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HBO:
First you have to explain where you guys are from, because your accents can throw people a little.
Flight of the Conchords:
JEMAINE
We're from Wellington in New Zealand.
BRET
You understand that?
HBO:
Barely, I'm grasping. When did you first start touring outside of New Zealand?
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
We did the Edinburgh Comedy Festival and then went to the Montreal and Aspen Comedy Festivals - and then here.
HBO:
Wow. So was there a show in Edinburgh that just blew open the door, got your name out?
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
Yeah, we did a show called 'High on Folk,' and that got a bit of attention. We're a band, so we sing our act.
HBO:
Did you start off doing songs that were comical?
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
Yeah, they were kind of weird, funny songs. We didn't really intend for them to be comedy songs, but they just veered that way.
HBO:
So how did you meet, how did Flight of the Conchords come together?
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
We grew up in the same town.
JEMAINE
Bret had a guitar but didn't know how to play guitar. And I knew how to play guitar, but I didn't have a guitar. So -
BRET
We heard about each other.
JEMAINE
Bret came over to my place with his guitar and I told him how to play it.
HBO:
What did you guys do before you formed your band? What jobs did you have, if you had jobs?
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
The worst job that I ever had was when I was 11. We had a bowling alley in my town, but it didn't have the machines that picked up the pins. So I was one of the boys who picked up the pins. That was the worst job I've ever had.
JEMAINE
I was a corporate CEO for Shell Oil but, um, I was a kid. At first we tried acting, and then we said no, let's be a band.
BRET
Yeah, there was no work in New Zealand for actors.
HBO:
Is there a big comedy scene in New Zealand?
Flight of the Conchords:
JEMAINE
Not really. There's one club in the whole country.
BRET
Thursday nights- that's the big comedy night. So if you're in New Zealand on Thursday night -go to Wellington. There'll be a hundred people there. So you can go and check that out.
HBO:
Is there any connection between the New Zealand comedy style and the stuff you've seen here in the states?
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
There does seem to be quite a cool, small club scene in New York, with lots of weird little shows. That reminds me of Wellington a bit. More experimental, theater-y shows rather than just stand up.
HBO:
Right. How did you start playing professionally? What were your first gigs like?
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
Our first gig was at a comedy night, but we were meant to be the band that was just opening the show - while the audience came in. But it just ended up being more of a comedy act than we expected. Then we got booked doing spots at comedy night.
HBO:
Did you do quite a bit of shows in New Zealand before Edinburgh happened?
Flight of the Conchords:
JEMAINE
Sort of. The first time we ever did the whole show was in Canada. We didn't really do it in New Zealand. We did the casual pub gig at the Calgary Fringe Festival.
BRET
We hit Calgary hard.
JEMAINE
Yeah. They're still reeling.
HBO:
So you went from Wellington, New Zealand to Calgary.
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
We did the classic trail.
JEMAINE
Yeah. We tried to hit the main agricultural and pastoral centers of the world.
HBO:
That's great. Sheep and Chardonnay? There is a kind of New Zealand feel to your act.
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
We don't really talk about sheep. In fact there's no sheep. I can't remember a sheep there, there's no sheep in our show.
JEMAINE
We used to have one sheep reference but it was a tight stereotype so we cut that.
HBO:
Did you have any influences - musical or comedic influences - when you were first starting?
Flight of the Conchords:
JEMAINE
John Lennon meets Gary Shandling sort of thing.
BRET
Mick Jagger. A Weird Al Yankovic - Bowie fusion. If those two were to meld together, that'd be a hero of ours.
HBO:
Nice. We heard about a 'Lord of the Rings' song you did, which is a natural for a New Zealand-based group. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
We're not doing it in the show tonight, but we wrote it for the Lord of the Rings. We tried to get the gig writing the theme song for the film. It didn't happen.
HBO:
I'm sorry. But there will be another one - a 'Lord of the Rings IV.'
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
See, no, we tried three times and they still didn't use it.
HBO:
So what's it about? What's your take on the epic saga?
