Matchbox Twenty star regrets having band's hit song Push in the Barbie movie: 'We shouldn't have done it'

Matchbox Twenty's Rob Thomas and Paul Doucette have conflicting feelings about the use of their song Push in the Barbie movie.

In the film, Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, serenades Margot Robbie's Barbie with the 1997 hit as an apparent rallying cry for alpha-male posturing.

The band members sat down to discuss their regrets during a recent episode of the Zach Sang Show.

While Thomas shared the hilarious way director Greta Gerwig approached him and why he said yes to letting her use the tune, Doucette was openly disapproving of how Push was featured in the 2023 satirical fantasy film, whose sequel Barbie 2 is in limbo over 'salary demands.'

'I don't think it’s something we should have done,' Doucette flat-out said.

'I get the culture reference and how everyone knew who the band was. I don't know that everyone got the jokes,' he went on.

'Suddenly there was a large amount of people who maybe saw that we were now the voice of the patriarchy and I was like, "I didn’t sign up for that." I don't view the world that way.'

Doucette, 54, who plays the drums, rhythm guitar and provides backing vocals for the band, said he was in the dark in terms of where the track was headed.

'I had no idea how the song was going to be used until the movie was out,' he complained. 'I was told they were just going to use a clip of it in a scene and then that scene got cut.'

Doucette blamed part of what happened on the group's lack of communication.

Matchbox Twenty also includes Brian Yale on bass guitar and Kyle Cook on lead guitar and vocals. 

'We didn’t have a good system of discussing these things,' Doucette said, adding: 'In a way, it's really good. That was something that as a band we had to figure out.'

Thomas, 54, the band's lead vocalist and songwriter, revealed that Gerwig reached out to him by letter asking to use the song in her movie.

'She was a fan of Push, she was making this movie about Barbie, she wanted to use Push in it,' Thomas recalled. 

'The way it was worded to me I knew exactly what was happening. It said: "Ken's in a bonfire, he's playing Push at Barbie." And I thought that was a great description, "at you," instead of "for you." 

'Unfortunately, I immediately said yes because I was a writer on it,' he admitted.

The movie, which was written by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, begins with Barbie and Ken having a ball in their Technicolor illusionary world of Barbie Land. 

When they get a chance to see the real world, they discover the perks and the pitfalls of human society.

Gosling channeled Thomas and sang Push himself in the movie rather than lip syncing to the original track. 

Barbie went on to become a massive blockbuster that took in approximately $1.448 billion worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.

It made Gerwig, who previously helmed Lady Bird and Little Women, the first female director with a solo billion-dollar movie.

Thomas went on to gripe that Barbie came out just as the 2023 SAG-AFTRA actors' strike began.

'It was during the actors' strike and we weren't allowed to talk about having the song in that movie,' he remembered.

'It was happening and people knew it was happening. We had so many opportunities that we had to let go by because that’s what they wanted to do and we couldn’t do anything with that movie.'

At another point during the podcast interview, Thomas gestured to Doucette and said: 'Me and Paul, I wouldn't say we fight about it, we just have different opinions on the whole Barbie moment.'

Thomas admitted he did see Barbie in the theater and recalled being disappointed and saying to himself at the time, 'Oh.'

Doucette revealed he hasn't seen the movie.

'By the way, to this day I haven't seen it,' Doucette stated before sharing another zinger: 'And they didn't bother putting us on the soundtrack. We weren't on it.'