Flight of the Conchords

They came from New Zealand armed with songs about killer robots and racist dragons—and, improbably, they scored. Since June 2007, when their cultish musical-comedy show debuted on HBO, Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, better known as Flight of the Conchords, have garnered a Grammy, two Emmy nominations and a No. 3 spot on the Billboard album chart (for their self-titled 2008 debut). Season two just finished, with the Kiwis ending up deported back to their sheep farm. In real life, prospects are much better; the duo sold out a string of theater dates in advance of their second record for Sub Pop, I Told You I Was Freaky.

Time Out Chicago: A lot of your fans are female. How many hearts have you broken?
Bret McKenzie: Seven hearts. That’s combined.
Jemaine Clement: It’s sad.
Bret McKenzie: Jemaine’s more the heartbreaker. He’s broken four.
Jemaine Clement: Bret’s trying to catch up.

TOC: You used to be so much chunkier when you were performing under the name Tenacious D. How hard was it to lose all that weight?
Jemaine Clement: HBO insisted on liposuction.
Bret McKenzie: That’s funny. We met [Tenacious D’s] Kyle Gass in L.A., and he said, “You guys are like a skinny version of us.”

TOC: Bret, you appear as an elf in the first Lord of the Rings movie for, like, four seconds.
Jemaine Clement: If that.
Bret McKenzie: Well, five.
Jemaine Clement: Have you really timed it?
Bret McKenzie: No.

TOC: There’s a fan site describing your character, Figwit, as “perfect, pouty and gorgeous.”
Bret McKenzie: Yeah. A group of fans from all around the world flew to Edinburgh to meet me and to watch us play at the Fringe Festival. It was a little creepy because they’d get so nervous. They would be quivering. Jealous much, Jemaine?
Jemaine Clement: Nah, I wasn’t jealous.
Bret McKenzie: Yeah, he was jealous. He just got over it, like, five years ago.

TOC: How has your show changed to pander to the Obama generation?
Bret McKenzie: The second season was more optimistic.

TOC: Is that because of Obama, or is it because your album went to No. 3?
Bret McKenzie: Well, it was No. 1 in New Zealand.

TOC: That changes everything. How many copies need to sell to earn that honor?
Jemaine Clement: Two.
Bret McKenzie: There are only 4 million people in New Zealand.

TOC: Well, that’s bigger than Brooklyn.
Bret McKenzie: So by that measure, our album was No. 1 in Brooklyn.

TOC: How did the Concorde plane crash in Paris in 2000 affect the band?
Bret McKenzie: We had the name before the terrible Concorde crash. But we were worried that people would think it was a joke based on the tragedy. Which it had nothing to do with.
Jemaine Clement: I think some people did think that. But we soldiered on with it.
Bret McKenzie: We just didn’t play in Paris.

TOC: Are you bummed that the Concorde is no longer in service?
Bret McKenzie: It’s a shame. I always wanted to do a photo shoot with us in the Concorde. We’ll have to do that on Photoshop now.

Flight of the Conchords lands at Arie Crown Theater for sold-out shows Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29.

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