Late Night With Seth Meyers will not feature a live band in its upcoming season. In a new interview with Vulture, 8G Band keyboardist and associate musical director Eli Janney revealed that NBC had cut the live band from a “revamped” Season 12.
“There’s a lot of strong emotions. No one is happy about it,” Janney told the outlet. “Seth has been a big champion of ours from the get-go. They couldn’t have been nicer about it.”
The 8G Band became a permanent part of the show after the Roots left the show with Jimmy Fallon in 2014. At the time, it was fronted by Fred Armisen, and comprised of Janney, guitarist Seth Jabour, bassist Syd Butler, and drummer Kimberly Thompson. Armisen rarely appeared on the show, but Butler, Janney, and Jabour would perform nearly every night.
“I have nothing but positive things to say,” Janney said. “Ten and a half years is a very long time on TV. Every TV show ends; that’s just the reality of any creative endeavor. It’s been ten of the best years of my life. They always really took care of us and let us do what we wanted.”
“I’m definitely going to miss it, but I don’t have any animosity towards the show,” he added. “Those guys have been taking care of us over the years in such an outrageous way. During the pandemic, we figured out a way to do it from home, and during the strike, they really took care of us.”
Janney says that Armisen will join the band as a drummer during the last week as a “little bit of a celebration,” but that it’ll ultimately be a “sad day for Late Night” since the show has featured a live band for 40 years.
According to Vulture, Janney indicated that after the current season, the show would be revamped for budgetary reasons and the live band would be let go. “It’s the reality of broadcast and a shrinking market — streaming eating into this, and YouTube eating into that,” he said. “Streaming is not making money, either. So budgets everywhere have been cut and cut and cut.”
Janney explained that the band will continue “to make music for them” but that they just no longer will be playing live. The group will record some of the walk-on tracks and “update it periodically.” He also said he was unaware of other budget cuts to the show.
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