While he's best known for being one half of the musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, Bret McKenzie's new album is no laughing matter.
Bret McKenzie. Photo: Rebecca McMillan
Released this week on Sub Pop, his debut album Songs Without Jokes was the result of a challenge to himself to try something different.
McKenzie joined Charlotte Ryan on Music 101 to talk about the new album and the upcoming tour.
'A lot of the songs were written in the evenings, when the kids have gone to bed' - Listen to the full Music 101 interview with Bret McKenzie here
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While he's certainly mastered the art of musical comedy - even winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2012 for Man or Muppet - this time around, McKenzie said he was trying to write songs that were specifically not funny.
"It is weird because when you think about music and songs in the world, not very many of them are funny," he said.
"The musical comedy section of music is quite small, so it's not really unusual what I'm doing, but it's unusual for me."
"I think for me it was a bit of a challenge and I think I was slightly obsessive about trying not to be funny. "
Inspired by the songwriting of Steely Dan, Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson, Songs Without Jokes was three years in the making - starting in Los Angeles just before the lockdown of 2020.
After recording most of the tracks over there, McKenzie returned to New Zealand and "everything shut down", as the pandemic hit.
He tinkered away on the tracks during lockdown and even took part in a studio session with his band in LA over Zoom.
But overall, McKenzie was on his own with the album, which he said was "quite scary".
Working out of a home studio above his garage, his commute became only 30 seconds.
"For me, a lot of the songs for this record were written in the evenings, when the kids have gone to bed and I'd sit around playing guitar, mulling around in the lounge or on the piano," he said.
And now that the world is beginning to open up again, McKenzie is coming out of solitude and taking the band on tour - starting in New Zealand in September, before heading to the UK and then the US.