Seth Meyers has spoken out about the impending loss of his Late Night house band.
Meyers offered his response in a new interview on Deadline’s 20 Questions on Deadline podcast, noting his mix of sadness and gratitude.
The news that Late Night would be cutting The 8G Band came in a Vulture interview with keyboardist Eli Janney earlier this month, citing NBC budget cuts as the reason.
“It is very sad,” Meyers told Deadline. “I think they know how sad I am that they’re not gonna be part of the show moving forward.”
Indeed, Janney seemed to share that sentiment when he first broke the news to Vulture. “Basically Seth Meyers and Mike Shoemaker, the showrunner, brought us in in person to talk about it,” Janney told the outlet. “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.”
“Seth has been a big champion of ours from the get-go,” Janney added. “They couldn’t have been nicer about it.”
Late Night executive producer Lorne Michaels offered his own thoughts on the change last week when speaking to The New York Times. “I think everybody had to go through belt tightening,” Michaels told the paper, adding that the industry no longer has faith in the “network model.”
Still, it seems Meyers is focused on remembering the good times. “I feel incredibly grateful to have had The 8G Band for 10 years,” said the host. “Somebody like me never thinks they’re going have the luxury of people playing music before they walk out on stage. I feel grateful for the time we had together.”
For now, Meyers still has some time left with the band. They’ll be with the show through the end of the summer.
“I’m happy we get them through August,” Meyers said on the podcast. “So we will value this time together until that comes. But mostly I just reflect on it as a gift that I had for a great many years.”
The 8G Band was with Meyers when he launched Late Night in 2014. The host recruited his former Saturday Night Live colleague Fred Armisen to serve as musical director—a role he still retains in addition to being a recurring performer in the band.
This fall will mark the first time in the more than 40-year history of NBC’s Late Night franchise that the show does not have a live house band.
