Steve Martin Sort of Makes New Album, Playing Banjo on Kelly Clarkson’s Latest

Steve Martin has a new album out! Well, sort of. It’s not another comedy record like Let’s Get Small or Wild and Crazy Guy. Instead, he’s plucking his banjo for Kelly Clarkson’s new album, Chemistry. The famous funny guy that owns several banjos didn’t even have to audition for the gig. 

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Clarkson’s new album is pretty dang angry, featuring a number of songs inspired by a painful divorce. On the song, ‘i hate love,’ Clarkson penned these lyrics:

And The Notebook lied/It’s Complicated is more like what happens/So you can keep Gosling and I’ll take Steve Martin

“I thought it was funny, I did the whole Steve Martin reference and then I asked him to play on it and he said yes, which I thought was incredible,” Clarkson told The Hollywood Reporter. “So I still can’t believe he said yes, but he can’t take it back. It’s on there.”

How in the world did Clarkson convince Martin to pull out the banjo for the track? “I literally emailed,” she confesses, reaching out to the comic’s publicist and crossing her fingers. It didn’t take long for Martin to say yes, but it wasn’t a completely happy ending for Clarkson.

“I was so frustrated because I got a lot of jobs and I was doing the talk show at the time and I think The Voice as well, but I wasn’t able to go whenever he recorded his part,” she laments. Her producer, Jesse Shetkin, went to record with Martin, texting Clarkson that ‘I can’t believe this is my life!’ Unfortunately, it wasn’t Clarkson’s. “I really wanted to be there because I’ve never met him and I’m a huge fan,” she says. “He’s cool and I’ll do anything for Steve Martin at this point.”

Is Clarkson aware that her Martin tribute is also a Ryan Gosling diss track? “Let’s make this clear,” she says. “I love Ryan Gosling. I think he is so funny and charming and handsome and cool. He just so happens to be Noah from Notebook, which I was not referencing in a bright light in the song. But I mean, come on, even Ryan Gosling would choose Steve Martin over Ryan Gosling.”