Blender Magazine - April 23, 2008

Collect Call From: Flight of the Conchords

Each month, one lucky rock star phones Blender HQ for seven days straight, just to, you know, share. Now on the line: deader-than-deadpan folk duo Flight of the Conchords.

Josh Eels
Blender April 23 2008


Day 1
March 3, 2:32 p.m.

Conchords cofrontman Jemaine Clement (the one with the glasses) calls us from the Ritz-Carlton in Phoenix.

“We’ll be in the U.S. for almost eight months—we’re doing some gigs, then I’m shooting a movie, then we’re writing the next season of our show, then we start filming. Before we left New Zealand, I made sure to buy a Kiwi dictionary. America is confusing, spelling words like organiser with a zed. I’m trying to stick to all my original spellings.

“Today is an off day. We were thinking of going to the Grand Canyon, but we found out it’s a four-hour drive, so it would take eight hours total. And that doesn’t even include the looking part. I’ve never been to the desert, so to me it’s exotic. It sounds like cowboys. Maybe we can drink at a saloon, or rob a train. Except trains are pretty fast these days. And all we have is a rental car.”

Day 2
March 4, 3:41 p.m.

Bret McKenzie (the short one) rings from Phoenix, where the band has just finished sound check.

“Last night I watched The Golden Compass in my room. I don’t know if you’ve seen the film, but each human has a guardian demon that takes the shape of an animal. They weren’t very demonic, though. My demon would be a lot more troubled—like a talking bottle of booze that sneaks up on me and tricks me with a riddle."


“There’s very little going on in Phoenix. I think you need to be on meth to enjoy it—they have billboards everywhere trying to get people off meth. Yesterday we went to a pawnshop looking for instruments. Turns out they also had a lot of cheap weapons. Next to the trombones there were lethal crossbows. There was a gold-plated AK-47, and then a nice ukulele. The flutes were next to the swords—because you never know when you’ll need to kill someone with a sword and then, you know … get out of there. By pretending to be a flautist."


“We’re here because the company that makes those little cable boxes, Comcast, is having a convention, and tonight HBO is putting on a party for them. We’re never sure what our demographic is, but it turns out we’re quite hot right now in the cable-distribution scene.”

Day 3
March 5, 2:38 p.m.

McKenzie phones again, this time from a car in Salt Lake City.

“Last night was all right. The other acts on the bill were the Pussycat Dolls and the Temptations. Together again. I felt bad for the Pussycat Dolls: Like, ‘Cable distributors of America—give me a hell, yeah!’ But the corporate bigwigs were really getting into it—a lot of ties being loosened.  

We became friends with the Pussycat Dolls backstage. I kept forgetting their names, but then I realized they’re printed on their lingerie. So you just look down."

“So far we haven’t seen much of Utah. I think on the way in we flew over the Great Salt Lake. It looked like it was iced over; it looked kind of white. [Blender: We think that may be the salt.] Oh, right.”

Day 4
March 6, 7:19 p.m.

Clement checks in from Chicago’s Northwestern University, where students have been camping out overnight for the band’s show.

“Last night we played another gig, for a software company called Omniture. It sounds like some evil global conglomerate, but they were just normal people. They all had glow sticks around their necks. It was quite wild.

“Then this morning in Chicago two students from the university picked us up at the airport in their … do you call them station wagons? There’s certain nouns where the names are different. Like somersaults—in New Zealand we call them roly-polys. And those sprinkles on cupcakes, we call them 100s and 1,000s. Anyway, they picked us up in their station wagon, and there wasn’t room for all our gear. At least they recognized us. But they might have just seen a JPEG.

“Now we’re walking up to the venue. Oh, my God, there’s a massive crowd outside. It’s crazy. I’m taking off my glasses as a disguise. There’s a huge line, and a police car. But I think he might just live nearby.”

Day 5
March 7, 11:28 a.m.

McKenzie calls while en route to the airport, with the sound of giggling coeds in the background.

