One of the perks of being a successful actor is that increased access to resources makes it easier to pursue passion projects not necessarily related to your main gig. Ryan Gosling made an (actually decent) album as part of duo Dead Man’s Bones in 2009, John Malkovich has a spoken word record on the way, and now, H. Jon Benjamin is pursuing his musical dreams… except not really.

Benjamin has a jazz album coming out soon, despite his complete lack of interest in the genre. In the trailer for the album, he says, “I don’t play piano at all, and I’m not a huge fan of jazz, never was. That’s why I thought it would be funny to make a jazz album.”

He’s not kidding. You can watch portions of the recording sessions, and Benjamin really is just aimlessly hitting piano keys while a skilled jazz band accompanies him. He refers to himself as a “jazz daredevil” and the album is called well, I should have…* with the subtitle *learned how to play piano.

One of the band members made his skepticism clear: “I don’t know, I didn’t get it. I didn’t get it when I first heard about it, I don’t get it now… maybe he’s a visionary, I don’t know. But it was thoroughly horrible.”

That’s perfect because that’s exactly what Benjamin was going for. And don’t think this is just some online sketch video: The album is really being released by Sub Pop on November 27, it actually features guest appearances from Aziz Ansari and Kristen Schaal, and you can literally pre-order the album here.

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HT: AV Club
Featured Image courtesy of Sub Pop