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
Well, we just try to catch all those things that a movie soundtrack has to have, the heavy rock-out bit and...
JEMAINE
The Will Smith style rap. You know, 'Yo, Frodo, what you doing with the ring, is that your new thing? It's hard when you're a little more than three-foot four, a little less, so close to the floor. Trying to leave the fellows to the gates of Modor.' That sort of thing.
HBO:
That did have a kind of Middle Earth vibe to it. Do you guys have a favorite comedy movie?
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
'The Bedazzled' maybe with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. That might be one.
JEMAINE
Napoleon Dynamite, I saw that the other day. It's really good.
HBO:
That was very cool. Was that big in New Zealand?
Flight of the Conchords:
JEMAINE
No. [LAUGHS]
HBO:
Because I thought it might have that kind of agricultural spin to it.
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
Pastoral.
HBO:
How about TV shows?
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
'The A Team' maybe.
JEMAINE
That's old here, but back in New Zealand that's the new one. Stay in school fool.
BRET
Yeah, I'd like to meet Mister T.
HBO:
What's been the most challenging part of the Flight of the Conchords experience so far?
Flight of the Conchords:
JEMAINE
Learning chords is probably the hardest thing we've had to do.
BRET
Harmonies. [SINGING]
BRET
Blowjobs.
HBO:
[LAUGHS]
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
Behind camera there's a lot of that. There's a lot of ladies involved in this comedy music scene.
HBO:
Ladies are tough. So where does the name come from? I was hoping it had an erotic reference?
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
An erotic reference. [LAUGHS] Not really. I had this dream about this V formation of flying V guitars that kind of looked like Concordes, and I was just telling Jemaine about it, and we just ended up with Flight of the Conchords.
HBO:
But then you spell it with the chord.
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
Yeah, like a guitar chord.
JEMAINE
It's kind of like the Beatles, how they put the 'Beat' with the 'les.' We put 'con' with 'chord.' So, we're up there with some pretty big bands who have also used pun names.
HBO:
Do you have any backstage ritual? What do you guys do before a show, when you get off the tour bus?
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
The tour bus? We don't have a tour bus, but we walk and then -
JEMAINE
We tune our guitars, and tune them again. Then I say, are we gonna do the bit about that? And we just practice our harmonies. [SINGING] It's pretty rock and roll.
HBO:
Do you guys tape down a list of the songs you're gonna play, the way the big bands do?
Flight of the Conchords:
JEMAINE
We don't usually, but we're going to do it so we look like a big band.
BRET
Yeah and throw it out into the crowd afterwards.
HBO:
How many total gigs have you guys done?
Flight of the Conchords:
JEMAINE
Hundreds.
BRET
Maybe a thousand, I don't know.
JEMAINE
Maybe tonight's a thousand.
BRET
Yeah it's our thousandth.
HBO:
That's a special thing. So any anecdotes about crazy sh** that's happened during your acts?
Flight of the Conchords:
BRET
I went [crowd] surfing, in a quite small venue. The audience wasn't very excited.
JEMAINE
It's more group surfing than crowd surfing, lately.
BRET
Yeah, small groups, if that.
HBO:
So tell us as succinctly as you can what tonight's show is gonna be about.
Flight of the Conchords:
JEMAINE
Um, funk.
HBO:
That was one word.
Flight of the Conchords:
JEMAINE
Mad beats.
BRET
Crazy stars fish.
JEMAINE
Freestyling.
BRET
Freestyling. It's gonna be freestyling.
JEMAINE
Harmonies.
BRET
We're gonna harmonize. What else...the lettuce.
JEMAINE
Dancing. The lettuce.
BRET
The lettuce. It's gonna be-
JEMAINE
Issues, we're gonna write some issues.
BRET
We're gonna take it to the people. Do it for the children.
JEMAINE
We're gonna make love in your ears. In your ear holes.
BRET
Uh um, maybe.
JEMAINE
Maybe.
BRET
And that's quite succinct.
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