One half of Award-winning New Wave duo, Kids of 88, Sam McCarthey lends his time to the AU review's Larry Heath to chat about their current Australian tour, their jam-packed future, and Flight of the Conchords.

Where in Sydney are you at the moment?

I'm roaming at the moment, just walking back to the hotel now. We went for a stroll up to Crown street to get some tasty Mexican food which was good. Had a little look around the shops, which is amazing because the last couple of days have been taken up by travelling and sound checks. So the fact that we were actually able to get out of the building and get some food on the street is a kind of reward. So we're pretty happy right now [laughs].

How have the shows in Australia been going so far?

Good actually, it's been really fun. This is the first time where we haven't had to play before anyone, we've been working as the headliners which is quite interesting in Australia. It hasn't been a very long time since we've been over here playing before someone, so the transition into a headline spot was a bit overwhelming.

In Melbourne we played at East Brunswick club which was really cool, that was a good show. Last night we played in Brisbane, which was pretty dirty, it was a club night and the stage was on the floor amongst all the punters - so we were eye-level with everyone, which was quite intimidating to start off with. But everyone got into it.

You've got a bit of a camaraderie with The Naked And Famous, you just did a tour with them over in New Zealand and you're going to be going to South By South West (SXSW) with them as well!

Yeah! That's definitely the plan at the moment. We do have a little bit of a family going on at the moment, we call ourselves '88 famous naked kids' and it's really good. We have a lot of mutual respect and appreciate each others way of approaching music and song writing. It's been good, nearly every show on the tour sold out, but the hallmark was that we sold out one of the bigger venues in Auckland, usually only used for only big overseas acts. So that was a special moment for us – we've got a good thing going on!

You certainly do! SXSW should be fun as well. I've seen you on a couple of blogs as one of the international artists to watch so that should be a bit exciting as well?

Yeah the blog atmosphere around us has been a really weird thing because you can have people writing about you in all these different corners of the world that you'd usually have no contact with and they're writing about your music in an amazingly positive way. So it's a very kind of bizarre thing, but we found it was really positive when we came around to CMJ in New York, which we just came back from a couple of weeks ago. It was crazy especially because a lot of bands that we listen to are those types of bands – that have been on blogs and the hype machines and what not – so effectively we have a lot in common and it's kind of strange really.

Well you should have a blast at SXSW next year, it really is just so much fun. You get to meet a lot of cool people.

Yeah I'm really excited about it and the fact that so many other ridiculously cool bands play around you at the same festival that you can go too for quite cheap and in a really small vicinity – it's a pretty exciting atmosphere!

You're touring right now off the back of 'Sugarpills' which is still a pretty recent release – how have you found the response to that and the other songs over here?

It's been pretty good actually. In New Zealand it's kind of different in the sense that we release a song before we even have a live show. So it was the opposite to the kind of conventional band where you get in the rehearsal room and write some songs and then play a few shows and build up a rapport. It was kind of the other way around there – we release some songs and then they do well on the radio and TV, so on live shows when we walk out and people would already be singing along to the songs. So when we released the album it was like we were supplementing those kind of requests and such.

Now it's the other way around and we're now doing the conventional band thing where we are plugging an album around Australia that people haven't heard before and we're trying to get in people's faces as much as possible. I must admit that the Australian crowds are harder to win over than in New Zealand but it's good, it's character building, which means you develop some showmanship skills as opposed to just trying to wing it on people knowing your songs from the radio. It's really warming when you can have a crowd cheering for you for more songs at the end of the night after you've been standing there not knowing what to expect at the beginning of the gig.

What can we expect from the current shows – do you guys perform as a 2 piece?

No we don't actually; Jordan and I are just kind of the visual members and we oversee the song-writing and how we approach the music as a band. As a live band thought there is four of us. Dance music is definitely about four on the floor and the groove, the rhythm, but there are certain things that we like to add along with that – a little bit more drive, more grit – and you can get that with a guitar, so we've got our friend Luke who plays guitar and Joe on live drums to add that kind of human-esque feel.

In terms of what to expect we do like to get a bit crazy and up in people's faces but more from a communal party aspect as opposed to a punk concert where people might get hurt and what not. We like to climb on things and jump up and down and we've got a huge array of percussion instruments as aids such as tambourines everywhere. It's like a 90s dance party in a shack by a beach if you can imagine that! Summer seasons here so we're trying to warm everyone up.

It seems the response to the album back home for you guys has been quite fantastic. You guys have won a couple of awards at the New Zealand music awards earlier this year and have a few music videos floating around so it seems like you guys are quite busy?

Yes, extremely busy, which is good. I think if you're in a band and you find yourself with nothing to do it's quite depressing and you can't really say that you're a band. The fact that we are travelling with the show and we're actually going to Europe next year as well, so we are really appreciative of how busy we are at the moment.

You say you're going to Europe next week, is that a tour?

Yeah, we're doing a tour over there. We go to London for about a day to get the tour together and then we are heading off to Switzerland and go around through Belgium, Spain, France, then back to London again and then we're heading back home. It's about two weeks and it's going to be winter so we're going to be stocking up on balaclavas and fluffy gloves [laughs].

It's going to be quite hard but I think it's going to be very beneficial in the sense that it's not just going to be quick flights from city to city. We are going to driving around so we'll get to see a lot of the countryside and make the most of the tour as opposed to just feeling like it's one big blur.

I was speaking to some New Zealand bands recently and they've been saying that every time they get interviewed by someone from Europe or America they always ask about Flight of the Conchords – have you had that yet?

Not really. A lot of the time people liken us to them I guess maybe because we're a duo and Jordan has glasses [laughs]. I'm kind of small and scrawny so I'd be likened to the Brett character. New York was the place we're we'd get more of that stuff but we've managed to kind of get through without the questions.

It helps promote New Zealand I suppose!

Yeah, it's not a band thing to be linked with, there could be worse things, especially from the Australian point of view. I'm pretty happy those guy came along and gave us something else to be compared to as opposed to our farming exports or Lord of the Rings.

So what can we expect from you guys in 2011? You guys are playing Big Day Out (BDO) in Auckland I understand?

Yeah but we've actually been lucky enough to be put on the entire run so we're going to be doing all the Big Day Out shows.

So you've got BDO to launch of 2011, what else do you guys have in plan?

We definitely have a few things set in stone, there will be a lot more writing on the cards for us. We are definitely going to be pushing the album throughout Australia, it's been released on iTunes here but it will be more about the push to raise awareness about the album here. I think we're trying to get a few more big headline supports, just to ride on others coattails as much as we can. I think we're also going to try and do more songs to hatch another album as well.

That sounds great. We look forward to seeing how you guys go overseas. Best of luck with that and thanks for taking the time out of your relaxing afternoon to chat with us today!

Transcription by Chris Singh.