Rob Thomas Responds To Ryan Gosling's Matchbox Twenty Cover

Ryan Gosling’s Ken has made headlines in recent weeks for his Slash-assisted power ballad, I’m Just Ken and more recently, for covering Matchbox Twenty’s Push in the new Barbie film.

We all know Push and recognise the music video, but likely didn’t realise that we needed Ryan Gosling mournfully singing, “This ain’t over, no, not here/Not while I still need you around/You don’t owe me, we might change, yeah” until we heard it. While this writer hasn’t seen Barbie yet, the moment arrives at a pivotal turning point for Gosling’s character in the film.

Since Gosling’s take on Push went viral, we’ve been waiting to find out how Matchbox Twenty feels about the cover. Spoiler alert: Rob Thomas provides a more entertaining reaction than Billy Joel upon hearing Fall Out Boy’s cover of We Didn’t Start The Fire.

“I want to preface this by saying that I thought it was hilarious,” the How Far We’ve Come singer said in an interview with USA Today, as transcribed by Billboard.

Mentioning another film the band were referenced in, Thomas continued, “But in Bring It On, [Kirsten Dunst’s character] has this douchey boyfriend. And there’s a scene where he was in his dorm room with a Matchbox Twenty poster in the background.

“There was a whole period during the ‘90s where the more successful we got, the bigger target we were. We were an easy takedown.”

Thomas, a "thick-skinned" star, was convinced that Matchbox Twenty would be “the butt of the joke” when the band got the call about Barbie using Push.

Later, Atlantic Records’ Julie Greenwald had seen the movie and assured Thomas it wasn’t like that, telling the band, “’You come out of it loving Ken and loving Push.’ And I was like, ‘Aww. All right, really good!'”

You can compare the Barbie version and Matchbox Twenty’s Push below.

Last month, in a cover story interview with The Music, Rob Thomas told us that he believes Matchbox Twenty is “still the greatest pop-rock band in the world.” You can read the full interview here.