In early 2010, Bret McKenzie decided it was time to start guitar lessons.
The New Zealand-born actor and songwriter attended classes at Los Angeles’ Silverlake Conservatory of Music, a music school founded in 2001 by Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea.
Mackenzie’s new guitar teacher was understandably curious about what inspired him to go back to school with children and beginners.
He told him the show was coming up. “He said, ‘Okay, where are you playing?'”
Sitting in his bright and airy home studio above his Wellington garage, he awkwardly contorts a beard saltier than pepper. “I said: ‘Oh yeah…we’re playing the Hollywood Bowl.’
Formed in 1998 by musical partners Jemaine Clement and MacKenzie, the two-man group Flight of the Concord continues to thrive.
Billed sarcastically as “New Zealand’s 4th most popular guitar-based desi-bongo a cappella rap-funk-comedy-folk duo”, the pair had a stand-up stint before gaining worldwide acclaim on the hugely popular HBO sitcom. It made a name for itself on the circuit. From 2007 he ran until 2009.
The series spawned a Grammy Award-winning album and infectious, catchy viral hits such as: The most beautiful girl (in the room) When Hippopotamus vs Limenokeros.
Soon the pair were playing in front of thousands at venues such as London’s massive O2 Arena. “Had he played the guitar better, he probably wouldn’t have been in Comedy’s band,” says Mackenzie. The song is not very interesting. “We aspired to be a band, but there was something about the failure of our aspirations that became the crux of a lot of comedy.”
muppet movie
Ever since Concord turned down the chance to do a third season of the Emmy-nominated show in 2009, Mackenzie has built a career as Hollywood’s go-to funny song writer. His smart, witty songs have been the soundtracks to two Muppets movies (2011’s). Muppets and in 2014 Muppets Most Wanted) and some episodes simpsonsalong with many other film and television projects.
But personally, he’s spent the last few years working on songs that don’t necessarily arrive at the lyrical punchline.His debut solo album has a title that resets expectations song without jokes“For me, it was another thing to write a song that wasn’t a joke,” he says.
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“Songs about feelings weren’t what I was used to [writing], although it is most of the other songs. Ninety-nine percent of her songwriters write about how they feel, but my career has been writing songs about characters and jokes. ”
The album captures Mackenzie reveling in the influence of 1970s musical heroes like Steely Dan, Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman. So it’s only fitting that McKenzie recorded sessions in his LA with some of Hollywood’s most respected musicians.
“Down the corridors of Ocean Way Studios, they’ve got all the gold records and they’re walking and they say, Joey Waronker (Beck and Rem drummer) or Steely Dan’s sideman. Still a little in awe of Dean Parks and others playing his music. he laughs. “It was a real highlight!”
Lyrically, Mackenzie often falls somewhere between Wellington, where he grew up and now raises his family, and the glittering lights of Hollywood, where he worked and lived on and off for the better part of a decade. I realize I am stuck.
“I started living between two places with a very exorbitant cross-strait lifestyle of a 12-hour commute,” he says.with an opener This worldhe reflects on Earth’s fate and wrestles with the knowledge that frequent long-distance flights aren’t always useful.
“It’s a serious crisis for New Zealanders because it’s very common to travel a lot for work, but it’s completely irresponsible to the climate and the planet,” he says. “I feel that the way we live is not sustainable. I’m still trying to have a good time. That’s the feeling I carry with me, and it’s reflected in the song.”
Mackenzie has been making music for as long as he can remember. Born in Wellington in June 1976, he grew up surrounded by art. His mother, Deirdre, was a ballet teacher who ran a contemporary dance company. His father, Peter, was a lawyer and musical theater singer who, as Mackenzie puts it, “renounced the law in order to obtain a more secure income from training racehorses.”
As a teenager, Mackenzie played in a string of bands, including The Blue Samanthas, courted by James Brown, and a reggae-funk band called The Black Seeds. “I played in so many different groups,” he says. “It was one of those towns where there was a joke [that] All Wellington bands were the same musicians with different names. It all intersects, and from such a tapestry was born Concord. ”
He met Clement while studying theater and film at Victoria University in Wellington. They were thrown together into a five-strong sketch comedy troupe that also included future Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi: “He had to devise a 10-minute article on male body consciousness.” I did,” recalls Mackenzie. “The costume was flesh-colored bike pants with a Velcro removable penis.
Mackenzie and Clement hit it off and lived in an apartment together while auditioning for various hospital-based soap operas filmed in Oakland. “I started the band because I said, ‘I don’t care about this hospital drama,'” he says. “We just sat there as doctors and nurses without getting parts.
Waititi was also nearby and came to their apartment to paint while Concord was writing the song. “He was pretty dark and moody,” says Mackenzie. “Ironically, he’s also probably the best guitarist we’ve ever had. He played in a ska band and could shred, but his solo was way over the top of the band.”
Waititi will go on to direct four episodes of flight of concord, including the finale. “Then he went through Sundance and kind of evolved,” McKenzie explains. “I think it’s great that he’s had so much success. He’s a great artist.”
hollywood fantasy
That student apartment has produced not one but two Oscar winners. Mackenzie won Best Original Song. man or muppet (since 2011 Muppets), a soaring power ballad played by Jason Segel and deranged muppet Walter. He has a statuette above the piano in the lounge, a reminder of the night when all his Hollywood fantasies came true.
“People think Los Angeles is just about glamour, parties and celebrities,” he says. “Not really. You might see celebrities sometimes. Most of the time it’s very lonely and there’s a lot of driving. LA winning the Oscars that night was like LA people imagine We were at one of the cocktail parties and a friend of mine said, “Then the next day you’re back at the supermarket and you’re asking, ‘Where’s George Clooney?’
As well as working with the Muppets, McKenzie has become a TV regular. simpsonsHe made his first appearance on the show alongside Clement in 2010, when the pair were cast as counselors at Lisa’s Performing Arts Camp. He has revealed that he is working on an “R&B song” that will be featured in four episodes.
Last year he wrote a lovely parody of The Smiths — hamburger murder case When Everyone is horrified except me (and maybe you too) — an episode featuring Benedict Cumberbatch as guest star as Quilloughby, the Morrissey-esque frontman of the fictional band The Snuffs. Morrissey himself couldn’t see his funny side, complaining, “In a world obsessed with hate laws, there’s no one to protect me.”
Mackenzie seems puzzled by his reaction. “I’m a big Morrissey/Smith fan, but you know, Morrissey’s political stance has some issues,” he says. “We really didn’t anticipate Morrissey’s anger, and his public anger. When a comedian makes fun of you, the best thing you can do is laugh it off and enjoy the joke. Everyone has something to laugh about.” He took it very seriously and publicly and it blew it up.”
In news that will please both Hiphopotamus and Rhymenoceros fans, McKenzie hints that more could come from New Zealand’s fourth most popular funk-comedy folk combo. “I think we will do something,” he says. “But I don’t think we know what yet.”
it probably won’t be rumored for a long time flight of concord It’s a movie (“We don’t have a movie script”), but he’s confident about the future after that. song without jokes Probably a few more songs with them. “I was obsessed with having a song without jokes,” he says. “Now I’m out on the other side. ‘You can relax a little bit. You don’t have to be so serious.'”
Bret McKenzie’s ‘Songs Without Jokes’ is out.He will play at the National Stadium on October 9.
© Independent News Service
