Singer-songwriter Joshua Radin tells Undercover about performing at the wedding of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi.
Radin says he met DeGeneres at a benefit through sharing a table with American Idol host Ryan Seacrest (as many Radin songs had been performed on the show).
DeGeneres asked what his music sounded like and Radin recalls, “Right when she said that one of my songs came on the P.A. It was so strange. I was taken aback. I said, ‘Well, this is one of my songs’ and everyone at the table stopped and started listening and it was really awkward and embarrassing, I was, ‘I really shouldn’t have said anything’.”
Luckily, DeGeneres loved it and a cancellation meant that she asked him to play on her show the very next day.
When he played a song on the show, Radin says, “She had tears in her eyes. She and Portia were sitting there crying and she said ‘We want to get married to that song’.”
“They had never heard it before, and I was just really flattered,” he says, “I just thought they were talking about putting on a CD while they walked down [the aisle], or having a string quartet play or something."
He was on tour for another six months without hearing from them and then, in Salt Lake City, Utah, his manager called. His manager said, “Ellen and Portia are getting married tomorrow and they want to fly you to LA and play a bunch of songs for them and their guests at their wedding in their living room, for, like, twenty people, just family.”
Radin went and played six songs “as they just cried and looked at me, and then looked at each other, and then cried.”
“It was totally surreal,” he smiles, “Also I’m just such a huge fan of both of theirs. Arrested Development is one of my favourite television shows of all time and Ellen, I’ve been a fan of her stand-up forever.”
“Not only her stand-up… I don’t even go to weddings even when my friends get married,” he muses, “it’s like ‘I can’t, I’m on tour’ I’ll send a gift. But this one, it’s not just that it was a celebrity wedding, I think it was just what was going on in California at the time with Proposition 8 and legalising same-sex marriage; I just think that’s cool. I think anyone should be able to get married who love each other.”
“This was one of those things where, I don’t know, there was so much hype and publicity around it, which Ellen was very intelligent to do, I think,” he considers, “She became this, I don’t know, very important icon and I thought it was very cool to be a part of it.”
Check out the whole chat below.
