Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.

Musician John Batiste joins Team Supreme to rehash his journey from smalltown Louisiana to musical director of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Originally released March fourteenth, twenty nineteen, Just follow On, You'll get it.

Suprema Supremo, Roll Call, Suprema su su Supremo, Roll.

Call, Suprema Supremo, Roll Call Supremo, Supremo, rolls all day Yeah, well winter spring and summer.

Yeah, two band leaders of Late Night.

Yeah, both started out as drummer Supremo Supremo roll God.

Who's sma, uh Supremo roll You're both real talented?

Yeah Yeah, and the best band leader is Doc Severn Suprema Supremo.

Roll I fell in my second line after the show.

Yeah, yeah, but have no fear.

Yeah Supremo, roll Call, Supremo, Supremo.

Roll.

Her name is Boss Bill, Yeah, right, as a Halogen, Yeah Bill and a Steed and some Hollywood Africans roll Spremo, roll call, Suprema so Supremo, roll call.

Yeah, and it's going down Yeah.

Thomson yeah, all right, now.

Supremo Supremo, role called Suprema Supremo.

Roll it's John Battie.

Yeah, and I'm in the house.

Yeah.

We about to get down.

Yeah, that's what we about.

Oh call Suprema su Supremo.

Roll call Suprema Suck, Suck Supremo, Roll call Supremo Supremo, Roll call Supremo, Sun Supremo, roll call.

Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of course some Supreme Late Night the Late Night.

Right.

Wait, he's starting already, He's starting already.

Mother is Jamaica.

Shut.

I knew I was going to have to play thank you so rand Love make I love that.

I was going to say, I mean, I was going to introduce our guests, but no, let's introd all right, well let's let's just let's just keep it tradition, so we don't, you know, scare off our viewers.

Our guest today actually needs no introduction, ladies and gentlemen.

And there's not Late Night Wars happening in this building yet.

No.

Our guest today is I will say he's band leader supreme.

Uh, he is multi instrumentalist.

You are a Juilliard graduate, And I'll say that most of America currently now knows you as the band leader for the number one show in late night.

Okay, no, no fake news, fake news no, no, no snort nothing, h of course it's uh late Wait, technically what is the show called.

It's late Night with Stephen Corbert Late show, the late show.

There's like late night late show later tonight.

Yes, the show with Stephen Colbert.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Quest of Supreme the one and only John Patize.

That's all man, So Bill going on, Bill, I'm having to see I have not seen since uh the salon, the foods a lot of your house.

That was like, have you ever had him on Sesame Street?

I just asked him.

He got very upset because I grilled him about hasn't he been on street?

He's like tailor, Man, I know this.

I have talked to him about this, and I'm working on it.

Everybody simmered down.

I haven't been here in a long time.

Everybody's for question.

I've been here for a ten minutes.

Just check it.

Wait, can I ask you something?

John?

This is the one.

This is the question I always wanted to know.

Are you silently because I know you have history way before I knew of you, Like Lenny Kravis put me on to you long ago, and you you You've actually inspired some ideas I've had about how to put show presentations on and everything.

So I've known about you way before Colbert.

I mean you got hired by Colbert because of the reputation that you were building.

Yes, are you?

Do you get slightly annoyed when people come up to you and just like, hey, Stephen, Colbert's guy, like without knowing the history, like you just came out of nowhere to Yes, that happened to you a.

Lot, it does, you know, Like I'll be going somewhere and I'll run into somebody and they'll be like, hey, you're the guy from Colbert.

What's your name?

And then after a while they were like, oh, yeah, that's John Bettiste.

But it's still from from the Lake Show.

Right, I mean you could be from Colbert technically, yeah, you're from it, but it's almost like, you know, I'm Jimmy Fallon's drummer.

Yes, and you.

Don't have the same issue too sometimes Yeah.

Because that's why.

It's it's cool to and as as you do when you have other things that you do that kind of paints a full picture.

I actually, all right, now that we're saying this, I believe that's probably the real reason I stick to nineteen jobs, because it's almost like, Hey, what am I my chef, my cook guy today and my you know, music teacher today and my like I always wanted to know.

Is that slightly irksome when people don't do the research and know, yeah, your history.

Yeah, it's it's something that I think over time, people and people still have been digging back into the catalog of seeing things that we're done.

But I think over time, the more you do and the more you just keep doing your thing and not letting any one thing define you, the more that you can continue to kind of bring people into what you do with your art or your creativity.

You know.

But what about the flip side?

Whereas what I was gonna say on the other side was give you the megaphones that neither of you had ever had PCT Right, I'm.

Gonna go out.

When I saw the last episode of Corbert Report, when you guys did the line, yeah, that was the first time I ever saw you, and I was like, oh shit.

And then I just did the research and I was like, Okay, yeah, it's a way to bring new people in.

Absolutely it's amazing.

I mean, oh good, just being on a show that's kind of like this is fraternity and it's hard to have any sort of malice or disrespect to it, even if people just know you for that right now.

But I feel like I've always just been somebody who likes to create and explore different things and evolve and grow, and I'm always pushing myself to try to find something else that's going to challenge me.

So the consistency of the show is one thing, but I have to balance it out even just for me, not even for the sake of people knowing that there's more that I have to offer, but just for my own well being as an artist.

I got to keep pushing and creating.

So it gives me a chance to share it with a lot more people.

How easy is it to do?

Because I know that there's many sides to John Fatiz as far as like your like, you'll do traditional jazz records stuff with State Human, You'll do different projects.

What I primarily knew you for were these sort of kind of musicals speak easy so to sea where I'll say, you know, years before he was on the show.

He would word would get around that there's gonna be a secret John Patisse show at some nondescript random warehouse in Harlem or in Brooklyn or in the Bronx somewhere, And it's almost like it's the musical version of Well, only New Yorkers will get this reference of like Sleep No More.

Sleep No More is kind of like a play where the fourth wall is sort of exposed and you're part of the play.

You as the spectator.

So you go to this like big wide open space and then John and State Human basically perform.

There's no traditional stage, so there's almost like four setups they you know, they'll they'll pick one side of the corner where their music's set up, and then they'll march to the other side of the room where there's other music instruments set up.

Like everyone gets a chance to be the front row seat, and it's and it's immersive, and they have like stuff hanging around you could play instruments and all that other stuff and enjoining.

It's like I never seen a show in which the artists that the audience is actually immersed in with the show.

Are you able to still do those secret Smurf shows at all?

Is it like.

It's it's it's hard.

I mean, I'm sure, as you know.

The to keep the energy level up after doing the show, I had to take the first six months when I started doing Colbert just to figure out how to do it and and figuring out how to balance everything else that I have been doing with now my job on the show.

But then after I figured that out, I started to focus more on recording things and be in the studio because I was mostly playing live during that time and exploring how to really present a real immersive experience that brought people together so it work.

I saw it live in Philly when you did it.

Oh, you're in the lobby of the Kimmel Center.

Yeah, that show.

It was an amazing show that was fun for free.

I was like.

This and the lily jumped in the crowd went around.

Yeah.

I was wondering, like, how do y'all get paid, because.

Well, sometimes, like when we go on the road, we'd do them after the show, so it would be we would take the guarantee from the show and use that.

So you do a regular show, right, and then that's like your Prince after party.

Yeah, I never knew that.

I thought that was your bread and butter.

Well, at one point it was when we were in New York.

Right then we started to get known for that, and then we got an agent, and then we went on the road.

And then we went on the road.

We didn't want to stop doing that because every venue doesn't accommodate, right that that kind of performance.

