Flight of the Concords

BRET MCKENZIE AND" JEMAINE DUO AND HBO'S HIPPEST STARS, TR,

PLAYBOY What's the story behind your band's name, Flight of the Conchords?

MCKENZIE: One version is that it came to me in a dream. I dreamed about flying Gibson guitars, which looked like tiny Vs flying together in a V formation. I told Jemaine abou^hfi dream and mentioned the guitars reminded me of Cone He changed it to Conchords, and we had our name. CLEMENT We also tell people we considered calling our Tanfastic, which is the name of a suntan lotion. But really, we came up with the name right before our first gig. We were the opening act at a comedy night, and we didn't have a name yet. I went to the bathroom and noticed the brand of toilet was Con­corde. So I came back and suggested the Conchords, and Bret added the "Flight of" part.

MCKENZIE: Once we'd done a few shows with that name it was too late to change.

PLAYBOY: On your HBO series, also called Flight of the Con­chords, you play characters who have your names and musical ambitions. How autobiographical is this show? MCKENZIE: We're more like our characters than ourselves. I'd say I'm 130 percent like my character.

CLEMENT: They're more accurate reflections of who we are than who we actually are. Our TV characters are beyond real people. MCKENZIE: Off camera I don't even feel like myself. I'm maybe 70 percent of the man I am on the show.

-Pt AYBPV Since the show has taken off, you've become sex symbols. As comedians, do you take that seriously? MCKENZTE: I take it very seriously. It's a lot of responsibility. I do everything In my power to promote my sex symbolism, [laughs] CLEMEN , I don't think anybody in New Zealand, which is

where we're from, takes us seriously as sexjsymbols at all. It's just here in America, for some reason. Maybe our accents have do with it.

PLAYBOY: While you were performing at your record label's

anniversary party, an audience member threw a pair of boxers

onto the stage. What does that tell you about your fan base?

MCKENZIE: Panties are more traditional to throw during

a concert.

CLEMENT: Yes, but beggars can't be choosers.

MCKENZIE: The warmth of his boxers was definitely the most

disturbing part.

CLEMENT: Yeah, you don't want a warm pair of boxers thrown

at your face. Especially when the warmth is accompanied

by dampness.

PLAYBOY: As your fictional manager, Murray, reminds you on

the show, "Girlfriends and bands don't mix." Have you stayed

true to his advice?

CLEMENT: Not really, no. But I don't like to talk about my

private life. And I try not to take relationship advice from

fictional characters.

MCKENZIE: Especially not fictional characters saying iin

wrote for them.

Fans at your live concerts seem to know all\,, lyrics and will occasionally sing along with the punch lines. Is that disconcerting?

It takes away the surprise. I think people enjo_ most the first time they hear us. LtMtNi: It's very different from how it was in the beginning:

Sometimes it feels as if we're doing The Rocky Horror Picture Show Everybody sings along to every line. I try to never listen to them. MCKENZIE: We turn the sound up so loud onstage that we can't hear the fans. It's the opposite of the Beatles. They couldn't hear themselves because of their screaming fans, but we turn up our speakers so loud that we can hear only ourselves.

Q7

PLAYBOY: You've bragged about being New Zealand's fourth-most-popular folk parody band. Since your success in America, have you moved up to third-or even second? CLEMENT: I think we've dropped a few points. Were number seven now, maybe even lower. We've moved down quite a bit for selling out.

MCKENZIE: There's a lot of competition in New Zealand for that top spot.

08

PLAYBOY: Do you sometimes feel like ambassadors for your

home country7

MCKENZIE: Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson put New

Zealand on the map. but he put it on the map as Middle-earth,

not as New Zealand

CLEMENT: A lot of what Jackson purports to be true about New

Zealand is actually a lie.

MCKENZIE: Despite what you may believe from watching The Lord

of the Rings. New Zealand does not have a large hobbit population.

CLEMENT: At least not as many as he makes out.

Q9

PLAYBOY: Is it true you met in a college performance-art show about body image?

CLEMENT: Ah. you've been Coogling us. haven't you? Yes. that show was at Victoria College in Wellington. New Zealand. It wasn't the first time we'd met. but it was one of our first shows together. It was specifically about male body image. MCKENZIE: The experience of being a man in the modern world and all the problems that come with it.

CLEMENT: It had an all-male cast. There were five of us. and we needed somebody to play the women.

MCKENZIE: That was usually left up to me. I was the most femi­nine in the group.

CLEMENT: We put on live demonstrations throughout that show, like on how to interact with the opposite sex. We gave tips on finding the clitoris. And we had a scene about the female orgasm. It sounds pretty juvenile now. We were young. I was just 21 at the time. MCKENZIE: I was 11.

Q10

PLAYBOY: Do you remember when you started writing music together? Was it instant magic?

CLEMENT: When we started we didn't know much about music. We weren't very good guitarists. Our first song had only one chord. And then we did a second song with two chords. It started with one chord and then a bridge to a second chord and then back to the first chord. It was called "Rock Beat." I think. MCKENZIE: After that we got ambitious. We went up to three chords, and then four, and then five. six. seven, eight, nine. 10. We eventually wrote a song with 11 chords. CLEMENT: It was exhausting.

MCKENZIE: We finally went down again because it got too complicated. We stripped it back. Now our songs are usually only four chords.

2@ PLAYBOY FLIGHT OF" THE CONCHORDS

CLEMENT: That seems like enough. Any more than that and you're just showing off. That's as much as the brain can handle

Q11

PLAYBOY: One of your first big breaks was in 2005. when Flight

of the Conchords starred on its own BBC radio show. Did you think

radio would be your ticket to stardom?

