If they can find time, Flight of the Conchords hope to do a New Zealand tour. Photo / Supplied

If they can find time, Flight of the Conchords hope to do a New Zealand tour. Photo / Supplied

Bret McKenzie isn't expecting to take a call from his homeland. His American record company has had him on the phone to journalists from as far as Finland before TimeOut rings through. Apparently the new album I Told You I Was Freaky is a hit over there.

"That's quite a surprise to me," McKenzie says. He doesn't know a lot about the Finnish music scene but has heard they are more into metal.

"I think in between their death metal songs they are dropping a little bit of, yeah, Too Many Dicks on The Dancefloor," he says referring to the faux disco number on the new album.

I Told You I Was Freaky entered the New Zealand charts at number seven last week - McKenzie says it's exciting to see how well it's doing.

This second album - or third if you count the 2007 Grammy-winning Distant Future EP which pre-dated last year's self-titled long-player - was put together in a year, while the duo's first album took five or six years.

He is taking interview calls to promote it from his home in Wellington, which is a hectic place to be at the moment. He and his wife Hannah have a three-month old baby girl.

Her name is Vita - Italian for life.

Jemaine Clement and Miranda Manasiadis have a son called Sophocles - it's Greek for something else - who is almost one year old.

So while the spotlight has been on his Conchords co-stars - Clement with his Emmy nomination and films and Rhys Darby with his swathe of television appearances-slash-product endorsements - McKenzie has also been seriously busy since arriving home in May.

"Yeah, I've been kind of figuring out fatherhood for the past few months," he says.

How is he finding it?

"Um, I've got a lot of room to improve. It seems like it's quite a long-term commitment."

And no, it wasn't awkward when the other half of the duo was singled out for an Emmy nomination for best comedy performance. McKenzie says he thought it was awesome that Clement was picked. In fact, he hoped that Clement wouldn't make it to the ceremony so he could go and accept it and confuse everyone. Everyone seems to get the pair confused anyway, he says.

It seems a sizeable chunk of America is still crazy about the show, with the Washington Post recently running an article charting ways to dress like a Kiwi musician who is trying to make it in New York.