So it was kind of like, okay, well we can just do two shows right right.

It's cool.

It's cool to see how people react to the music when you put when you put it in a different context, because like you if we play jazz, for instance, and it's in a jazz club, it's much different than if like somebody sitting next to you on the piano or somebody sitting behind the drums and they can really see the interaction with the rhythm section and stuff like that.

Does that does a plan sometimes backfire?

Because you do present this whole speak easy thing like it's it's like you know, like sometimes it's almost like you're you're walking into a set of an old like fifties burlesque, right, So whoever like designs the stuff, and you know, sometimes I'll see like people trying to sit on your piano bench with you as your drink.

Like, so, how you know some drunk guy suddenly wants to sit in on drums or know, Like, how do you guys control that situation?

It's it's it's a casualty of the situation, Like you got to go into it expecting some people to get super free.

That's the way we're like, Oh, this cat's about to get super free.

And then when that happens, you almost plan the show, Like the set morphs from whatever it was gonna be to accommodate whatever happens.

So if that guy comes in grabs drumsticks or something, then okay, well let's go into the drum circle that we had planned for the next three songs down and put that right.

Now.

There's a question because I haven't I haven't seen one of these, but they sound amazing, and I'm wondering, have you ever done these at the schools?

Oh?

Yeah, yeah, not in New York actually, but we've done them in schools we went to in Amsterdam, we actually we did we did a show at the concert Gibaut, which is like a concert hall there, and that was just like a a traditional show.

And then we went into school and did basically kind of like this kind of curated thing but in their auditorium.

But that was one thing we didn't.

We also went into one of the their equivalent of like the hood, and I got I got them to put a piano in the middle of the street, which I always loved that visual, just having like instruments on the block, which I mean, I know you you played.

And that's kind of how we started this whole kind of concept of immersion, which is when we started playing on the streets and we play in the subways in New York and we'll see how people react when you see see the band come into a cart and just set up for like thirty minutes and play.

It's like, Wow, these y'all not asking for money, y'all not buss right because.

At the end you get to the next car cident on ass That's how you get to be.

Honest, it's always it's always with the wary look when somebody sets up on the trains.

It's like, wait, I know exactly, like the first five minutes on the Hardest have you do that?

Have you done New York trains yet?

Oh?

Yeah, yeah, really I always wanted to do that everyone, Yeah, we should do that one day.

Yeah yeah, if a train and just I guess nothing shocking in New York City?

Who was It was like who are those two guys pen Station or something like that, and like nobody knew, like nobody noticed it that they were there.

Did it once?

Oh yeah, yeah, I saw just like shredding the violin and like Bleaker Street and people are like, actually, come to think of it.

So I tried to once get jay Z to come to one of your events.

Has he seen it yet?

Not that not the he saw traditional one damn because the thing was, uh, I got him the halfway agreed to it.

I had seen the first time I saw you, was I guessed, or the time in which uh jay was doing something at Carnegie Hall.

I'm still a bad beating.

So I said, okay, this is what I want to do.

I said, what I want to do?

This actually after reasonable doubt slightly, this is like when American Gangster was out.

Yeah, and I told him, I said, this is what we're going to do.

You're going to do someone on stage right, and then we're going to march into the the four air the p and then when you're done, you and just Blaze are going to do the Encore and the Nose Bleeds.

And he looked at me like, I'm not doing that shit, but he I convinced him at least to do.

He did his Encore and the Nose Bleed.

And unfortunately, what I didn't realize with with Carnegie Hall was that the way that the balconies are built, if you're like under, if you're sitting on the floor row, you can't see what's happening right there.

So and of course they're like, no, you got you can't stand and you know, like it stands at Carnegie Hall.

It was rather frustrating for the people on the who weren't in the news right right, Yeah, I bet they have a close up view for once exactly exactly.

I was like, no, just give it, give them to there.

It's good.

So we're amazing.

I want to know your story, like where were you born and how was music brought to your life?

Oh wow, So I was born in actually Metoie, Louisiana, and I was raised in Kenner, Louisiana, between Kenner and New Orleans.

I was like, there are other places besides me.

These are like.

Literally ten minutes outside of New Orleans.

They're like suburbs of New Orleans.

But basically even though the airport is in Kenner, it's called New Orleans International, Oh okay, so it's like the New Orleans area.

And my dad he's a great bassist.

My mother's not a musician, but she has a really good ear.

And my dad had six brothers and they all played in the band together.

And from the six brothers, they're like thirty cousins.

And at the time when I was growing up, I was the youngest of the cousins.

Of all that Brude, Yeah, of all of them when I was growing up, I was the youngest, and there were two that were closer to my age, and we started the junior band together.

And the three of us were drummers when we started the band.

But you can't have three drummers in the band.

And I'm the youngest, so obviously I'm gonna be the one that switches instrument and the second youngest.

He had to switch the instrument because everybody wanted to play the drums, so I switched to piano.

Then it's around the time it was like ten or eleven.

Adjustment.

It was I was already kind of like we would pick out songs from video games, and all of us would Mario when Sega came out.

Sonic Oh, Sonic soundtrack is amazing, maybe.

Or maybe not created by Michael Jackson, by the way, I know, maybe or maybe not, we don't know.

Soundtrack is incredible, and street Fighter soundtracks from Street Fighter too, all the way street Fighter Alpha, Final Fantasy seven like we would play.

We would legit transcribe the soundtrack and play it on piano.

So I kind of had a little bit of piano chops.

And then I was also kind of, uh, you know, taking classical piano lessons but not really taking them seriously.

So I had a little bit of a foundation, but when I switched to a piano, I didn't really get serious about it until I was like thirteen.

Did y'all play for other kids?

Because it seems like that would have been dope for other kids to like enter the world of as instrumentation and stuff.

It was cool when we did a gig every year at the Children's Museum.

That was our first regular gig.

The band's called the Baptist Kids, and we printed these shirts, uh it said purple and white shirts Baptist Kids, and it had us on the shirt cartoon versions I remember and we'll play.

Our only gig for a while was the Children's Museum in New Orleans every year, and we played for kids at the museum game play the video game Songs, and we played Marti Gross songs, Saints Go Watch and then you know how uh, I.

Won't even say how important, but how And I know that you're from Louisiana, so you gotta tread like how burdensome is the idea of the tradition of New Orleans music.

Like I almost feel like if you come out the womb, it's like you have to know every solo from Satimo.

You have to know it's true and is it right?

Well, I mean the thing is that you're I mean, I've I've grew up in I mean, I've seen jazz nazis all my life and.

That's a technical term, jazz nazis.

That's a real But I just really Steve is looking at me right now.

I asked the question, will you child?

But I mean there's I mean, the reputation of New Orleans.

I had to deal with Ellis Marcella's who I was a kid.

He told me give up, like you know, he he just straight up told me to give up.

Like and I think that's what really pushed me to not following because I went to school with Christian McBride, Joey de Francesco, all these guys.

So I was striving to be a young lion.

Yeah.

Yeah, And I did this masterclass with Ellis and he just like it was past embarrassment and humiliation, like and you know, I was good, you know what I mean, But it was just like, you know, he like the tone of it.

He like the shirt I was wearing, like you're not a real jazz cat, And like I just I gave up.

I didn't give up.

I just like, well, you're right, go let me go to what I really love, which which is hip hop.

Did he have a circle back?

I just I just need to know.

Branford and I laugh at her all the time, don't mind dad.

So, but I'm asking you, uh, was your being the youngest of it?

