Songs Without Jokes

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The album rollout isn’t entirely without humor, though, as a press release offers the following sample headlines for publications to use: Well now that you’ve seen the rise of the internet, how has that changed New Zealand’s cultural frame?

Well, when I went into the studio, I found that I felt very vulnerable, but I got more comfortable with that. I’m growing more comfortable with it. I kind of love being able to shift gears and go from maybe a strange, funny song to a really heartfelt, sincere song. I love that as a landscape for a live show. It does take a bit of navigating, though, because I need to lead the audience with me. They come to the show and they don’t really know what’s gonna happen. It’s just about guiding them through it. But the audiences have had a really positive response. They really enjoy it. Thankfully Flight Of The Conchords had nine years under the guitar straps and were rich in comedic depth before HBO shot them to stardom. “We got to make something quite strange and unique,” Bret says. “I think the audience really connected with how the show just seemed too weird to be on TV.” 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!”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. It’s funny that you mention Leonard Cohen because some of your songs are built a bit like, I’m Your Man, where the synth layer is strong, but rather than have it be the lead, the song itself is built around it.

So, yeah, Bret’s a ridiculously funny dude, and you might even call him one of the best comedy songwriters in the biz. He’s had smash hits, he’s won major awards, he’s the better-dressed part of his duo…he’s got a good thing going! So, what gives with this whole “songs without jokes” solo stuff, man? Basically our bread and butter was Rings fans who came to our show,” he says, ruefully. “They helped us get things started. We could always tell because they’d have a little ring. We weren’t complaining because we had ten people in the audience so it was good if four of them were Lord Of The Rings people. But it made me cautious about being in the public eye and connecting with fans. I was like, ‘Oh, this is pretty strange’.”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, 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. Up In Smoke is a heavy piano ballad. It is reminiscent of something you might have heard from darker end of The Beautiful South and Paul Heaton’s pen. It is a brilliantly placed piece in the album and breaks up one side from the other. Carry On has a similar feel but with added flourishes from acoustic guitars and light synths. 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. 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.