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But when season 12 of the show begins airing in September, it will be without its signature band.
To make it ten and a half years is pretty amazing.
They expressed their regret and frustration about it.
I think this was an easy way for them to cut the budget.Easyis not the right word.
Theres a lot of strong emotions.
No one is happy about it.
Seth has been a big champion of ours from the get-go.
They couldnt have been nicer about it.
They told us probably about a month ago maybe six weeks.
Thats a good more than 90 days to figure out whats next for us, so thats pretty nice.
Theres been a bunch of ideas floated, but nothing has been written in stone yet.
Its also just a sad day forLate Night, because its been going for over 40 years now.
Streaming is not making money, either.
So budgets everywhere have been cut and cut and cut.
Presumably the show will still have walk-on music.
So that will continue.
Thats one nice thing theyve worked out.
Were just going to record a whole bunch of them and then update it periodically to keep things fresh.
So thatll be super fun, actually.
But I think that itself is going to be a pretty crazy change.
Im not sure theyve totally worked it out either.
We write all this music and then perform it that day.
Its an awesome kind of madness that I will miss.
Were just having some of our favorite drummers back in the guest-drummer program, and well have Fred back.
Thats mainly what were doing: Trying to enjoy the time we have.
Are you supposed to be talking about this publicly?I dont think so.
But what are they going to do, fire me again?
But also, I have nothing but positive things to say.
Ten and a half years is a very long time on TV.
Every TV show ends; thats just the reality of any creative endeavor.
Its been ten of the best years of my life.
They always really took care of us and let us do what we wanted.
They never really restricted it that much.
Im definitely going to miss it, but I dont have any animosity towards the show.
Those guys have been taking care of us over the years in such an outrageous way.
But there is something about remaining as close to the moment as you could.
Its almost like a jazz performance, where you go up there and theres a musical conversation happening onstage.
But we always have to stay on our toes, because things change minute by minute.
We can do whatever we want.
Theres a special thing about that.
Theres something magical about that.
This was an amazing opportunity that I did not see coming … Talk about a fourth act.
It was a little bit like winning the lottery.
I have nothing bad to say about anyone here, and thats rare.
We have 200 people working here, and everybodys been great.
Everyone is so nice.
Im like, Yeah, why would you not do it that way?
