Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson Recall Working on Their Hit Duet ‘Don’t You Wanna Stay’

Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson‘s 2010 duet “Don’t You Wanna Stay” was a huge success for both artists, going double-platinum and earning a Grammy nomination for Best Country Duo/Group Performance. The two stars have teamed up again on this season of The Voice, where Clarkson tapped Aldean as her advisor to help her team members during the show’s battle rounds, and they discussed their previous collaboration in a new interview with Entertainment Tonight.

“We never really met before we did the duet and we met in the studio,” Clarkson recalled. “I remember I was so excited because I loved the song so much, but when you’re meeting someone and you love their voice and you love their sound… you’re not sure if it’s gonna mesh, you know? It doesn’t always work out.”

Aldean shared that he went into the studio with a list of suggestions written down, but once he heard Clarkson sing, he didn’t need them. “I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to have her sing this here and do this here,’ and then she started singing and I just took my paper and threw it to the side,” he said. “It was immediate though, as soon as she started singing… and the way she was singing with me, too, how it all blended, you could tell it was something special. It’s the cool thing, cause you never know what two artists are gonna kinda have that chemistry.”

The American Idol winner added that she and Aldean had been talking about recording another duet, but she doesn’t want to do anything that wouldn’t exceed “Don’t You Wanna Stay.” “We have such a high bar for it,” she explained. “‘Don’t You Wanna Stay’ was not only an amazing song for me personally, I loved it from the beginning, hearing it, then I loved us on it… and then I think a lot of people, that was a big song for them, it was a big hit, and it’s one of those things where now every time I sing with you I’m like, ‘Unless it’s that and higher, I can’t do it.”

Clarkson also noted that her and Aldean’s duet experience is similar to what her team members will go through during the battle rounds. “I thought it was cool because, literally, the Battles are two artists that have never sang together, that are coming together to do exactly what we did in the studio,” she said. “I think that that’s really important to be able to blend with other artists, even if you’re a solo artist. We do duets all the time with other people.”