Comedic singer-songwriter Bret Mckenzie is ready to take his first solo album on tour across New Zealand. Photo / Supplied
After years of comedic musical work, Bret McKenzie is excited to take his new album of Songs Without Jokes on tour.
As part of a nationwide tour, the Flight of the Conchords and Muppets musician is set to perform at Hastings Toitoi event centre in the third week of September.
The last time Bret performed in Hawke's Bay was with the Wellington ukulele orchestra in 2010.
"I've always had fun playing in Hawke's Bay; I used to tour there a lot with the Black Seeds," Bret said.
The musician is excited to stop in the Bay as part of his Songs Without Jokes tour.
Bret explained his new album is "definitely a departure from what I'm known for".
While the album's 11 tracks aren't full of punch lines, there is still quick wit behind the lyrics.
Unlike his previous work, Bret's first solo non-comedic album pays homage to the style of 70s artists like Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman of Steely Dan.
Wanting to create something a little different, Bret worked with some of Los Angeles' most-revered session musicians, including Dean Parkes, the guitarist from Steely Dan.
"I was looking for something new, different and exciting, having done a lot of comedy songs," he said.
The musician explained he had been working with some "amazing studio players and producer Mickey Petralia, who did the Concords music and the Muppets movie music with me".
"We shared this idea that it would be fun to record some music that wasn't for a movie, but record it with these session players," Bret said.
Bret has been working on Songs Without Jokes over the past few years and treated the album as a hobby or side project he would work on when he had gaps.
While in Los Angeles working on projects, Bret would work on the album if he had an extra day or two.
And at home, "I would write a lot of the songs at night after the kids had gone to bed; I would sit in the lounge playing my guitar, coming up with little ideas," Bret said.
If an idea seemed "good", he would record it on his phone and collect little fragments of songs and ideas.
The ideas and songs Bret was writing "were curious, and they weren't comedy songs".
Bret said he found it interesting watching people adjust to his new music.
"People would check out the songs and be like, wooooww what's happened, what is going on here," he said.
In the beginning, there were a few double takes and people around the comedic musician were unsure if they were meant to take the songs seriously or not.
Bret was not working on the album fulltime, but Covid "really kind of threw a spanner in the works".
When Covid hit, Bret and Mickey had recorded and tracked the songs but hadn't mixed the record.
"With Covid, time seemed to stop, and nothing was happening, I wasn't travelling, and it just slowed right down," he explained and the process Bret thought would take six months to do took three years.
Bret spent lockdown in New Zealand, after flying back from the US just as it "was all kicking off".
He has only left the country once in the past three years. Staying in New Zealand was a "huge change" as he travels often.
"I think it's the most I've been at home consecutively since I started travelling in my 20s.
"I haven't spent a full year at home since 1997," he said.
Being home allowed Bret to work with Kiwi musicians to form a nine-piece band to take on tour.
"Covid has been tough on all the musicians, because they have just lost all their work," he said.
Bret said he was lucky to have animated LA jobs and could keep working through Covid.
"It's really special to be able to get all these Wellington musicians playing and doing this tour. When we started rehearsing, everyone was just so excited to be in the room playing with other musicians," Bret said.
Bret and the band will be travelling the length of the country, playing eight shows, stopping in at the Toitoi event centre in Hastings on September 13.