Where you're was your family the same way where it was just like you don't get any respect from us until you learn like everything from Maple leave Rat to all these old scrolls of ye it was it was like.

It was it was an interesting mix of different flavors of that.

So, like, my family was coming from the the Meters and it's like the funk tradition.

So my uncle was was one of the first keyboarders in the Meters uh, and then my cousin Russell, he took over in the Meters after Ziggaboo whose original drama Yeah so zig that that was like my immediate family, and that's kind of like what that's what I got from from being around them, was kind of that tradition and just almost vicariously because it was never like John play this, this is how this beat goes, uh, the how these calls.

I would just be on stage as a kid, and I'd be watching and kind of absorbing that.

And that was fun because that kind of influenced a lot of how I look at performing for people in stage presence and also just the communal aspect of music because they would be playing and sometimes you know, you'd have musicians just coming up on stage unannounced, and you know, it would turn into this massive tribal groove and that was one side of it.

And then as I got older and started getting into jazz, around thirteen and fourteen, there was a camp that we all went to called the Lewis Satchmo Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp.

And that's when I started getting exposed to what you're talking about.

And I was lucky because there were a few of the I call them like the village Elders that were just like so open minded.

But they also came from the generation where it was like, you know, people were hard on them, but they were so open minded with us, Like Alvin Battist, he would just he would teach us how to play stuff that was way beyond our level, but he would do it in these little baby increments, Like we'd be playing Giant Steps, and he would teach us like two notes at a time, and then after we got the melody, he would just show us the harmony.

And then after it would take like a month, but then after a month we'd be like twelve thirteen playing Giant Steps, but we wouldn't know that we were playing Giant Steps right, and that if I didn't have him and a few others who were kind of more just like, Okay, I'm not gonna come at it from a critical place.

I'm gonna come at it from a place of okay, everybody has a voice.

Learned this and then once we got older, I played in his band, the Jastronauts, and that was a band where it was like, if it's not different and weird, then it's not right.

He'd always say it's you can be correct, but that don't make it right.

And I actually believe that he would say, because I like unorthodox.

Oh yeah, it's the best.

I mean, he had a sitar player on one of the gigs when we're playing a jazz club, and I was fifteen at the time.

I was like, wow, you can do that.

It just opened.

So because of people like him, I kind of lucked out.

I didn't get caught in the dogma that can kind of grapple you.

Who were your uh your age peers at the time that are notable now like who oh who is in your circle?

So at the camp we were both we started a band together and that became the band that's still his band now, same members eighty percent of the band trombone shorty Okay.

So Troy and I were like, he's a little older, but we were basically came at the same time.

Christian Scott he was also at the camp and also we went to high school together.

They're just It's a real interesting I think because we had the same teachers, but we all came out in different routes.

It's a whole nother you know, each person doing their own thing.

How important is as far as uh New Orleans as a city, Well not how important is it, but how uh explain to us or our viewers or listeners.

Sorry you're not on TV right now.

I know.

I'm so used to explain to our listeners the frequency of of Well it's odd now to have music in nightclubs, and when you're in New Orleans, every block still has bands in it.

Oh yeah, we were moving to North We cop two houses in all get July two thousand and five, July two thousand and five, and then Katrina happened and then that was out the window.

Like we were going to go down and record game theory wow in New Orleans, because the thing is New Orleans has they still They're the last city left with like three very distinctive jazz traditional jazz.

Uh you know the zydog.

You have to explain zydogo music to me and how that separates and then bounce music.

Oh you know.

So they we were like, okay, this is this is a city with three very distinctive styles to it, and we're gonna move down there and figure our way into this mess and then boom like it got ruined.

But do you guys even mix with each other?

Like, first of all, we're even allowed to listen to pop music as a kid?

Oh yeah, it wasn't frowned upon.

No, no.

I was always listening to cash Money, right, I mean there was a point where when you're walking down the street, out of every car you will hearing either cash Money or No Limit, like bumping.

That's the fourth that's the fourth element of New Orleans that people forget about musically.

Right, well, bounce music?

Yeah, is that really?

Is that bounce?

It's in the same strain, the the the drake.

In my feelings, bet is New Orleans?

Yeah, first of all, is cash money and no Limit?

Is that sort of like the are you the one side or the other?

Is that like the Beatles and Rolling Stones.

At the time At the time, not anymore, but at the time it was like, oh yeah, you got choose side.

You choose what side, you know, and cash money was a little younger, right, So yeah, I.

Mean I always because I'm looking at it from a musical perspective, I was wanted them to make something together.

I thought it would be crazy if they came together.

It never did.

I thought it it just would be so powerful because it was just such an embodiment of music in the city up until that point.

There's so much in the sound that came from all of the different elements, even like the the zartacle and the second line tradition.

You could hear it in the rhythm of what they were doing.

So can you break down for us the difference between the various music styles in New Orleans as far as.

Oh, yeah, yeah, So this is what we call the second line, which comes basically from marching traditions.

So you have like the marching band tradition, which was a big thing in early American culture, and then in New Orleans that tradition was changed because you had the influence of the African rhythmic culture and Congo Square was doing slavery, which on Sunday.

All of the different front rhythms and traditions that they did in Africa they would carry on in New Orleans and that was the only place in America where that was continued.

So then that rhythmic culture seeped its way into the marching tradition and that became second Line.

So the base rhythm of second Line is the it's like a bamboola rhythm.

And that rhythm you can hear it in zydaical music.

You can hear it and you hearing Cash Money's music.

Even if you think of of mm hmmm mm hmmm, hmm mm hmmm mm hmmmmm mm hm, you find I mean that rhythm I feel like is the thing that ties all of the styles together.

Wait now I'm thinking about it.

What we what rockers would traditionally called the Bodley rhythm.

So that's basically, yes, that's where the basis of that rhythm comes from.

Louisiana.

No, but Bo Diddley that the the that's the same.

And and to me, when you start hearing that, that's how you can tell, Oh, that's kind of like a New Orleans influenced music.

But the things that change it are the instrumentation and the different different ways that people sing or like the instrumentation issarticle with the accordion versus like second line is with tuba and marching instrumentation.

And then you have bounced music, which is made actually you could do it on NPC.

So it's it's a range of different songs that you can get but the same DNA.

But what's the first line?

The first line is the church.

So second line is basically in the funeral some people call jazz funeral.

The first line of the family that goes into the church, and that's a slow, mournful song.

And the the second line is when you're coming out leave and you leave, and it's a celebration.

Thank you John, like the whole world.

Didn't ye straight up, I never knew why I was second line.

I don't know.

I didn't know that.

I'm telling you.

I've seen a few, uh second line marches for funerals.

Yeah, and those are some extravagant productions, like I've seen them.

Damn.

Are like hip it parade, throw the casket in the air or whatever.

Yeah, like they'll take the casket and start our listeners can see what I'm doing.

Yeah, fist pumpings.

They will fist pump it up.

You know, like when you get married and you sit in the chair and they toss you up in the air like a pizza.

Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

Damn, Steve, you sleeping you.

You let me build the first time a minute.

I'm letting them, let me get some juice space.

I appreciate something.

No, I.

Never knew how easy is it.

I found out that anybody can get a permit to have a parade in New Orleans.

Like any launch for her wedding to anybody.

Yeah, I didn't know it was that easy.

Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it's city.

Hall and just you can hire a band for three hundred bucks.

You ever heard Hannibal Bursus thing when he went to New Orleans.

He's like he bought a band for three They followed him around all night.

Really, yeah, So can I ask a real I'm saying.

Real, I'm not leaving New Orleans question then, because I'm just gonna ask him since we didn't know what the line was, what is my gros really about?

