Bret McKenzie's new songs aren't comedy, but ‘it's in my DNA to be funny'

The Age

12 hours ago

The afternoon before this interview, Bret McKenzie was sitting at the piano in his Wellington home studio, an airy space with big windows and a high, gabled, timber ceiling. He was working on a song for an animated movie, a piece of pomp-pop that was bringing out the Freddie Mercury side of the 49-year-old New Zealander.
After getting lost in his Queen fever dream for a few moments, he looked up and noticed that his kids were peeking through the window, back home from their day at school.
'I was going for it, belting out this song, trying out different rhymes, getting inside the head of an animated character,' says McKenzie. 'And they just shrugged and went 'Hi Dad', because that's my main job now, and they're used to it.'
He rose to fame alongside Jemaine Clement in Flight Of The Conchords, who billed themselves as 'New Zealand's fourth-best digi-bongo a cappella-gangsta rap funk-folk comedy duo'. With wry, deadpan Kiwi humour and songs that walked a line between absurdity and genius, they expertly parodied David Bowie (Bowie's In Space), Pet Shop Boys (Inner City Pressure), French ye-ye pop (Foux Du Fa Fa) and more.
The duo became a hit at comedy festivals, made a BBC radio series, released two studio albums, and wrote and starred in a successful TV show that lasted two seasons and also featured Rhys Darby as their hapless agent, comedian Arj Barker as their friend who works in a pawn shop, and Kristen Schaal as their biggest fan.
But after turning down a third season of the TV show, McKenzie entered a second act. And then a third.
To understand his endless curiosity and willingness to step outside his safety zone and try new things, you have to go back to his upbringing, which he describes as 'pretty arty, so it would have been a shock if I'd announced I was going to become an accountant'.
The family home was always full of creative people, as his mother, Deirdre Tarrant, is a grand figure in the New Zealand ballet and contemporary dance scenes.
'She's turning 80 next year, and she still teaches ballet,' says McKenzie. 'She's amazing. Parents just love her old-school style because no-one actually tells kids off any more, but she just does not give a shit. She's taught multiple generations now.'
McKenzie learned ballet until the age of 14, and during what he calls his 'peak Billy Elliott phase', he would practise routines in the outfield during cricket matches or do a pirouette on his run-up while bowling. One imagines that being a male teenage ballet dancer in New Zealand could not have been an easy road. Did he learn to use comedy as a defence mechanism?
'You've hit the nail on the head. I went to a very sporty, traditional boys' school. I had a small group of friends who were into the arts, and we found that if you could be funny, then no one would beat you up,' he says. 'There was a lot of wise-cracking and the comedy could get pretty brutal, but a lot of those guys are still my friends today.'
After the success of Flight Of The Conchords, McKenzie picked up a second career as an in-demand writer of songs for movies and TV series, including The Muppets (for which he won an Oscar for best original song), Spongebob Squarepants and The Simpsons, where his spot-on Morrissey parody Everyone Is Horrid, Except Me (And Possibly You), which was sung by Benedict Cumberbatch, predictably raised the ire of the increasingly surly singer.
After the freedom he had with Conchords, McKenzie found that even when he had to write to order, he managed to find the joy in it.
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'I wrote something for the Minecraft movie for a fight scene. For holding music, they'd used Holding Out For A Hero, so they needed the music to be the same BPM [beats per minute]. And they wanted it to be about a hero. And they wanted a female vocalist. And they wanted it to not have too many mid-range frequencies because there were a lot of sword-fighting sounds in that range. And then they said, 'Can you write it by next week?' Those were the most extreme parameters I've ever worked with, but it was still fun.'
TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO BRET MCKENZIE
Worst habit? My 'floor-drobe' habit, which is dumping my clothes on the floor of the bedroom, even though I tell my kids to clean their rooms all the time. I'm almost 50 and I keep thinking 'When do you become a grown-up and stop doing this?'
Greatest fear? It used to be dying. But my dad got sick and died two years ago and we helped him through the process, and I feel much more comfortable with death now. So now my greatest fear is rollercoasters.
The line that stayed with you? This is one my grandmother used to say: 'Use the gifts that God has given you.' I'm not religious, but it reminds me that music and comedy, which are the things that come easiest to me, are the things I should be doing.
Biggest regret? I have two. One is not seeing David Bowie play live. He played in Wellington and we didn't have money to buy tickets. The other regret is that Jemaine and I got asked to open for Coldplay on a US stadium tour, flying between cities on a private jet. It would have been so fun, but we were busy writing the second season of the TV show.
Favourite book? A friend of mine, Jo Randerson, is a Kiwi writer and comedian, and she's written a book called Secret Art Powers. It's a great book about creativity.
The artwork/song you wish was yours? I was going to say I'd wish I'd written Happy Birthday, but I realised I don't really like it and I'd like to rewrite it. So the other one is Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.
If you could time travel, where would you choose to go? The future, 100 years from now, to see how we solve climate change, then take some videos and come back to the present day to show everyone so we can get things moving. And then win the Nobel Prize.
His third act was seemingly harder to pull off. The title of his 2022 debut solo album summed it up in the title – Songs Without Jokes. It was a big leap of faith, for both the artist and the audience.
'When I toured with those songs, I realised it was hard for people to step away from what they think you do. And I get that. I had to figure out how to guide the audience through this experience.
'I quickly realised that once I'm in front of a crowd, I can't help myself. I start talking, and after two decades of doing Conchords gigs, it's in my DNA to be funny. The songs are not funny, but I found the audience could cope with that after they take the step to understand that it's different to what I'm known for.'
With McKenzie's new album, Freak Out City, he was able to relax more and not worry so much about how it would be received if there were no laughs. That said, the opening song, Bethnal Green Blues, is about a guy who is crushed under a drink machine that swallows his money without coughing up the Coke, 'which apparently happens a lot in real life. So the song comes from a funny place, and the verses are like a weird stand-up routine, but the chorus is about making the most of life before you die'.
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You can hear the strong influence of Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson, songwriters who mix sardonic wit and dark humour with warmth and soulfulness. 'I'm glad you say that because I'm such a huge fan of both of them,' he says. 'And whereas the first album had a couple of songs that showed their influence, it's pretty much all over this new record.'
At this point in the interview, his wife, Hannah Clarke – who is a filmmaker, writer and producer – brings in a coffee for McKenzie and gives a cheery wave. There's an unabashed love song for her on the new album, called All I Need.
'We got together when we were 20, and now I'm 49,' he says. 'When you've been together almost 30 years, there's a mixture of love and frustration with each other, and it goes in waves. That song is about one of those days when you're getting along really well.'
He thinks he has at least one more 'serious' album to make, 'just so people don't think this is a random thing I'm doing'.
And as for re-launching the currently grounded Flight Of The Conchords? Never say never.
'We're not on permanent hiatus, but we don't have anything planned,' he says. 'I can't see us doing another TV show. That was just too much work and too time-consuming, and I'm an at-home dad type person and I want to stay in New Zealand.
'But doing a tour and playing shows? I can see us pulling that off.'