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'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.