Oh?

My goodness.

So that that's a little more complex.

Not not getting drunk, I'm know.

Whe it's a historical component.

Yeah, people in some traditional dress and you know and stuff.

So I was always wondering.

See the thing is Marti Grass goes into the Trinidad tradition and Brazilian traditions like an Afro Caribbean tradition and people think it's just oh, we go to Bourbon Street and we just get drunk, and yeah, exactly, I'm sorry, but no, no, it's it's it's a very beautiful tradition that's about people coming together and family and and keeping traditions that have been centuries old alive.

And that's just the party is something that has it's morphed into and you know, it's fine the party, but it's not only just a party.

It's nice to know where it comes from.

That's yeah.

So how much Caribbean influences in all the types of music that you just.

Told us about.

Oh, it's like a like a line.

You come from West Africa, go through the Caribbean.

New Orleans almost like the northern tip of the Caribbean.

To me, in my mind, I think of it as the same.

So that rhythm and even even the stories that you hear about reggae and how they would be listening to New Orleans music and it be a bootleg signal and they couldn't hear all of the full uh rhythm and they took certain parts of it thinking that that was the rhythm, and that influenced the reggae, and then it's kind of it's like a feedback loop.

Wow, I never saw.

Yeah, that's amazing.

I mean, so New Orleans music influenced reggae, not the other way around.

Or no, it's it influences each other because because the New Orleans music came from that line of the culture moving across and basically sitting in New Orleans and Congo Squad being the hub where it kind of was fermenting.

And then you know, at the end of Flavor, when you kind of have this release, it's okay to have people making their music and sharing it with the world.

You get people like Louis Armstrong who come out, Buddy Bold, all these geniuses.

It's like you let the lid off.

Speaking of which I just recently discovered, our listeners owe it to themselves to discover the music of Lord Kitchener who he's he's he's king of sort of trinid Daddy.

He's part if any Lord Kitchener.

I would say that maybe the origins of disco isn't the music because with the sock symbol, like it's it's traditional Trinidaddy music, which is more like so it's part New Orleans rhythm and the sock symbol thing with it, but lyrically.

And now his music's coming from the forties and fifties, So he's in the tradition of uh kind of uh, who's the humorous forties jazz guy lou Louis.

He's in the tradition of Louis Jordan or almost like the beginning of what Luke and Two Live Crew were about.

Like his songs are quasi risk and wait can I can I play one song of Yes?

Okay, it's this is Lord Kitchener's Kitchener maybe like Kitchener.

Yeah, it's a mirror talking, so possibly I could be saying, okay, wait, rural jury, Yes there is another rural Yes, I have a questioned.

Yes, he's told you because in my head you're like Yoda and you're like ninety five years old, because you have that vibe.

But I don't think of that.

Old Oh no, thirty one?

No, what still really?

See?

I thought that was a worthy question.

He's an old soul man, it's different.

Yeah, you must have a It must be a lot of ageism for you, because I know them jazz cats be like, man, you don't know nothing.

Yeah, I mean so I would think, I mean, you you speak wise so and you seem.

To know you're the number is the number though, right, Like sometimes they just like puts your thirty one now?

But could you know nothing but a number?

It ain't nothing, But I don't know number?

Okay, all right, you got two choices.

My favorite is My Wife's ninety, in which a yeah, in which he kind of invertently gets with her girlfriend who steals his wife's clothes.

Or Muriel in The Bug, which is story about a bedbug that happens to make its home in the most unsavory place of this woman.

Yeah, I feel like the choice has been made.

Yes, I'm putting both of those in the quest of Mixed Supreme with this.

I love it when you intro to and give like the lyrical.

Which one is this bedbugs?

Now?

I might have to do both because this is less New Orleans tradition than the other song.

But what screen?

First of all, that was an amazing ryan.

Secondly, where'd you find this?

Yeah?

How old is this?

Who's like the person that hips you to this?

That says a lot about them?

I don't know, Like, uh oh, I was looking at Calypso because I knew there was more than Harry Belafontie.

So that figure history.

The beautiful thing about streaming is that's one of the best.

He has a traditional Well I didn't know if he had albums out with lyrics.

Or he just he got one coming out with Kenny Gamble.

Oh snap, really, it's been working on it, Kenny.

Going out anyway, I got play what's my wife's This one is murial in the bedbug?

No, what's the next one?

My wife's ninety?

Oh yeah, because I might have to charge you with loss in me.

All right.

He's known as the King of calypso this is nice, but the lyrics are funny.

She came for one night with kitchen.

She seems of a decent character.

But when I woke up in the morning, my wife, pretty ninety, was missing.

Come back with why.

Why this feels like a late night?

I know, I know, I know.

So basically Kitch Kitsch's wife is away and he's laying her girlfriend spend the night on the couch.

You know.

By the way, here's my wife's night clothes the house.

Well, he also sexes her down on the third and fourth and fifth verse.

I was like seven verses.

Wow, I am an immense fan of of of of kitchen.

Well that's yeah, Lord kitchen.

I'm wondering what the song negro by Injection is about.

Dog.

It's exactly what you think.

He goes there.

I mean, Jack's a lot of humor in politics.

Yeah, yeah, that's sexy.

But yeah, a lot of you know, coming from uh Trinidad.

A lot of his music, the clips of music I can hear sort of origins of New Orleans music and in there and disco and other things like this was in the fifties, so yeah, for listening get Boston.

Uh yeah, Lord around there right, no, right, in nineties.

Because all the ladies know they don't need to fear.

They really don't go past your knees.

The bed bugs, so I don't really really yeah yeah, record I had bed bugs ones.

It was awful.

They go to your elbow, to your knees, all the things.

Wow.

So your bad books weren't that clever to find that area?

Treasure treasure, treasure.

Wow, that was a great lyrical choice.

That was a great lyrical choice.

And lost and ninety are really rhyming today.

No, it's he's the best man it at that.

Lewis Jordan energy too.

Yes, absolutely, with the humor and all that stuff.

You recorded your first album when you were seventeen, correct, yes, yes, what did you know?

How much information did you gather in those five years that you learned traditional jazz to make a record?

Like did you know what you wanted?

And how did it come to be?

I had been playing at a club in New Orleans called the Snug Harbor, which is like our jazz club.

It's like you had the balcony where you can look down at the bandstand, and then you had the bottom level, which is like forty people down there.

And I've been leading bands there from the time I was fifteen, and I kind of figured out what I wanted in the sound, and I was composing music and things like that.

So by the time I was seventeen, I wanted to document the stuff I had figured out by playing at Snug Okay and also just document the different musicians that I've been playing with at that time.

So that was really for me, a documentation of something that I wanted to look back on because I was about to move to New York.

I moved to New York when I was seventeen in two thousand and four, and that's when the record was finished.

You moved to New York when you was seventeen, Yes, for Julia, yeah wow, and your parents never got to do Man, what was that like for you today?

Was that the first time you've been to New York when you were seventeen?

Well, I was listening to Yeah, Well, I've been to New York one time before.

Then in two thousand and two, we played Summer Stage with Troy and I tromon short and we played the Apollo.

You weren't seventeen, you was like fifteen fourteen, and when.

We did that, that was the something yep and and we played Summer Stage and we played the Apollo, and that was the first time I ever been in New York.

And then a couple of years after that, I moved to New York.

But I had been listening to Actually, I've been listening to a lot of records that you made, and that was one of the reasons I wanted to go to New York because I was I went off for sure.

I went to to say this lead.

