and paintings of us.
Clement: Dolls.
McKenzie: We should open an art gallery.
View: That's the price of fame - have you noticed the change in people's attitudes?
Clement: A lot of the time when we were off we'd go back to New Zealand so we didn't know how it went down [in the US].
McKenzie: When the show was on air no one would come up to us, but six months later people would come up and say hi. Because we use our real names in the show people will yell out "Hey Bret" and you're not sure if you know them. So you say "hey!"
Clement: A lot of people do the roll call from the show when Murray goes "Bret? 'Present'." In fact, a lot of the times when we do interviews journalists do the roll call.
McKenzie: Even our real music manager gets a kick out of doing the roll call.
View: You must have made a bit of money by now though. What have you spent it on?
McKenzie: Omnichords. Jemaine has an addiction to Omnichords. It's like a Casio digital auto-harp.
Clement: It's in episode one of the new series for a minute - a harp-shaped thing.
McKenzie: For a while I'd go round to Jemaine's and every day a new Omnichord would arrive by courier. Which is weird because they're all essentially the same with one tiny feature different.
Clement: I've got my favourite.
McKenzie: I mean, you must have one of the most extensive Omnichord collections in the world.
Clement: Which is about six.
View: You've also been voted into the top 100 sexiest people by an Australian magazine.
Clement: Have you been to Australia?
Clement: Because we're such horrible people. Or at least, I'm a horrible character. And Bret's an idiot. I've permanently got this scowl. It's the worst face.
McKenzie: I'm always looking completely disinterested.
View: Are you surprised by your success?
Clement: Well, we're surprised that we even have a show at all.
View: When did you realise it was all going to happen for you?
McKenzie: We've been really lucky, most places we go we've had a fairly successful time.
Clement: For me the best part is hearing about all the different countries that the show is playing in.
McKenzie: What amazes me now is the people who come up to you. A couple in their 70s approached me at the airport and said "Are you Conchordia?" Because we just really write this stuff to amuse ourselves.
Flight of the Conchords' Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement have been named inaugural members of the New Zealand Fringe Festival Hall of Fame.The annual Fringe Awards, which named the best, brightest and most bizarre of Fringe 09 were presented in Wellington last night.
The Best of Fringe went to Two Day Plays, a month-long competition that challenged 18 teams to create a 10-minute play in a weekend.
Questions for Bret Mckenzie and Jemaine Clement
Dynamic Duo
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
Published: February 26, 2009
As the creators and co-stars of “Flight of the Conchords,” the HBO cult comedy series, do you expect the show to be renewed for a third season?
Jemaine: Unlikely.
Bret: We’re going to go straight to the fourth season.
The show is a loosely autobiographical tale about two goofy band mates from New Zealand trying to make it in Manhattan. Is New York a good place for struggling artists?
Bret: It’s a good city if you want to struggle. It’s easy to struggle in New York. I think New York is a bit expensive. It’s too expensive to hang out unless you’ve got a TV show.
Your show is sort of the anti-“Entourage,” in part because there is no cursing or nudity.
Jemaine: We have facial nudity.
Do you see the show as musical comedy?
Bret: It’s definitely closer to the comedy end than the music end.
Next month, you’re releasing a new album and embarking on a U.S. tour. Is it fair to describe your music as a hybrid form that parodies folk music and other genres?
Bret: I would describe our music as weird. I mean, I wouldn’t want to listen to it.
Do you find it surprising that you’ve managed to have a hit television show in spite of your twangy accents?
Jemaine: In New Zealand, people don’t like the New Zealand accent, so we weren’t able to get a TV show there.
What do they watch in New Zealand?
Jemaine: American shows.
Bret: They don’t understand their own accents, so they don’t talk very much.
What do Australians think of your accent?
Jemaine: They think our accent is crude.
Bret: They do make fun of our accents when we’re there.
You first met as drama students at Victoria University in Wellington.
Bret: It started off as a punch-out.
Jemaine: In the New Zealand tradition, we started off fighting like two Russell Crowes. Now we’re amicable rivals. Bret: In between fights we’d write comedy songs.
Is that a joke?
Bret: I don’t know.
Is it true there are more sheep than people in New Zealand?
Jemaine: Ten times more. But in America there are probably more ants than people.