“The show last night was totally wild. Everyone knew all the songs, and afterward a bunch of kids waited outside to get us to sign their homemade T-shirts. We’re 'ucking the real deal, man! We
were ready to party afterward, but all the bars were closed. We ended up at—what’s it called? Steak ’n Shake. I had a steak—and also a shake. Now I’m getting a ride to the airport from some … I think you call them sorority girls? I’ve been trying to get the lowdown on how it all works, ’cause my knowledge is based on Hollywood movies, where everyone’s just really mean. Hang on, I’ll ask—do you guys make out with each other all the time? [Girls: “No!”] Yeah—they do!

“I’m flying to Los Angeles, and I don’t know where I’m going to stay tonight. It’s my friend Dave’s birthday, and I’m going to surprise him, so I need to hide out. You’re the only person I’ve told this, so if you haven’t heard from me by tomorrow, come find me—something has gone really wrong.”

Day 6
March 8, 12:17 p.m.

McKenzie rings us from Los Angeles, sounding a bit worse for the wear.

“I’m alive, but barely. Yesterday was a terrible, shiity day. Jemaine is shooting a film in Salt Lake City with Jared Hess, who did Napoleon Dynamite, and he’s working under a different visa. So the poor bastard had to fly to Vancouver at 7 a.m., get his passport stamped and then fly back to Salt Lake to start filming. Then my plane to L.­A. was delayed three hours, and I had to pay 160 bucks to check my guitar. Three-fourths of the way across America, someone started dying. The flight attendants were running around with oxygen and a defibrillator and one of those glucose monitors. We had to make an emergency landing in Las Vegas. But I think everything turned out OK.

“We finally got to L.A. around 11, and I found a room at the Beverly Laurel, my favorite old hotel. It’s this great B-grade motel above a diner called Swingers—like something out of a Tarantino movie. But wait—I can just tell you I slept on the street, can’t I? You don’t know!”

Day 7
March 9, 9:06 p.m.

After a couple of missed connections, we track down McKenzie in L.A., where he’s checking out optical illusions online.

“Sorry for the difficulties. I still don’t have an American cell phone; right now I’m calling on my friend Pauline’s. I tried to buy one yesterday, but they needed a Social Security number. It’s harder to buy a phone in the U.S. than it is to buy a gun. I’m thinking maybe I should just buy a gun, then steal the phone.

“We’ll be writing here in Los Angeles for two months, so I need to find a flat. Yesterday, I looked at one without a kitchen. The lady said, ‘Oh, you like to cook?’ I saw a place today with a koi pond. There’s no koi yet, so right now it’s just a really skanky pond. But it’s got potential.

“This week was probably a low point for the band’s integrity, but it was good to start doing gigs again. We got to meet the Pussycat Dolls, make some money. The only bad thing is, I’m exhausted, I’m dehydrated and I think I’ve got the flu. I can’t imagine people whose tours last longer than three days.”

Amily wrote:
“Today is an off day. We were thinking of going to the Grand Canyon, but we found out it’s a four-hour drive, so it would take eight hours total. And that doesn’t even include the looking part. I’ve never been to the desert, so to me it’s exotic. It sounds like cowboys. Maybe we can drink at a saloon, or rob a train. Except trains are pretty fast these days. And all we have is a rental car.”


“Last night I watched The Golden Compass in my room. I don’t know if you’ve seen the film, but each human has a guardian demon that takes the shape of an animal. They weren’t very demonic, though. My demon would be a lot more troubled—like a talking bottle of booze that sneaks up on me and tricks me with a riddle."


“Last night we played another gig, for a software company called Omniture. It sounds like some evil global conglomerate, but they were just normal people. They all had glow sticks around their necks. It was quite wild.


It’s harder to buy a phone in the U.S. than it is to buy a gun. I’m thinking maybe I should just buy a gun, then steal the phone.

Amily wrote:We became friends with the Pussycat Dolls backstage. I kept forgetting their names, but then I realized they’re printed on their lingerie. So you just look down.

Amily wrote:“So far we haven’t seen much of Utah. I think on the way in we flew over the Great Salt Lake. It looked like it was iced over;
it looked kind of white. [Blender: We think that may be the salt.] Oh, right.”