I went to Berkeley the summer after I've been to New York for it's like a summer that summer program yeah, it's like a five week thing.

I got rejected.

Because Ellis Marsalis was on the community that.

I didn't make it to the summer program Juilliard.

I couldn't afford to go.

What year did you go to the summer program?

That was three?

Okay, I'm older than here.

Yeah, oh wow, that's cool.

You went to you it's like years before that.

Yeah, oh you went there.

Yeah.

I didn't go to Berkeley, but to that you actually had a childhood and then a teenage and I also played music.

I like my science teacher.

I like your science teacher.

Most of the time, I'm like your CPA.

Now I'm like your but I forgot Wait the joke John every time he sees me if I comb my hair, he never recognizes me.

Listen, So like this is true on three or four occasions.

This is wrong, you're doing it wrong.

But this is this is wrong.

Listen every time.

Listen.

He and I really meant when we worked on Hamilton.

Okay, so during the Hamilton mixing process and the recording process, he had like long ass hippie hair.

He was like, uh, what's his name?

With the latter the comedian not thinking me the actor.

We were he's supposed to do this show.

Seth rog why am I paying twenty five thousand dollars pyramid right now?

Seth brow his hair, He had a Seth Brogan vibe about him.

And then and then when Hamilton was finally finished and we all took like the master photo together, like my accountant came out.

He had this nice haircut and a suit and I shook his hand, O, nice to meet you.

A mirror and he looked at me like, motherfuck it's me.

So that's funny.

But that was like two and a half years ago.

Months ago.

I was at six months ago.

Six months.

I've been doing this for years, Like we've been to Minneapolis, were all these places together he's been on.

Yeah, So six months ago at a wedding, I was wearing glasses like that like makes me a whole different person.

I was wearing a suit and glass.

I walked up to him.

I was like, yo, and he was like a mirror.

I like.

It actually made sense in the conversation.

She wasn't here for that show.

I haven't been here for six months.

A black woman or an Indian American woman, like.

You know.

Jamaica.

His mom's black, not by By Black, but the step brother was like black Black, Yeah you can write some peace.

Yeah, I gotta get something.

Can I love cooking?

A few things you can make really red beans and rice, yes with Don Dows, sauce without part, yeah something.

Are you going to the house right now?

She's herself.

Can you pronounce that word again?

Because nobody does that right.

I'm doy like you knew how to say that.

Sausage first line and sausage and yeah wait, I was gonna say uh.

And lo was my man that always cooks outside of his gigs.

All Carmen Ruffings and the barbecue Swingers.

Where they do shows.

Kermit En he plays.

He did a thing at a club called Vaughn's and he'd have every Monday night in the in the in the gig a big old pot of red beans and rice sitting there and you just go self served.

Dude.

I love Kermit Ruffins music, but I really love Kermit Ruffings cooking.

It's amazing.

It's yeah when like I he and he cooks out front, yeah, like not even in the back where it's just like for the musicians.

He cooks the food in the front, in the front.

I'll be back sir, this pot while I go play the solo real quick.

My good fellas like, I want to go yes week New Orleans.

Yes, yes, Kermit Roffins rebirth alone.

So okay, why did you choose Julliart?

So I was I wanted to come to New York.

I went to Berkeley before, and I had gotten the scholarship to go there, and I thought I was gonna go.

Okay, I got that out the way.

I got one more year high school.

Then I figured out what I want to do.

I wasn't even sure if I wanted to go to college, but I was like, if I can get to New York.

Because actually I was listening to those records that you made, and I was reading the line of notes.

What I used to do.

I used to go to Blockbuster Video.

In Blockbuster they had a used c D ben and I used to get sorry sorry, I used to get all of the U c ds and and listen to them down whatever it was, just to get some different sounds happening.

Damn John tell him, wasn't that wasn't.

The ones the ones that I bought some of them.

I bought a Tower record, So actually.

No, it was a U c d MG Music Club.

And I didn't pay for that one, so.

Anyone else want to Yeah, mine came from my roommate record I haven't.

I worked that game.

Theory came outside and paid for that one.

Either things fall apart.

I bought, uh, like water for chocolate is the one that I was.

So I bought Dangerous Michael Jackson and like water for chocolate at the same time.

Wow, that's random.

It was a range of stuff that was it was happening to the bend.

Is just it's the gift that keeps on giving.

I see, well, most most people I know.

I know that Christian McBride chose Juilliard because Miles Davis went to Juilliard.

So usually like jazz cats that go to Juilliard, which is it's not weird of itself because in education is in education.

But I do know that Miles Davis is going to Juilliard is a big reason why most jazz cats mess with Juilliard because otherwise they will all just go to the New school.

But a vibe, right, It's like it's one of the music schools.

It's a classical, right, I mean, it comes from that tradition, so it has that like Lincoln Senna like, yeah, you know, did.

You enjoy it?

You got your masters from that, that means you'd served six years there.

Yes, sir, I was doing stuff that I wasn't supposed to do, which made me take time off in the middle.

But then I went back basically because my mom was like, you have one year left at the time, finish the degree.

Just go and finish it.

But I was doing all types of touring, and basically I kind of developed my work ethic by going to Julliard and then playing all night, and then touring on the weekends, and then coming back and then on the breaks doing all kinds of stuff, putting it together.

So it was a really great experience to kind of figure out how to do a bunch of stuff at the same time.

And pretty much you when did you finally get your degree?

It was twenty eleven, so I started in two thousand and four.

So did you slide in some acting glasses while you were there?

Yeah.

I loved that school because there's so much that you can do to kind of cross pollinate acting and dancing.

There's an orchestra, there's the drama division that you can kind of put these all these different things together that I was always interested in that.

That's one of the reasons that why I went.

I read Miles autobiole truth right, It's just something about Juilliard and also being in New York and and checking out a lot of the people who are online of knows that I liked the music, lived in New York at the time, or played in New York a lot.

It just all seemed to make sense.

Just all Arrow's pointed, Well, go to Juilliard.

If you make it through school, that's great.

If not, you'll be in New York where everything that you like is happening.

So can I naturally assume that perhaps Juilliard's where you met the other band members of Stay Human?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I figured as much.

So, Okay, how did you guys.

For well, the the drummer and bassist Joe Selle, Yeah, Cowboy, Yeah, Joe with the hat.

We we met in high school.

He was visiting, uh, he's visiting New Orleans at the jazz Fest actually, and I was cutting my theory class, I think it was, and I was walking around town in the French Quarter because our school was in Noka, was near the French Quarter, and he was walking around and he had a stick bag, and he recognized me and came up and said, hey, man, do you want to play?

And I was like, yeah, let's go.

So, hey, how you doing?

How you doing?

Let's play?

Almost no words.

We walked and didn't really speak after that, and we walked to my class that I was cutting and I was like, hey, I have a guest, and we played a song for the class.

And then the next year he moved to New York to go to the Manhattan School of Music.

I moved to go to Juilliard, and that's when the band came together.

That's one experience that I regret really never having.

I've never been like a jammy guy.

You don't like the jam What do you mean called the roots?

Damn?

You used to?

I avoid them ships.

Now it's work, I got it.

No, it's like it's it's expected, you know, because my legacy's on jamming.

But I don't know, like you created albums off of that, like phrenology.

It's just like, well for me, I don't like jam sessions because someone has to be the.

Bad guy say it's time for you to go all right, that's you or no you can't.

Yeah, because there's again, I have two microphones, so I'm the guy that's like, you know, trying to tell the saxophone player, don't solo over Tarik, like play a riff, play like it's it's it's it becomes like you think I'm a pain in the ass here.

