Bio:
Written mostly during the quieter moments of 2019, with BRET MCKENZIE's life split between work in Los Angeles and his family in Wellington, the songs of „Songs Without Jokes“ focus on themes of escape, the perpetual search for peace, and navigating a life being pulled in multiple directions at once. There are also simple meditations on driving through a city, and the weather. MCKENZIE was inspired by the path his aforementioned idols like RANDY NEWMAN and HARRY NILSSON had paved, where a silly or playful number could be sandwiched directly between a song about heartbreak or an earnest redemption and a scathing satire or character commentary. He threw a bit of everything into the mix, recording ideas on his phone at home in New Zealand after the kids had gone to sleep. Upon returning to LA, he would play the sketches for his longtime producer and collaborator, Mickey Petralia, who helped MCKENZIE identify the best moments, then together they would add parts and shape the songs. From there, longtime film collaborator Chris Caswell created charts for that same ensemble of session players with whom they’d recorded so many pieces for film. The majority of songs were then recorded at United Studio in Los Angeles in just a few takes.

“I love working in the studio with those guys, this older generation of LA session musicians, these Wrecking Crew type legends,” MCKENZIE says. “They’ve played on everything, it’s insane —Dolly Parton, James Taylor, Lionel Richie, everything. It’s quite old-fashioned; the band all get a chart and sit there and play the song two or three times and you’re done. It’s a bit like directing actors. I’ll say ‘This song should have a bit of a Steely Dan vibe, or, it feels like LA freeway music” and Dean, the guitarist, just goes, ‘Yeah.’ And we’re cracking up because it turns out Dean is one of the guitar players from Steely Dan. All those session guys are such a trip.”

While the album may be free of traditional punch lines, it doesn’t lack a sense of humor. It showcases a new stage of MCKENZIE’s career, to be sure, but one that isn’t so far removed from his past work and true artistic self. Like Jim Henson before him, who made a career of blending the silly with the sincere and the playful with the profound, MCKENZIE also aims to connect rainbows to the ridiculous.

“I’m becoming way more comfortable in my own skin with songs that are a bit more personal. At first, I felt a little naked singing a song about how I’m not sure what to do with my life— compared to writing for fucking Kermit the Frog—but I’m getting more comfortable now with the heartfelt. Instead of going for a laugh you’re creating these cool little moments. I love comedy songs but I don’t put a comedy record on while hanging out; I don’t drive around listening to standup, I listen to regular music. So it feels right to finally make a record of music I might want to listen to.”