Elvis Costello Reveals He Pitched Himself For Bandleader Job On Canceled Late-Night Show

Elvis Costello revealed on this week’s episode of the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast that before Jon Batiste landed the job as bandleader for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, he pitched himself and his band, the Impostors, for the role.

“It was an impulsive thing to put myself forward,” Costello said of offering his band for the CBS series, which aired its final episode 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.’”

A Colbert spokesperson did not comment on the report. Costello stated there were serious discussions about him taking the job, which he pitched after watching acts such as The Tonight Show house band The Roots manage a four-show-a-week schedule while recording new music without 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. He added that it did not stop them from making records and mentioned other predecessors like former Tonight Show bandleader Branford Marsalis and his own father, Ross MacManus, an English trumpet player and radio dance band singer who appeared on the BBC.

“So I had continuity with the idea,” said Costello, 72. He noted that after pitching himself and his band, he realized the arrangement would be difficult because members are scattered across the U.S. and Europe, including France-based keyboardist Steve Nieve.

“I started to think about how much it asked of my bandmates, that they would all have to relocate,” said Costello, who lives 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.”

Costello noted that choosing Batiste, a member of the Batiste New Orleans jazz dynasty, was the correct decision. “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.

Costello added that he likely would have been fired by CBS within three weeks. “I would’ve said or done the wrong thing for sure,” the singer said. “It was like a dream I had for a minute.”

Costello was previously banned from Saturday Night Live for more than a decade after playing the This Year’s Model track “Radio Radio” instead of his agreed-upon debut single, “Less Than Zero,” in 1977. He did not return to the show until 1989.

Although he did not get the position, Costello appeared on the May 21 finale of The Late Show, performing the My Aim Is True track “Jump Up” alongside Colbert, Batiste, and successor Louis Cato during a medley that included a Paul McCartney-led rendition of “Hello Goodbye.”