Imagine me on a job that I'm you.

Know, like sometimes we see you back then.

Exactly.

So maybe it's like I have to be the bad guy.

But more than that, it's just like I like Kirk does that easily.

Like Kirk goes up to the whoever the guest band is on the show and they talk about their their guitars and is this a you know, sixty three Stratt and da da da da, and then they start doing you know, riffs together and I don't know, I never like and sometimes that happens, like I feel, oh god, I feel horrible because Chris Dave has been calling me like all week he's been doing this presidency Robert Glaser.

No, well, technically I was out of town, so no disrespect Chris, of course, But I just I don't know why I don't have musicians.

If you've ever jammed without being the boss, maybe that's the problem.

Huh.

Let somebody else.

John, Like I think if it comes to like music collectors, like record collectors, beeper, like that's my zone.

But I've never been the like I the thing is one I don't I'm not one of those like do you know like the oh this this Steinway was nineteen thirty nine, Like I don't know what my drums are, like yeah, oh this is made of wood or mahogany wood or yeah, yeah that's not me.

I don't know how you're not a gear head.

No, I don't think it's either you know what else.

I'm really not a vinyl head, even though I have all those records.

Yes I'm not.

No, he means like the material, the vinyl, and then no, no, I just meant like, you know.

You're not like Steve.

Yeah, like Steves everyone thinks like it sounds better.

Oh oh you're not one of those.

Good for you, Amir for coming out, because you know people will be scared.

To say that I love vinyl because that's the thing that me and my dad bonded on as when I was a kid, like going to the rest of us.

I like record shopping, but I was never like I don't know which turn people around October November, like, do you recommend Christmas?

Yeah?

Can you recommend what turntable I should get?

And I'm like an iPhone?

So you guys just basically within five minutes you were like, hey you played did you do that earlier in the day, earlier in your life?

Like you like the roots were more now, dude, I start.

My dad threw me into his oldies act, like Tariq was the first person of my age that I played with it even then, like my parents looked at you know, he was you not you.

Mom.

Mom listens to the show and gets mad that I was throwing under the bus.

Mom loved Tariq, Dad not so much.

So yeah, I love it.

It's just you know, I wish I could.

Enjoy it.

I don't know, Yeah, I guess I don't that press.

But you say it's on like not having a roadmap, right, because we kind of went over this with Bobby McFerrin.

Hey, I love having roadmaps.

Oh yeah, I just.

I'm McFerrin with the juliar John No, he's everything.

But would you say that when when the music becomes a profession, the jamming aspect of it all to like hang out and jam with friends thing kind of comes down.

I feel like that, like, yeah, I'm in music all day long.

I like going and like playing for the sake of playing.

Is a little different now than it was when I was twenty two.

I feel like when you're younger and you're jamming is almost like practice, whereas at this point I feel like we have to have an objective exactly like roadmap or just a concept like we're jamming in order to figure out the purpose.

Yeah this is the sound because I feel.

Like, yeah, but tell that to Prince who, yeah, like six hours you know, fuck the show, He'll give you six hour jam session, which is probably my only inspiration from he do it all right, I'll come that was for a reason they weren't doing that for the show, like figuring out the parts of the show and stuff like that.

At least that's what Prince like really enjoys jam.

He doesn't like talking to people, So you've rare the jam with Wow.

I mean I don't like jamming or talking to people.

It ben's on the people, right, because some people don't know how to jam.

So do you what if you're in a situation and again you are you present a situation which people can randomly walk up and play you do you have to be the bad cops sometimes and like like no more cow bell, thank you.

Sometimes there's been times where it just crosses the line and then you have to you have to shut it down.

But I feel like a thing that I find joy and is taking something that's just like would otherwise be disastrous and making music out of it.

Like, oh snap, this person is playing the piano.

They're not trained.

Well, let's make this into something.

See that's what Bob mcpherrn said when I asked him about Heckler's He's like, the way that I extinguish it is just incorporating whatever they're doing.

Yeah, ah see, I hate that.

I'm a control freeing Oh wow, that's happening right now.

Okay, let's see what we can do with that.

Are these with random drunk audience people are like musicians.

You might ass random drunk musicians or.

Super free arrange it's arranged.

It can be anything, because sometimes it can be you can you can have a great musician who is is technically there but doesn't understand the spirit of the moment or what's happening.

Okay, and then that can change what's happening, and you have to go with that.

Otherwise the band, the sounds this disconnected.

So describe to me the day that you got the phone call that you're being considered for the night show.

Oh yeah, late Night with.

Late Night.

I'm sorry, Steven, I love you man all right?

So where were you?

What was the day when you got the phone call for the Late Show with Stephen cober So.

I was in the studio and I got a phone call from Stephen himself saying, I'm about to go on vacation for ten days and when I come back, I want to sit and have a conversation with you.

And he didn't tell me what it was about, but I kind of figured what it was about.

Y'all knew each other already at this point.

I'd been on the Colbert Report a couple of times, and after the second time we kind of had become friends in a way where we could talk and I call him sometime.

But he was not.

He wasn't at any way at the Colbert Reports offering me the job.

But I've been seeing in the news everything was leading to him taking over for Letterman, and I didn't hear there was a band yet.

I figured, okay, well, if there's a band, we may have heard about it, or at least it's not solidified because they haven't announced it.

So when he called me, I figured, okay, he wants to talk about that.

So he goes off the grid for about ten days, no phone or anything, and I have thinking about it for ten days.

Is this something that I think he called me because he knew, okay, think about this because when we come back, you're gonna probably have to make a decision quickly, which is what happened.

We sat down and he talked to me about his vision for the show, and that was like a a pretty long conversation.

Then I was introduced to the staff, which was gonna move from the Cobet Report to the late show, and I was, you know, walked around the office and met everybody, and then after about two or three hours, he's like, okay, so let me know something you want to do and we'll call you in a few next few days to you know, see where.

You're at with it.

Who else was in the running?

Do you know?

Well?

He told me after this is like after we had done a few shows, a few test shows, came to the dressing room, and he says, I don't know if you knew this, but Alvis Costello was, Steve would have left.

He's like, Alvis Costello was basically I'd given him the gig.

But this is before I met you.

Wait, Steve, did you know this?

I was going to go work for them.

I knew it.

Steve reduced some Elvis records.

Yeah, seriously, No, I didn't.

I didn't.

I didn't.

I don't think.

If you had to make the decision, Steve, yes.

Oh that would be Yeah, that would be a tough decision.

I would let Steve do it.

I'm just kidding.

Thank god, John, Wow, you would have had to split.

I mean I would understand, I would, yeah, you know.

Oh man, I'm sorry here.

So he was he was up there.

Like yeah, yeah, but with his band or I'm not sure, but apparently he flinched and Colbert had it in the back of his mind.

After we ad met and that Colbert port Love Right performance, he was like, I'd be cool to spend some time on stage with this guy.

He wasn't aware of it before then, but then.

Yeah, I was about to say, did he go to any of the No.

No, he's actually one of his producers went to one of those and what y'all doing we.

Were talking about at the beginning, Yeah, right, But this also proves the point that there's Ronald McDonald's and then there's Ray Crocs.

And for every figurehead that you think, like, did Steve Gobert go to these shows, it doesn't matter because it only matters to the five people the Ray Crocs, the five people there in Steven's ear about this is cool.

You should check it out right.

It's never the person that the Kanye is that I have.

The idea is it's the fifty people and Kanye's ear that he takes them from anyway, So go ahead.