Bret: More cars than people.
Is there anything you can say about the episode being shown this Sunday?
Jemaine: The prime minister of New Zealand comes to New York and wants to meet Barack Obama.
Does New Zealand’s actual prime minister, John Key, appear in the episode?
Bret: No, we decided to go with an actor rather than a politician.
Jemaine: The same way George Bush wasn’t on “24.”
Does President Obama make a cameo appearance?
Jemaine: We can’t tell you.
Bret: HBO might have put him in there as a treat for us.
Any thoughts on the president’s new stimulus package? What do you recommend forthe U.S. economy?
Jemaine: Budgeting.
Bret: Yeah, the government should do a budget.
I believe we already have a budget.
Jemaine: It doesn’t seem like it.
Bret: They need to put aside a certain amount each week for rent and then some money for food and then some money for partying, having a good time. Jemaine: Put aside some for invasions!
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED AND EDITED BY DEBORAH SOLOMON
Photo and Interview located here: NY Times.com
Flight of the Conchords are pleased to announce a 2009 Spring US Tour!
Tickets go on sale to the public on Friday & Saturday, February 6th and 7th, but as a very special Flight of the Conchords fan you have access to the exclusive pre-sale beginning this Monday, February 2nd at 10 AM.
Just find the link to your city's venue and enter the password "sugalumps."
4/06/09 – Tampa, FL – Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center * TICKET INFO
4/07/09 – Coral Gables, FL – University of Miami BankUnited Center * TICKET INFO
4/08/09 – Orlando, FL – UCF Arena * TICKET INFO
4/10/09 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium * TICKET INFO
4/11/09 – Atlanta, GA – Fox Theatre * TICKET INFO
4/13/09 – Washington, D.C. - Constitution Hall * TICKET INFO
4/14/09 – New York, NY – Radio City Music Hall * TICKET INFO
4/17/09 – Boston, MA – Agganis Arena * TICKET INFO
4/18/09 – Philadelphia, PA – Tower Theatre (2 shows) * Show 1 TICKET INFOTICKET INFO
4/19/09 – Kent, OH – Kent State University * TICKET INFO
4/21/09 – Toronto, ON – Massey Hall ** TICKET INFO
4/22/09 – Toronto, ON – Massey Hall ** TICKET INFO
4/24/09 – Detroit, MI – Fox Theatre ** TICKET INFO
4/25/09 – Bloomington, IN – IU Auditorium ** TICKET INFO
4/26/09 – Madison, WI – Overture Center for the Arts ** TICKET INFO
4/28/09 – Chicago, IL – Aerie Crown ** TICKET INFO
4/30/09 – St. Louis, MO – Fox Theatre ** TICKET INFO
5/02/09 – Milwaukee, WI – Riverside Theatre (2 shows) ** TICKET INFO
5/03/09 – Minneapolis, MN – Northrop Auditorium ** (no listing as yet)
5/05/09 – Dallas, TX – Nokia Theatre ** TICKET INFO
5/06/09 – Houston, TX – Jones Hall ** TICKET INFO
5/07/09 – Austin, TX – Bass Concert Hall ** TICKET INFO
5/10/09 – Vancouver, BC – Center in Vancouver for the Performing Arts *** TICKET INFO
5/11/09 – Seattle, WA – Paramount Theatre *** TICKET INFO
5/12/09 – Seattle, WA – Paramount Theatre *** TICKET INFO
5/14/09 – Portland, OR – Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall *** TICKET INFO
5/16/09 – Denver, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre **** TICKET INFO (no listing as yet)
5/17/09 – Salt Lake City, UT – Abravanel, Hall % TICKET INFO
5/19/09 – Phoenix, AZ – Dodge Theatre *** TICKET INFO
5/20/09 – San Diego, CA – RIMAC Arena *** (no listing as yet)
5/22/09 – Santa Barbara, CA – County Bowl *** (no listing as yet)
5/23/09 – Las Vegas, NV – The Joint *** TICKET INFO (no listing as yet)
5/24/09 – Los Angeles, CA – Greek Theatre *** TICKET INFO (no listing as yet)
5/25/09 – Berkeley, CA – Berkeley Community Theatre (2 shows) *** Show 1 TICKET INFO Show 2 TICKET INFO Show 2Special Guests:
* = Kristen Schaal
** = Eugene Mirman
*** = Arj Barker
**** = First support act= Iron and Wine/ second support act = Arj Barker
Info located from Musictoday
An exclusive interview on the New York set of the second – and could it really be the last – series of Flight of the Conchords.
