Come September, Seth Meyers will be without his house band on Late Night. According to Vulture, the 8G Band, who have been the show’s house band since Meyers took over in 2014, will not be returning for the upcoming season. The band is fronted by Meyers’ former and includes guitarist Seth Jabour, bassist Syd Butler, and keyboardist Eli Janney, as well as previously drummer Kimberly Thompson.
In an interview with Vulture, Janney, who is also the show’s associate musical director, revealed the reason for the cut to be for budgets. Additionally, a source close to the show also confirmed the news that Late Night with Seth Meyers will be undergoing a “revamp” of some sort. Many networks and platforms have had to make budget cuts in recent years, whether that means cutting down episodes, casts, or even shows themselves.
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“Basically, Seth Meyers and Mike Shoemaker, the showrunner, brought us in in person to talk about it,” Janney explained. “They expressed their regret and frustration about it. They had been trying to work it out for months, but in the end, NBC was adamant about where they wanted the budget to go. It’s not just the band; there’s a whole crew that works with the band, so there’s a lot of people employed. I think this was an easy way for them to cut the budget. Easy is not the right word.”
“There’s a lot of strong emotions,” he continued. “No one is happy about it. Seth has been a big champion of ours from the get-go. They couldn’t have been nicer about it. They told us probably about a month ago — maybe six weeks. That’s a good more than 90 days to figure out what’s next for us, so that’s pretty nice.” It’s definitely going to be hard to watch Late Night with Seth Meyers with no house band, especially since it’s been such a big part of the franchise for decades. It’s going to be interesting to see how the show moves on from it on NBC this fall.
While Eli Janney admitted he isn’t “part of that discussion” as for how Late Night will address the change, he shared that there are “a bunch of ideas floated.” The little bit of good news is that there will still be music, so the series won’t be dead silent, but it will still be weird with the live music and added commentary.
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