About the Flight of the Conchords

World famous in New Zealand are Jemaine Clement & Bret McKenzie, better known to the planet as the 'Flight of the Conchords'. They first met in Wellington as university students and felt that they'd like to learn to play guitar. Initially they tried playing other peoples songs, but finding that was too hard decided to write their own.

Their first major international success came at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where they received rave reviews and built up a solid fan base (most of which, it seems, now run fan sites for them). In due course, they made a series of adverts for Phones4U in the UK, a radio series for the BBC and, now, a self-titled TV series commissioned by HBO.

Jemaine Clement 33-year old Jemaine was born on 10 January 1974 and went to Makoura College (in a region of Wellington) where he was known by his mates as 'Jim'. He and 2 friends initially started a small animation company in 2002 where they produced a couple of short films, some adverts and a music video. He also formed one half of the comedy duo the 'humourbeasts', with fellow Kiwi comedian Taika Waititi. Taika directed two episodes of the current HBO TV series, as well as, the critically acclaimed film 'Eagle vs Shark', featuring Jemaine as the lead (on screen in the States at the moment, being released early August in the UK and later in the year for New Zealand).

Bret McKenzie 31-year old Bret was born on 29 June 1976 in Middle Earth and was, initially, more famous for the minor part he played in the Lord of the Rings and the band he used to play in. Bret was cast as 'Figwit' in parts 1 & 3 of fellow Kiwi's Peter Jacksons' Lord of the Rings trilogy. Many Kiwis also know him from the band 'The Black Seeds' (who have just signed a 2-album deal with a German recording label). I'm sorry to say ladies that it has been reported that Bret is engaged to be married... so it looks like 'business time' is closed!