Ernie Halter Talks 'Ridiculously Awesome' Justin Bieber Surprise

Justin Bieber joined Ernie Halter onstage to perform Halter's "Come Home to Me" (off his album Franklin & Vermont) on Thursday night in Costa Mesa, California. When Halter got on the phone with MTV News bright and early Friday (May 20) morning, he was still reeling from the experience.

"I still can't wrap my brain around it. It's bizarre," he told us. "I was really impressed with how humble and very sweet him and Selena [Gomez] were to me. They're both incredibly nice people. It's pretty crazy."

He then described how Bieber ended up taking the stage with him. "Well, I mean, him coming to the show, I don't know why I didn't see that coming. I just didn't. I guess I'm slow, but I had no idea until I actually saw him and Selena. I went probably mentally not there for a minute or two.

"I was at the gig last night, which is not close to L.A. at all. He really wanted to go and then I'm talking to someone and out of the corner of my eye I look over and that really looks a lot like Selena Gomez," he continued. "I looked to see who she was with and I went speechless for a couple minutes. I asked him [to perform with me] and he said yes. It was a little bit of a surprise because I didn't think he would do it."

With Bieber's blessing hitting Twitter, the Internet is quickly following and Halter's Internet stock is rising. "I have a tweet deck on my computer and it flashes every second [now] and there's no way I would have been able to envision that," he said. "It's ridiculous. It's ridiculously awesome."

While Bieber has made it clear he's a fan of Halter, is Halter a fan of Bieber? Well, yes, and he has his 3-year-old son to thank for that.

"Entirely [I get it]. I've been a fan and I really believe he's extremely talented," he said. "The type of reach that he has worldwide is really iconic, on a level that we haven't really seen. I think he's very, very talented."