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9 months ago
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How many drummers does it take to make a late-night show? Well over 300 if you’re Late Night with Seth Meyers.
Drummers have been a fixture in late-night for years – think of Max Weinberg, the longtime drummer for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band who became the bandleader for Conan O’Brien and Ed Shaughnessy on The Tonight Show with Jonny Carson – but Meyers’ NBC show has paved a new path for stick wizards.
Eric Leiderman, a producer on the show, has been overseeing a rotating group of drummers that since the show began – ten years ago on Saturday.
This has included the likes of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith, Slayer’s Dave Lombardo, Guns N’ Roses’ Matt Sorum, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam’s Matt Cameron, Allison Miller and Mudhoney’s Dan Peters.
As the show celebrates this anniversary, Leiderman tells Deadline how this under-the-radar scheme came about and why drummers are an integral part of a late-night show.
Fred Armisen is the bandleader for The 8G Band – the house band for Meyers that also includes Les Savy Fav’s Syd Butler and Girls vs. Boys’ Eli Janney. The former SNL alum, who worked with Meyers on the variety show – started out playing guitar before moving behind the kit.
However, Armisen, who played drums in Chicago post-hardcore band Trenchmouth before starting his career in comedy, was a busy man, filming episodes of IFC’s Portlandia so Leiderman needed to find replacements.
“When Fred was on Portlandia, I wasn’t sure of his schedule all of the time so I found local players from Brooklyn. Then when I realized he wasn’t going to be here for a chunk of time, I decided to reach out to people like Chad Smith. Either through my [drum] endorsers or just through my own personal contacts, rubbing elbows with these guys over the years when I lived in LA and was on the road, I literally cold called people or emailed them to come play drums on the show for a week. That’s how it started. My producing instincts combined with the fact that I have a Rolodex… that was the strategy that I implemented and it seemed to kick off something that I don’t think any of us were quite sure exactly where it was going,” he said.
While there have been hundreds of drummers filling in, it’s never been massively promoted.
“Without sounding self-important, all of this is a complement to the show that Seth does, but I do feel like it’s always been under the radar. I don’t push it out to a point that it’s anything bigger than it is, it’s just a matter of rotating them every week. It’s niche stuff, I’m a drummer, it’s for drummers. Drums in late-night is a thing.”
Drums in late-night is very much a thing.
Jazz drummer Ed Shaughnessy, long associated with Doc Severinsen, was a member of The Tonight Show Band when noted drum fan Johnny Carson was in charge, and Anton Fig was a big presence in the World’s Most Dangerous Band, alongside Paul Shaffer, on David Letterman’s shows.
Then there’s Max Weinberg on Conan and Questlove on Jimmy Fallon’s shows including The Tonight Show.
“Quest is a great foil for Jimmy, he keeps it serious and sometimes he has sketches with them. Max became a comedy focal point for [Conan’s] show alongside Andy [Richter],” he said. “Fred sort of did both of those things acting as Andy and Max in one, but then knowing when to interject. Not that those guys over did it, it was just like, a different show format. It’s crazy to think how important they all are. They all guide the tone of the show in different ways.”
“If you’re Seth, you think I’ve got one of the world’s best improvisers sitting behind the drum kit. Whenever he’s there, they have a little back and forth, we have double trouble, we have a great drummer out there but also Seth can get a little comedy out there,” he added.
Leiderman says that actually playing the drums is only around 20% of the task and the remainder is following direction and “flexing with the realities of recording a live television show”. He says that Broadway players tend to have the most understanding of the gig and rock and heavy metal drummers are also often successful.
“Then you can have some steely eyed clinician, or a touring person who’s been on the road, jumping from band to band, who’s just like ‘What is the assignment?’ Okay, great, I got it, and I’ll nail it. Then you have somebody who’s won 20 Grammys, and has more money than they know what to do with and every fill, we’re all holding our breath. You just don’t know, you never ever know, until they sit behind the kit and the show is moments away from starting,” he added.
He believes that drummers are the “truth tellers” of a band. “They’re kind of the mirror of the band. There’s something with a drummer that reflects a truth. I don’t think Tommy Lee is the most reliable narrator in Motley Crue, but who is in that band? I would still probably still always look at the drummers’ perspective first. They are the person who can see the biggest picture, and that also has to do with their literal vantage point, they’re looking at everyone else’s butt the whole time or watching them move and interact and, and how they play. None of us are trusting the vocalist or guitarist and the bass player is nowhere to be found,” he joked.
Who’s on his list that he hasn’t managed to snare yet? Leiderman admits there are a few “white wales” on his spreadsheet.
“I’m not a big chaser. This is a daily show. This is a part of my job. Of course, it’s the fun, exciting part of my job on the surface, booking musicians is the sexy thing. There’s only so much time to go after the white whales. I have talked to Tommy Lee, I have tried with [Metallica drummer] Lars [Ulrich], I have tried everything I can to get Dave Grohl to come in for a week, those are big influences. It just comes down to scheduling,” he says.
Before working on Late Night, Leiderman was “coming off a life of swinging from vine to vine and hopping lily pads” on shows such as The Showbiz Show with David Spade, The Wanda Sykes Show, Kathy and Impractical Jokers.
“It’s cliché but I blinked and it’s been 10 years but I knew it was going to be the greatest gig and you can’t believe something is this consistent,” he adds.
Meyers will have his friend Amy Poehler on the show on Monday to celebrate the tenth anniversary and Armisen will be back behind the kit. “I’m not going to say we have giant plans for the tenth, the nature of the show is to be understated and to deliver. But it’s going to be a great week. Fred’s going to be there as well. It’s not just going to be a one day thing, we have some great drummers coming up,” he says.
Now, let’s hope Dave Grohl can find some time in his schedule as Late Night with Seth Meyers enters its second decade.