Consider the joys of being Flight of the Conchords. A cultish show filming a second series on a major cable network in the United States, which must be like having a hit anywhere else. (It’s not actually, but we’ll get to that.) Your fans are engaged, artsy-crafty, inclining to spooky. They send you knitted wool animals that look like you. Bret’s Jesus beard and gentle tortured eyes; Jemaine’s vigorous sideburns and primate sensuality.
Fan art, too! Paintings and hand drawings and the like, enough to fill a small room at Te Papa. You write in LA, film in the People’s Socialist Republic of Brooklyn, and sometimes dream of Newtown. You go out dancing with Drew Barrymore; Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins drop by at one of your shows, dragged there by their kids. You used to be broke; now you’re not. People know you. They want to be funny with you. Sometimes, they want to be you. Recently, Rhys Darby, who plays Murray Hewitt in the series, was signing autographs outside a New York comedy club; a man in his 50s blundered through the crowd, shouting: “I’m the real Rhys Darby! I’m the real Rhys Darby!” He was, to use the appropriate phrase, forcibly restrained.
It’s like the theme from Cheers: “Everyone knows your name, everyone’s glad you came.” Put it another way, the Public Enemy way: “Ice Cube is down with the PE/now every single bitch wanna see me.”
“One of the funniest things I saw on tour,” says Jemaine Clement, “was this woman in the front row and she had a T-shirt with a womb on it and a fetus with glasses and sideburns, and my face.”
All of which goes to prove three points that on reflection are self-evident: 1) people are strange; 2) they form intimate attachments with characters on the boob tube; 3) they love a laff.
Flight of the Conchords, contenders for the best comedy album at the 2009 Grammys, are successfully mining the double-act seam of comedy, one that stems not from the tradition of speaking opposites (funny man v straight man – eg, Morecambe and Wise) but the setup in which similarity, and irony, loves company. The Blues Brothers and Cheech and Chong are part of this line, but neither expresses the minimalism, the texture of Conchord humour. Being a nerd. Being broke. Being useless with girls. It’s being and nothingness; some awkwardness but little angst. They’re like life, they’re like us, only they’re … different.
“Jemaine’s more staunch than me,” says Bret McKenzie. Slim and pale, he is slumped inside a large blue Swanndri. Call time for this morning’s filming was 5.30am, which is bad enough, and made rather worse if you’ve spent the night lying awake, worrying about sleeping through the alarm.
“When we deal with other people,” says Clement, “I’d expect Bret to be naturally diplomatic, whereas I wouldn’t like the person.”
“And that’s what we play off on the show,” adds McKenzie.
“It’s like a five-year-old and a three-year-old,” says show co-creator James Bobin, who has also worked with Sacha Baron Cohen, otherwise known as Borat. “Jemaine’s the five-year-old, and Bret’s the three-year-old. They’re both wrong, but the five-year-old thinks he’s right.”
McKenzie continues: “If we didn’t like the way HBO was doing something, even though we’d both agreed we didn’t like it, Jemaine would be the one who would probably say” – his fist thumps the table lightly – “we’re not doing it!”
So, the difference between them is good cop, bad cop?
“Mmmm, more like polite cop, less polite cop.”
Would you like fries with that drollery, sir? We’re sitting at a French joint near their studio. It’s a working lunch, one of these multi-tasking monstrosities that people who haven’t had a day off for four months must endure, as must those who want to talk to them. The Conchords are being served up to the world’s entertainment press: your own reporter, a chap from the Daily Telegraph in London, a woman from Time Out, and a Swede who, in the car coming here, leaned across to me and asked, “Are these guys any good?”Well, yes, they are. The lunch/interview, filled with badinage, is how one imagines an orgy might be: nervously energetic, special moves being ventured and withdrawn hastily, abrupt changes in partner, some fumbling and groping to get from one sequence to the next. And that’s just the journalists.