CLEMENT: [Laughs] Well, to be fair, radio is a much bigger deal in

England than it is here, and it seemed enough for us at the time

We didn't think of it as a stepping-stone to anything else. Were

very short-term planners.

MCKENZIE: It's kind of a British tradition to make a radio show

long before you make a television show. It helps you iron out the

flaws in your ideas.

CLEMENT: And it's ridiculously cheap.

Q12

PLAYBOY: Before getting picked up by HBO. you briefly devel­oped a TV series for NBC. What happened? MCKENZIE: They never called us back We finished the script and handed it to NBC, and that was the last we heard from them. CLEMENT: They never told us they didn't like it. They always said they liked it.

MCKENZIE: They never phoned us to say. "Yeah, uh...no thanks." CLEMENT: Is that how people do business in America? They just don't call you back? MCKENZIE: It doesn't matter. HBO is a much better fit for us.

Q13

PLAYBOY: Although your songs are satirical, they can also be

musically complex. You've mastered genres as diverse as R&B.

country and straight-ahead rock and roll. Is there any musical

style you can't conquer?

CLEMENT: We tried to do metal once, but it didn't work out

MCKENZIE: Not loud enough. I've always wanted to try Queen.

Does that count as a musical genre7

CLEMENT: I think so. yeah

MCKENZIE: Freddie Mercury is beyond us I don't know how he

did it Maybe it was the tight pants.

Q14

PLAYBOY: You've also dabbled in hip-hop, giving yourself the

rap names Hiphopopotamus and the Rhymenocerous. Will you

get into a freestyle battle for us right now7

CLEMENT: We could do some freestyle, but wed need a day or

two to prepare.

MCKENZIE: We can't just do it off the top of our head We need

some time to think about it. (concluded on page 113)

CONCHORDS

(continued from page 80) ci.KMKM. Thai's (he way we freestyle. It's less improvisational and more...not in any way improvisational.

Q15

IMAVBOV: You're one of the lew guitar-based rock acts to use the glockenspiel, a German-style xylophone. What's the appeal? MCKENZIE: You mean the rockenspiel. We call it the rockenspiel because it rocks more than any other instrument. clement Especially the marching-band one. Have you heard of it? mckkn/ik: The marching-band glocken­spiel— I'm sorry, rockenspiel—you can march with it while you're playing, which obviously isn't all that essential when you're in the studio.

Q16

playboy: What other odd or little-known instruments do you play that your fans may be unfamiliar with?

mckkn/ik: We used an Omnichord recently. CLEMENT: Yeah, that's on a few tracks of our latest record.

MCKENZIE: Omnichord obviously means "all chords." It's like a Casiotone version of an Autoharp. Do you know what I mean by an Autoharp? You just press a button and gel a G major, or press another button and it's D minor. You don't have to hold your fingers in that position, thus the auto part of the name.

CLEMENT: I also really like the keytar. I can't play keyboards, but I feel I can play keytar because it looks and feels like a guitar. The magic of a keytar is how it gives you a false sense of confidence. It just feels right when you hold it. MCKENZIE: A keytar feels as if you're hold­ing a woman.

CLEMENT: Yeah. Well, a tiny woman with a very skinny neck and piano keys on her torso.

Q17

PLAYBOY: Flight of the Conchords is now performing to sold-out crowds around the world. At what point does it stop being a joke and become an actual rock band? CLEMENT: What do you mean a joke? How are we a joke? What are you trying to imply? [/\ Lm^bti'r] I'm just pulling your leg. I know what you mean. It's always meant as a joke, but we still try to make the music sound good. The words can be funny, but the guitar can't be out of tune. MCKENZIE: The live show is quite different from the TV show. It's definitely different from the band you see on HBO.

Q18

playboy: Now that you have some legiti­macy, do you feel obligated to act like spoiled rock stars and trash hotel rooms and destroy your guitars onstage? ci.EMEN'l I don't know if I could bring myself to do it. I used to watch the Who on TV, and when they smashed guitars during a concert, I'd always think. That's such a waste. Why ruin a perfectly good guitar?

We could smash some bro­ken guitars.

ci.KMKNT: Yeah, that'd be line. It wouldn't be nearly as costly. I'd consider smash­ing some broken guitars. That'd be just as satisfying, don't you think?

Q19

iMAVhov Your first CD debuted higher on the Millboard charts than any other comedy album, including those by Steve Martin and Dane Cook. Your EP won a Grammy in 2008. You must be raking in some fat cash by now, right"'

mckknzie: I was amazed at how well the album did, but it wasn't a financial wind­fall lor us. I don't think record sales have windfalls anymore.

ci.KMKXT: If it were the 1980s, we'd be millionaires.

MCKKN7.it: Even in the 1990s we'd be doing pretty well.

ci.KMKNT: But there are no profits in the music industry anymore. We were smart enough to get involved at the tail end, just as the industry was fizzling out. Even

when we got our TV show, people told us, "You know, back in the 1980s you would've made millions of dollars." Aw, we missed the golden age. At least we can tour. The only money is in touring—well, as long as we pay for our own hotel rooms. MCKKNZlK: There are no perks whatsoever. We even had to find our own apartment in New York when we began shooting the HBO show. We used Craigslist. We'd call people, and they'd say, "Wait a minute, aren't you on a TV show?" "Yep. So is this Hat available for three months? Three thousand dollars a month? Are you kidding me?"

Q20

plavboV: How long can the Conchords survive? Will you continue touring into your senior years, like the Rolling Stones and the Who?

CLEMENT: We'll either be around for the next hundred years or unexpectedly retire in the next seven to eight minutes. Somewhere in that general time frame.