Coming up from a land down under

In the last couple of years, music executives have flocked to such locales as Detroit and Sweden, searching for the next White Stripes or the Hives, respectively.

Should their travel agents start booking flights to New Zealand now?

A vibrant scene that has been growing on the South Pacific islands nation for several years is about to emerge in the U.S., with three New Zealand bands getting major U.S. launches.

“6Twenty,” the debut album from garage-rock band the D4, is due March 24 from Hollywood Records; the similarly oriented Datsuns have an album due March 4 from V2 Records (home of the White Stripes); and harder-edged Pacifier is making its American debut on Arista Records on Feb. 11.

“I read in a paper in the U.K. [that] someone was talking about calling New Zealand ‘the new Sweden,’ ” says D4 singer Jimmy Christmas. “At the South by Southwest conference, [there will probably be quite a lot of New Zealand bands.” (The conference is in March in Austin, Texas.)

The current state of New Zealand rock marks the coming of age of a generation inspired by a late ‘80s and early ‘90s scene there centered on the Flying Nun Records label and such bands as the Bats and Straightjacket Fits, which itself attracted a lot of influential global acts to play there.

“Having bands like Fugazi, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Sonic Youth travel to New Zealand, we Kiwis looked at it as awesome,” says Pacifier’s Jon Toogood. “Once that got injected into the scene, the level of great rock bands here went up a mile. Everyone had to beat each other to be the best. I come from Wellington, and it’s a creative place. You end up bumping into people and going back to the house and recording a song.”

The country’s relative isolation has allowed bands to develop before moving to a larger stage.

“People see it as a disadvantage coming from New Zealand, but for us it’s been a benefit,” Christmas says. “By the time you’re ready to come out, you’ve really got it together.”

V2 Records President Andy Gershon heartily concurs.

“It’s a very vibrant scene there,” he says. “They have plenty of time to really hone their live acts. For the Datsuns it was five years. Every great scene, this is what happens.”

Now that a few bands are ready to move out from that scene, though, will the streets of Auckland be swarming with record executives? Maybe not.

Gershon notes that financial cutbacks at major record companies alone might slow the stampede because of the time and expense of going there, if nothing else. “As much as there have been invasions of Detroit, Chicago, Seattle or Sweden, no,” he says. “I think it’s the distance.”

Besides, New Zealand bands with any ambition are more than happy to go to where the executives are, exactly what these three bands did.

“With the Datsuns and the D4, they, like us, said, ‘We want to play for a living and if we stay in New Zealand we’re going to run out of land,’ ” says Toogood. “Most Kiwis I know love traveling anyway. I don’t know many bands here who would go, ‘If they want me, they have to come here.’ We love someone booking a flight for us to play for them. The rest of the people I went to school with are working 9-to-5 jobs and dreaming about that.”

Time to return those favors

Weezer leader Rivers Cuomo freely admits he’s “ripped off many a catchy tune” over the years from Kevin Ridel. The two were high school buddies back in Connecticut and moved to California together in the early ‘90s.

Now Cuomo is evening the score a bit, serving as manager for Ridel’s band, AM Radio. With Cuomo’s help, the lesser-known act has scored a deal with Elektra Records. The group’s album is to be produced by Howard Benson (P.O.D.), an Elektra senior vice president of A&R.; It’s due in June, and AM Radio is set to start touring at the end of this month as the opening act for Ben Kweller.

For Cuomo, this is a second management role -- he took over the handling of his own group nearly two years ago.

“It’s been great,” he says. “I had been fulfilling most of those managerial duties for a while before that and just kind of made it official.”

But taking on a second client, he says, is not an indication that he’s looking to expand his empire. “I don’t have any interest in working with anybody else,” he says. “Just them.”

Meanwhile, he says, Weezer is biding its time before making its next album. Cuomo has written a lot of new songs, but after hooking up with producer Rick Rubin, the two decided to let the new material settle rather than rush into recording.

“I feel a thousand times more patient and calm now, and I feel it’s a direct result of having Rick on my team,” he says. “So I’m sitting on those songs and stepping away from the writing process and taking my time.”

Two bandmates, though, are using the time for solo projects: Drummer Pat Wilson is releasing an album March 4, and guitarist Brian Bell is finishing one of his own.

Small faces

* Poison singer Bret Michaels is celebrating turning 40 (on March 15) with “Songs of Life,” a solo album of new songs inspired by events from throughout his life, from the death of an uncle in Vietnam through the birth of his daughter, Raine, two years ago. The album is due April 22.

* The Allman Brothers Band has a new album, “Hittin’ the Note,” due March 18 on their own Peach label via Sanctuary Records. The set includes a version of the Rolling Stones’ “Heart of Stone” along with new songs. The band will do a 14-show stint at the Beacon in New York in March, with a national tour to follow in June.

* Jimmy Allen, original Puddle of Mudd guitarist and co-writer of several of the band’s hits, is launching his own band, Cut-Out, with an EP and shows at various Los Angeles clubs in the next few months. Allen left the Kansas City-originated Puddle when the band was still unsigned in 1997.

* Since New Kids on the Block broke up in 1995, a whole new generation of teen-popsters has passed through pop culture. But after riding that out, former NKOTB member Danny Wood is returning to the spotlight with his first solo album, “Second Face,” due April 15. Wood remained active in music, though, forming his own Damage Records label upon leaving the New Kids and has produced tracks for former group-mate Joey McIntyre and Mark Wahlberg, brother of ex-New Kid Donnie Wahlberg.