So that that that was when we've done some test shows, he said, you know, and and Elvis he flinched.

He said, you know, I don't know if I want to have a boss.

And then Stephen says, okay, well that's okay, hangs up, the phone, calls me and it's like, hey, do you do you want to have this conversation.

Come back in ten days.

We have the conversation.

He calls me.

The next day.

After we have this conversation, I meet the staff and he says, you know, I want to you officially have been named the band leader of the Late Show.

Congratulations, we start on this date, and you should start rehearsing your band.

Did you human yet?

So?

Stay Human was basically for months and not only Stay he was a wild thing in the air where people were coming to me and telling me that I should call Steven, telling me you should be the band.

The band was like, man, we had just finished like a nine month tour and they were like, we didn't have anything on the books.

And the band was like, man, you should call Steven.

You cool with Steven, right, you should call Steven.

You should get that gig.

Man, that would be great.

We should lay that get He's so cool, it'd be so great.

And I was just like, I don't know.

I just don't know if that's something that I want to do.

We just finished my first real tour and like we have some momentum.

I feel like we could we have signed a label deal yet with just like all this stuff that and all this stuff was, yeah.

I hadn't signed a label deal.

No, I'm just putting out independent, just put it on the internet, no marketing know anything.

Did you think?

Let me just ask one question to the both of y'all, what's the difference you signed on to the the to Jimmy when how about how long have you been with him?

We agreed in April of two thousand and eight.

That's ten years, and it took about yeah, it took about seven months to really make it real.

Steve, that's like three four three years.

It's the fourth year.

Now.

Did you ever think to maybe make a call, because I'm okay you made a call.

In fact, I reached out, but we met before we could even connect on the phone.

The first night of the show, Alex Soros had a birthday party, and you basically laid the He laid the whole science of the gig down at at this part at the Boom Boom Room.

It was the second time that I talked to Abandon.

The first person I talked to was was Schaeffer.

Chevy Chase introduced me to Schaeffer and.

Wait, you.

I wasn't cool with Chevy really, but I had dinner with him a couple of times from a mutual friend and he was like, you should, and he plays piano, so we bonded over the piano.

For a minute before they got the deal.

Chevy Chase, Chevy Chase plays piano.

This is why you're here because I never knew that Bill Evans this is his idol.

Wow, wait Chevy Chase comedy.

Yes, okay, So did he introduced you to Paul?

Yeah?

Because I didn't know Paul, but obviously I wanted to talk to him when this was kind of in the running, and I went We went to p J.

Clarks up in Lincoln Center and and he and he told me his experience.

And then Mira we we met on the first night of the show at Sorols and he told us about how y'all do all of the stuff with the talk back mike and the leftop, and I mean, I kind of just I sought everybody out.

I called Branford and we linked up when he was in town doing It's like a Bill Witherston at Carnegie.

It was all like, right around the beginning of the season, Well, I'm having a.

Brain fart, who's post Bradford from Philly And I.

Went to see Kevin played with Dave Holland at the Vanguard, which, oh, we're playing the Vanguard next week, shout out.

But uh so the Vanguard with Dave Holland.

State human Uh yeah, hell yeah, I'm coming.

Yeah, it might be sold.

Out nor Riscal way back.

I know, ye, she was with us first anywhere.

I'm going to the winner circle.

That's not true.

You're a winner.

I was playing.

Go ahead, Elvis, just send me an email.

I gotta okay.

So you're basically saying that you went and sought out.

Wow, you did it in ways that I didn't even think of.

I think maybe I talked to Branford for like one second.

Hit up.

Do you know he's still around?

Yeah?

Doctors?

Well he played with us, but I didn't.

The thing was, it's like we literally we weren't going to take it, and I just doing those eight months from April to to what September?

I just figured, Okay, I know we're not going to take this gig because the money was getting good.

Leave it alone.

It's just numbers.

What your math?

It's you said eight months April to September, that's like five Oh are you nerd.

Any words?

I mean I said September, but I guess we told him it's real maybe in November.

So I'm just saying that.

In my mind, I thought, Okay, you're gonna say no, but at least you're gonna have a friend in late night so that when the Roots released records, you could be the musical guess.

And that's all we wanted because we were making good money at that point, and you know, I I guess he kind of didn't take no for an answer, But in my mind, I just thought by that point a lot of acts that we were opening for back in ninety four ninety five, like we're now they're now opening for us, like and no disrespect, I you know, I love but it I would hate when our management would let run DMC open for us, and I'm like, they're fucking run DMC like they need the headline, And even run DMC was like, nah, dog, we just do this hour, get our money be out, and you know, like they didn't care about like whatever romantic things I had in my head of us being legends.

They just like give us the money stuff.

Not for nothing, y'all, but like, for real, have you y'all too soaked up this moment where we just we just mentioned all these past band leaders and this is great, but this is the first time like the two brothers have really been helming the the band leader thing on the late night like the same time at the same time, at the same time, at the same time on the two competing shows, not on the late L L Late and the Late Ya want to say, well, let.

Me finish my point.

My point was.

My point was basically, and I had Bill in mine when I did this, let me finish my point.

My point was pretty much that, uh, I just I didn't want to be in that run dem see position.

I just thought, like, Okay, it's two thousand and eight, man, what if we're not a thing in two thousand and fifteen, we'll be running We'll be run DMC opening for Drake or like like we could ever do that anyway.

I'm just saying that that was part of my Okay, let's let's just go here and get safe and we'll just go somewhere quietly to die.

And that's what I thought.

Well, I never I never once thought that it would be beneficial.

So in your head, after you got all this information, what were the pros and what were the cons?

Honestly, I was I was looking forward to touring more.

But I really Steven actually kind of really convinced me because not by what he said.

I just really liked him because I wasn't familiar with the Cobert Report before I was on the show, so I didn't know anything about him or his whole ethos, of the whole kind of sat tire that he came from in that tradition.

But when I met him and talked to him, we just had a lot of things that I felt like were in common and his objectives for the show, what he wanted to do in the world in general, with everything that he had been doing.

I was really compelled to do it because of that, and I also thought, well, at the time, I was only six, so I was like, why do you laugh every time?

Because that's just amazing.

It's like, what do you do after this?

I remember where I was at twenty six, and it definitely was not on late night.

Television paying leadal like He' not just playing I'm.

Just I just an appointment, right, It was?

It was, It was.

It was such a a great vision that he showed us, and I mean, you know this is before Trump, but it was just the idea that was, let's make a show about people.

So did you draw any parallels between his concept for a show and what you've been doing the music?

Absolutely, I mean there's something we talked about in the first initial conversation about the show, calling the show the joy machine, I guess a machine that you get into and you basically create joy and you pump it out through the airwaves.

My word is a joy machine.

That's my word.

I tell people all the time.

Joy is the ultimate level.

Like happiness is cool, joy is man, Wait one, how did you how did you do not know this?

And Steve, how did you know this?

I was just trying to insult her.

I didn't know.

It.

Real thing, like me and my dad, we have a whole thing about joy And how really that didn't just happened.

Happiness is fleeting, but joy is forever.

Even when you're mad, it's still with this sense of this joy is.

Just you're trying to be a dick.

You're backfired on.

That's actually actually.

That was an introverted all.

Wow, I would love to be that person.

Se like to bring joys work.

That's so good, that's so okay.

I'm curious to know.

I'm curious to know what your daily schedule is now, and I want to know if it's similar to mine.

First of all, how often do you guys have to do you guys?

Ever?

Back up?

Guests that come on the show.

