This Kind Of Thing 'Doesn't Happen Every Day'

On the surface, the pairing of quirky Aussie singer-songwriter Ben Lee and former How I Met Your Mother actor Josh Radnor in a songwriting and musical context may seem a little odd, but one listen to their debut album Radnor & Lee makes it clear that this musical marriage works an absolute treat. It is one of the more delightful juxtapositions of folk and pop you will hear this year.

Something that makes the chemistry between them tick, besides the bonds of friendship that the two have shared since meeting on the set of How I Met Your Mother several years ago, is their shared spirituality and love of existential thought and discussion, and this comes out strongly in the lyrics and imagery of the album.

"We just both have a taste for asking the really big questions," states Radnor, from his home in New York. "We've both read pretty widely across multiple traditions in terms of philosophy and theology and different mystical traditions and indigenous traditions. We're just curious about the same things; we're not the 'small talk' guys, we're the 'big talk' guys.

"The stuff on the record is about the conversations we have with each other and the kind of conversations we wanted to have with more people."

Radnor is quick to point out that the two of them don't just talk about the origins of our race, planet and universe; there is time for some small talk at times. "I don't want to overstate that, sometimes we'll talk about coffee," he laughs.

"I think the ability to laugh together is important, too," Lee adds, speaking from the west coast of the USA. "So it's not all heavy, but we do veer towards the existential quite easily - put it that way."

"We're flexible!" Radnor chuckles.

Ultimately both guys are ecstatic with the way Radnor & Lee has turned out. "Yeah, absolutely. I love it," Lee states simply.

Like many such creative collaborations, Radnor & Lee was not a planned or contrived thing - it was not organised by record companies or artist management firms trying to milk a quick buck out of two big-name stars. It was a far more organic process between two friends with similar tastes and similar mindsets.

"It was the product of something that began as an experiment," Lee recalls, "sort of a side project that began to gather its own momentum. As friends we were just making stuff, playing together. There's a feeling you get when something has legs, it calls you back. This collaboration just went deeper and deeper, and our ambitions around the scale of it have just gotten bigger. At the end of the day it's just the two of us sitting writing songs together and that feels very real."

So it all just started with the two of you sitting, strumming guitars and singing a few lines together? "Well it started with Ben strumming guitars and the two of us singing," Radnor laughs again. "At that point I wasn't a guitar player, but I am now. I think for the second record we're going to be a two-guitar band."

"Yep, for sure," Lee concurs.

Lee, being the far more experienced singer, songwriter and musician, was actually surprised by how quickly their chemistry as songwriters developed. There was no 'crystalising moment' when they looked at each other and realised that it was working. "It happened right away," Lee reveals. "Once we got the first song, it was like, 'That doesn't happen every day.' I've written songs with a fair amount of people and with some of them you're just dying to get out of there. I knew we'd done something special. I don't know if we can repeat it, but it seems like every time we get together, we come out with something pretty good."

It makes them feel very optimistic about the future of the project, like this album will not just be a one-off. "It feels already like we know how to do this together." Lee states.

"And I don't know why that is," Radnor carries on the thought. "It's not like I have [this] many years of songwriting experience behind me. There's just some sort of weird alchemy that happens when we get together.

"We've actually stopped calling it a side project," Radnor continues, "because it's taken on this wonderful life; it no longer feels like this weird little experiment, it feels like a real thing."

That said, with all of the many commitments and projects that the two have between them - in the world of music, entertainment and showbiz - Radnor & Lee is unlikely to operate in a traditional band sense. The two of them will simply have to work on their songs, record them and play them live when they can.

"It's good to take the rules off what you need to do to be a band," Lee says. "I think that's useful at the beginning when you're 19 and starting a rock band and it's like, 'Ok, how does this have to be done?' But at this point in our careers, we have to allow this to be unique and do what feels right to us. And keeping it fun, that's really crucial."

Lee goes on to state that their plans include bringing the project to Australia to play live next year, but adds nothing is definite yet.