What’s So Funny ’Bout Elvis Costello Being Stephen Colbert’s Bandleader?

I mean, this guy doesn’t ever want to go to Chelsea, but he didn’t say anything about the Theater District. Add this as another dice roll for the remedial late-night chaos theory: Elvis Costello was almost the bandleader for Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show, so much so that he pitched Colbert himself about the vacancy. Rolling Stone reports that Costello was asked by the host who would fit the position well before the show premiered in 2015. “I said, ‘What about me?’ I think he thought I was joking, and I said, ‘No, I’m not joking,’” Costello recalled, stressing that the talks became serious. “I saw what the Roots had achieved across town, that they had saved their own lives and those of their family around them, by coming off the road. I thought maybe that would be good for us.” Pointing back to Branford Marsalis’s tenure as the band leader for The Tonight Show, Costello noted, “Lots of really great people have done that gig.” (Including the man who got the gig, Jon Batiste.) However, logistical hurdles for the Imposters ultimately rendered the idea untenable. Costello was the only one based in New York and knew he was “asking an awful lot” for the Imposters to relocate to the city. “The money involved and everything would’ve been unbelievable,” he added. But, big question, would Costello have fit in with the very un-groovy CBS corporate culture? “I would’ve got fired in about three weeks,” he believes. “I would’ve said or done the wrong thing for sure.”