McKenzie, as you’d expect, is the fret-artist; Clement swings casually from riff to riff. They footnote one another’s sentences. Fracturing, rather than cracking each other up, seems to be the MO, although Clement’s laugh can rise to a goofy full-throated bellow. McKenzie seems to like to hang on just a little, to keep something in reserve. But it’s a free-ranging session of target practice, a flurry of bullseyes: America, themselves, their fans, New Zealand. They describe how they created the name for bumbling manager Murray Hewitt, by cross-fertilising the names of former All Blacks Murray Mexted with Norm Hewitt. Then they googled the name, which produced two people who both lived in New Zealand. McKenzie says when he was back home at Christmas time, he actually met someone called Murray Hewitt.
“Good-looking guy, was he?” deadpans Rhys Darby.
Season 2 of the Flight of the Conchords HBO TV show begins this Sunday night, January 18th! And, in a radical, full-body, immodest embrace of modern technology, we will be releasing, through the iTunes music store, one song from each episode on the Monday morning after that episode airs!
So, for example, on Monday, January 19th, you will be able to purchase the Flight of the Conchords song [spoiler alert!] “Angels,” from the previous night’s Season 2 premiere.
It’s what we’re calling our “See It on Sunday, Buy It on Monday (Please)” promotional ploy. And, we really think it’s possible you might like it.
So, should you want new Flight of the Conchords songs (and who don’t?), please visit the Flight of the Conchords iTunes page right here.
Further info! The entire new Flight of the Conchords album will be released on April 14th. It will include all ten of the songs released through iTunes, plus several more (probably 15 or so tracks total). It will also include an album title, some (we’re confident) very nice and very palpable artwork, and either a large shiny black disc, or a smallish silvery one, depending. On the album’s release date, if you’ve bought some or all of the songs throughout the season on iTunes, you’ll have the option to “Complete the Album” through iTunes, and won’t have to repurchase anything. You could also just buy the complete album from us on or after April 14th. We view that option favorably as well.
In other Flight of the Conchords news, we would still like to sell you their Grammy Award-winning EP The Distant Future and/or their self-titled and currently Grammy-nominated full-length debut Flight of the Conchords. There will also be a humongous Flight of the Conchords North American tour throughout most of April and May of this year.
Flight of the Conchords
Where it left off: Folk-rock duo Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie split with hapless, hopeless Murray (Rhys Darby).
What's coming up: In spite of a handful of Emmy nods last year, the single-fanned Conchords haven't suffered the growth or popularity that can ruin a music group. "The success of the Flight of the Conchords' band [in the real world] has no impact whatsoever on the failure of the TV band," assures exec producer James Bobin. (And failure is all but assured when Murray returns as manager.) The 10- episode season features new songs ("Hoping You'll Stick Around," about Jemaine's ex-girlfriends, and "Sugar Lumps," about his teticles),quirky guests (24's Mary Lynn Rajskub and SNL's Kristen Wiig), and new devotion to the Conchords from perpetual quitter Bret. Says Bobin, "Bret is much more faithful to the band this year." Being replaced by a bongos enthusiast will do that to a man. - AW
'Thank you, internet': The harmonious hijinks of Flight of the Conchords
Mark Medley, National Post Published: Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Once, many years ago, Flight of the Conchords played a concert at a Vancouver club, for which only a single person showed up. The lights went down and, even with the minuscule audience, the New Zealand musical-comedy duo gamely performed an hour-long set.
"When they turned the lights on," recalls Jemaine Clement, one half of the musical comedy duo, on the phone from Los Angeles, "the person had left."
Certainly more than one person will be watching on Sunday night, when the Conchords' eponymous TV show returns for a second season. In the year and a half since Season One's finale, Clement and partner Bret McKenzie have released a best-selling album, earned four Emmy nominations and garnered a host of critical acclaim for the show, which concerns two New Zealand expats named Jemaine and Bret -only slightly fictionalized versions of the real-life pair - living in New York while trying to find success as a band.
Clement and McKenzie met while attending the Victoria University of Wellington - they were both in a play written by Duncan Sarkies, who now writes for the show - and formed Flight of the Conchords in 1998. The band toured various fringe and comedy festivals before enjoying a short-lived series on BBC Radio 2 in 2004. But the transition to television, says McKenzie, was never a goal.
