The late, beloved Late Show With Stephen Colbert almost had a very different vibe before it launched in September 2015 on CBS. At least according to Elvis Costello. On this week’s episode of the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast, the “Veronica” singer revealed that before the show’s original bandleader, Jon Batiste, got the gig, he pitched himself for the job.
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“It was an impulsive thing to put myself forward,” Costello said of his offer to have himself an his band, the Impostors, serve as the house band on the show that was canceled by the network and aired its final show on May 21 of this year. “Steve asked my advice about that role. … I said, ‘What about me?’ And I think he thought I was joking, and I said, ‘No, I’m not joking.’”
While a Colbert spokesperson did not comment on the report, Costello said there were “serious discussions” about him taking on the role that he said he pitched after watching acts such as the long-running Tonight Show house band The Roots deftly navigate a four-show-a-week gig while also recording new music and avoiding the grind of touring.
“I saw what the Roots had achieved across town, you know, 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,” Costello said of his band. “It hadn’t inhibited them [from] making more records and working on things, and it put them at a center.” He cited some other predecessors who made it work, including former Tonight Show bandleader (1992-1995) jazz great Branford Marsalis, as well as his own father, Ross MacManus, an English trumpet player and radio dance band singer who frequently appeared on the BBC.
“So I had continuity with the idea,” said Costello, 72, who noted that after he pitched himself (and his band) he quickly realized the idea might not work for them, as they’re scattered across the U.S. and Europe, including France-based keyboardist and longtime collaborator Steve Nieve.
“I started to think about how much it asked of my bandmates, that they would all have to relocate,” said Costello, who is the only member of the group based in New York, where the show taped. “It would have never worked. We would’ve been asking an awful lot, and the money involved and everything would’ve been unbelievable … to relocate three band members to New York,” he added.
Plus, Costello said, the choice of songwriter/singer/producer and actor Batiste, a scion of the Batiste New Orleans jazz dynasty, was spot on, even if the dream made him smile. “It would have never worked for a whole number of reasons, but it was nice to put my name in it, and I don’t think it exactly did any harm to the conversation and the search for somebody who was truly suited to it, and, of course, took it on to such a wonderful career outside of television,” he said.
Besides, Costello is convinced it would not have worked out and that he’d probably get fired “in about three weeks,” not by Colbert, but probably by CBS. “I would’ve said or done the wrong thing for sure,” said the singer. “It was like a dream I had for a minute.”
Costello famously got blanked from Saturday Night Live for more than a decade after he bamboozled the show (and his label) and performed the This Year’s Model classic “Radio Radio” on the show instead of his agreed-upon debut single, “Less Than Zero” in a fit of punk provocation; he did not appear on SNL again until 1989.
Though he missed out on the steady gig, Costello ended up making an appearance on the May 21 Late Show finale, where the host sang the My Aim Is True deep cut “Jump Up” with Costello, Batiste and his bandleader successor, Louis Cato, as part of a medley that featured a Paul McCartney-led “Hello Goodbye.”
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