"When Jemaine and I were flatting in New Zealand, we were both auditioning for New Zealand soap operas and B-grade films, and we weren't doing very well," he says. "We decided to start a band to get out of trying to be on TV."
If the show sounds strange, that's because it is; Flight of the Conchords may be the definition of an acquired taste. But the band's popularity has skyrocketed in the lapse between seasons, propelled at least in part by the band's visibility on the internet. They are a group born of the YouTube age; the songs translate into net-ready clips, which attract millions of views online; the group also boasts over 167,000 MySpace friends, though "165,000 of those are me with aliases," admits McKenzie.
"The internet's really part of the way the show has spread," agrees Clement. "Thank you, internet."
Perhaps as a way of saying thanks, the first episode of the season was leaked online in December. Early Season Two episodes find Clement resorting to prostitution to pay the bills and McKenzie starting up a gang to protect himself from rappers he dissed during a performance at the library. New songs - the musical numbers, interwoven into the plot, are often the highlight of each episode - range from operatic epics to Broadway show tunes to island-tinged calypso, making one wonder what they were listening to while writing this season's music.
"Andrew Lloyd Webber plays Bob Marley," jokes series co-creator James Bobin, the man partly responsible for bringing Da Ali G Show to North America and whom McKenzie has dubbed "the third Conchord" in past interviews.
"We've been listening to a lot of Harry Nillson," says Clement, referring to the American musician behind such odd songs as Coconut. "And he goes from style to style all the time. He goes calypso, a bit of reggae - he never did rap."
The songs will be collected on an untitled new album, due April 14 on Sub Pop Records, and the band will launch a North American tour later this year. There are currently no movie plans - "What have you heard?" asks Clement, though he is starring in Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess's next film, Gentlemen Broncos.
The band's popularity has also increased the profile of co-stars Rhys Darby, who plays their manager, Murray, and comic Kristen Schaal, who plays the band's only fan, Mel. Schaal scored a recurring gig on The Daily Show, while Darby - a fellow New Zealand native, who they've known for years - recently appeared in the Jim Carrey comedy, Yes Man.
"That was our plan from the beginning: try and get Rhys into a Jim Carrey film," says McKenzie.
"And we succeeded!" says Clement. "I'm really proud to be involved with those guys, and think they deserve every success."
New Zealand is certainly proud of them; they are the biggest cultural export since Lord of the Rings - in which McKenzie had a small role - which makes them the most visible Kiwis this side of Peter Jackson.
Says McKenzie: "The pride that they have for our success overseas overshadows ..."
"... the embarrassment," says Clement, finishing his partner's sentence.
• Season Two of Flight of the Conchords premieres Sunday, Jan. 18 at 10 p.m. on HBO Canada.
The A.V. Club: I remember seeing the first episode and thinking, "Wow, this is really funny. I'm glad they got a full season, because that's obviously going to be all there is." The next thing I know, you guys are selling out 3,000-seat theaters.
Bret McKenzie: It could have slipped by. There are a lot of good shows that don't get picked up. Like that Ben Stiller pilot, Heat Vision And Jack? That would have been a great show, but somehow it slipped by.
Jemaine Clement: That's even weirder than our show, really.
AVC: You'd already done a version of the show for BBC Radio, so you hit the ground running. Even the pilot is fully formed, in terms of visual sensibility and the characters' identities. Were there things you wanted to do differently in the second season?
JC: I think we made the same mistakes again.
BM: I think we learnt, but we probably didn't—
JC: Apply our learning.
BM: Apply our lessons, yeah. One thing we did learn was that the transition to song is a really crucial moment in the musical format. It's easier if the song somehow slips into the scene, rather than a hard cut to a music video. So we kind of played around with different ways of transitioning from the real world of the show into the surreal world of the music videos.
AVC: The first season is almost an encyclopedia of the New York alternative-comedy scene, with Kristen Schaal and Eugene Mirman in recurring roles, and guest appearances by Todd Barry and Demetri Martin. Was there a thought that that might be a good way to get the show to an American audience?
BM: No.
JC: It can go a long time with just New Zealanders, but we try to make sure there's American characters in it. I'm always aware when we're looking through the script that in the first few scenes, there should be an American character.
BM: We didn't cast them to try and break into a market or anything. We cast them mainly 'cause we knew them. And we didn't want to have people that were well-known.
JC: It really is like, "Who do we know?" Todd, Demetri, Arj [Barker], and Eugene are all the Americans we knew.
AVC: Every comedian who's ever opened a rock show, basically.
BM: Yeah, that's true, it's the same circuit. John Hodgman is another one. This season, we ran out of people we knew.
To read the rest of the interview, than please go here: A.V. Club interview with FotC
The Hot Seat
Time Out New York / Issue 693 : Jan 8–14, 2009
Flight of the Conchords
The Kiwi comics are No. 1 in Brooklyn!
By John Sellers
They came from New Zealand armed with songs about killer robots and racist dragons—and, improbably, they scored. Since June 2007, when their cultish musical-comedy show debuted on HBO, Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, better known as Flight of the Conchords, have garnered a Grammy, two Emmy nominations and a No. 3 spot on the Billboard album chart (for their self-titled debut). Plus, this week’s cover! In advance of the January 18 launch of the second season of their HBO series, we spoke to Clement and McKenzie on the Flight of the Conchords set in Greenpoint.
Time Out New York: The new season debuts just two days before the presidential inauguration. How have you changed to pander to the Obama generation?
Bret McKenzie: The second season’s more optimistic.
TONY: Is that because of Obama, or is it because your album went to No. 3?
McKenzie: Well, it was No. 1 in New Zealand.
TONY: That changes everything. How many copies need to sell to earn that honor?
Jemaine Clement: Two.
McKenzie: There are only 4 million people in New Zealand.
TONY: Well, that’s bigger than Brooklyn.
McKenzie: So by that measure, our album was No. 1 in Brooklyn.
TONY: A lot of your fans are female. How many hearts have you broken?
McKenzie: Seven hearts. That’s combined.
Clement: It’s sad.
McKenzie: Jemaine’s more the heartbreaker. He’s broken four.
Clement: Bret’s trying to catch up.
TONY: You used to be so much chunkier when you were performing under the name Tenacious D. How hard was it to lose all that weight?
Clement: HBO insisted on liposuction.
McKenzie: That’s funny. We met [Tenacious D’s] Kyle Gass in L.A. and he said, “You guys are like a skinny version of us.”
TONY: How often do you hear the comparison?
McKenzie: Not as often as we expected when we first started over here.
Clement: Yeah. When the previews started, everyone said it. There were lots of “Tenacious D Light” comments. But it disappeared after the show debuted.
TONY: Like the D, you guys bill yourself as a duo. But you’re more of a quartet, if you count Jemaine’s sideburns.
Clement: Are you saying that my sideburns are two extras? I haven’t really thought about that. I’m so used to them that I don’t think of them as people, I suppose.
TONY: Bret, you appear as an elf in the first Lord of the Rings movie for, like, four seconds.
Clement: If that.
McKenzie: Well, five.
Clement: Have you really timed it?
McKenzie: No.
TONY: There’s a fan site describing your character, Figwit, as “perfect, pouty and gorgeous.” Wow.
McKenzie: Yeah. A group of fans from all around the world flew to Edinburgh to meet me and to watch us play at the Fringe Festival.
Clement: It was a little creepy because they’d get so nervous. They would be quivering. Jealous much, Jemaine?
Clement: Nah, I wasn’t jealous.
McKenzie: Yeah, he was jealous. He just got over it, like, five years ago.
TONY: How did the Concorde plane crash in Paris in 2000 affect the band?
McKenzie: We had the name before the terrible Concorde crash. But we were worried that people would think it was a joke based on the tragedy. Which it had nothing to do with.
Clement: I think some people did think that. But we soldiered on with it.
McKenzie: We just didn’t play in Paris.
TONY: Are you bummed that the Concorde is no longer in service?
McKenzie: It’s a shame. I always wanted to do a photo shoot with us in the Concorde. We’ll have to do that on Photoshop now.
TONY: Do you ever miss the days when no one knew who you were?
Clement: We shot a scene yesterday, a gig at a bar, where there was only this one guy and his shopping bags. At the end, they turn the lights on and there’s no one there. That was based on a real gig that we did in Canada.
TONY: That must have been painful.
Clement: Yeah. We don’t even know when that person left.
Flight of the Conchords premieres Jan 18 at 10pm on HBO.