Yeah, yeah, we back up guests sometimes fragmented parts of the band back up.

I guess like the last thing we did I played not with the band with Nas mac Miller when he man, yeah.

Wow, last performance on TV.

Damn yeah yeah wow yeah man.

Yeah, we we we do it a fair amount.

In season one we did it a lot, okay, but and we also did a lot of sittings, and then after about a year and a half we kind of scaled back on that and now we're just.

It's hard.

I'll start first, well, okay, the thing is, it's because I always want my fantasy's like, YO want my idols to sit in with me.

And the thing is is like my idolds are I'm being generous if I say sixty, they're more like sixty five, seventy seventy five and years old and setting their ways.

And the thing is to be the position that we're in right now.

Oh trust me, we're birds of effects.

I believe that to be in the position that we're in right now is a bunch of fast thinking thinking, fast thinking fast man and someone that gets what man, So we want who's who's the cat that uh right?

No, no, no, no, no class dead.

So you know, wait, who's ill of the dead?

I got a great example.

I got a great example.

There's two examples.

Who's the guy who's the guy that sings the theme to mister Belvidere and the all the all detergent throwing to bro We can all utilize.

I wanted to know mister Belvedere come ons a double like he.

Leon Redbon, so Leon Redbone?

He's about was he like seventy eight?

Now how do you get the gig?

Because Jimmy, that's the thing like oftentimes, like random ideas will come and then the unfortunate thing is like the perception of oh the roots can do anything.

Is that hurts us so much because I'm a dog and smoking mirror a human?

Yeah, with with with with smoking mirrors.

I mean, anything can happen.

But oftentimes we'll get thrown.

Occasionally we'll get thrown a curveball where it's like, oh, I want you know, I want to hear the guy that's singing the all the commercials from the seventies and and the mister Belvedere theme.

It's like, in theory, it's seems like a good idea.

Yeah, but it's like I'm the one that has Usually these people are like seventy nine, eighty years old, right, so it's like he's sixty nine.

How old is he sixty nine?

Trust me, he's more like eighty nine.

And it's like, okay, so at the counter of three, we're going to start dope, b bro, You're throwing to China, devote the vote rope whatever the lyrics are to mister velvit.

And it's like they might not be that quick, you know what I mean.

And oftentimes they'll be like what dude, and they'll just look at the camera like, oh man, who's the guitar player?

And uh reitha Wranglin was singing respect to him and the Blues brothers.

Uh oh oh, Mcutar Murphy, No, Mcott Murphy.

One time, Mad Guitar Murphy.

You remember how aunt esther and Friday when she was the Jove's witness, the way she said fuck you, Well, the funniest moment in our history of that show of sit ins.

M Guitar Murphy again up there in age or whatever.

Didn't want to wear in the ears or anything.

So I'm like trying to tell him, okay, the next song yeah, and he just looked at me and he's just like fuck and he took his guitar and walked off to walk off over here over to you.

Stories?

What's your favorite?

What stories are you allowed to tell?

You can speaking in.

We had jazz week that was yeah, we're talking about some good oldies.

Wow that it's only like twelve seconds of Tod and Jimmy Heath.

To the Heath Brothers Brothers.

That week it was the Heath Brothers, Wayne Shorter, Wow.

Roy, Roy haynes Man, Yeah, he can know.

He's good.

Roy is good.

Roy played over Steven on a bumper.

Yeah, eighty five, eighty five at least, right, he's ninety two.

We get fired from music director job late.

He played over the bumpers at last, you know, like twelve fifteen seconds coming in and then you stop and then the show goes on, propels you into the next act of the show.

So Roy is playing and he's in the middle of just this fiery solo, and like all of us on stage are like, man, this is amazing.

But I'm like, how do I get him to stop?

And I'm like waving my hands, no, no, oh, you were coming in.

How do I get him to stop, So what did you do?

What did you do?

So at one point he realized it, but it was about thirty seconds in and Stephen was like, did I just hallucinate?

Did y'all just hear that?

You know, he incorporated into the bit.

But it's just the sittings are very difficult.

How how distracting?

Can I ask?

How distracting is noodling?

Oh, I hate to the show noodling?

Okay, so it's guitar player.

I'm not throwing Jimmy under the bus at all.

Jimmy is very distracted by noodling.

So just cooking noodles on the side of the stage.

It's just like your guitar, but you're not playing the song even if the amp is off.

You know, sometimes guitar players will sit there and like practice a little bit, but Jimmy can still hear the So oftentimes I have to remind people like any tuning, any tuning, or you're basically supposed to be a frozen statue while the show's going on, and oftentimes one little like a or accidents happen, you know what I mean.

But it has the potential to throw his concentration game off.

It's like if you're shooting, uh a three point shot with five seconds left in the game and suddenly your mom's on the side, Hey, hey, hey, you know, distract and it can throw off the game.

So I'm saying, how when mistakes like that happen, is there fear in your heart, like, oh God, this is the end of mine.

It's we've gotten good at at at moving around because we still move around the theater and and and and basically, we'll be playing in the balcony one break, or we'll be playing and you know, we'll go to the there's a two tiers, so we'll go to the balcony on the stage side, or we'll go to the balcony on the audience side, or we'll go in the aisles or and and we have a lot of percussion instruments and tambourines make a lot of noise when you pick them up.

So we've gotten good at it, so we don't have as many hiccups anymore.

But we got a note early on, like in the first year, we got an email.

I get the email and it's like, so during the show, would like it if the band area could be as quiet as possible and I was like, oh, okay, but the energy was like during the show, I knew it was coming because I think somebody dropped the tambourine and Steven looked over.

He didn't say anything, but he looked over like he's like, hmm okay.

And then next day, Oh, what what time do you have to be there?

Normally, well, it's changed production.

Meeting or it's Marissa the production meeting person.

What time do you have to be there?

In the more so, I technically don't work at the Late Show anymore.

I worked just for John, but I worked there for three years.

I actually worked the premiere of the Late Show and the premiere of the Tonight Show.

Took the information, and.

So this is like a colliding of two worlds right now a little a little bit.

Yeah, but production meeting starts at ten thirty, So back when I was an employe at CBS had to be in around ten.

John usually gets in around The schedule change is depending on how you feel with the band.

How often you do live in Manhattan?

Please tell me you do?

I used to.

I don't anymore.

No, you Lioklyn, Brooklyn used to.

Live two blocks away in Brooklyn.

Look at him, Yeah, I belong in Brooklyn.

Yes, I still maintain they want me to live at thirty one Rock.

Oh yeah, yeah, Oh for sure.

John would roll out of bed and walk to work in probably fifteen seconds.

That's how close here.

Awesome.

Now it's like an hour.

I'll so I just wanted to get outside of it.

Yeah.

And also I want I want to put a studio because I have so many things that I want to record.

I'm putting the studio at the bottom floor, so I can kind of just roll out of bit and go to the studio and then go to work.

Can I ask you just to rate your millennialism?

What part of Brooklyn do you live in?

So it's like Clinton Hill, Fort Green Borders.

What's what you think, Bill, that's like a little stage five?

Great your millennium.

He's living around the area where I used to live when I first moved to Brooklyn and got priced out.

Oh you gentified?

Can as you never read any of the the cons of because we all know that Steven is so involved in the politics side of things.

Does that ever come at you in any type of way?

You know it It doesn't, But it's definitely aligned to tread in the sense that you have your identity, but your identity is so closely related to the show and the content of the show.

So people watching the show probably know what they're getting into.

Yeah, but I don't know if you know.

That's true.

But I didn't know if you get those.

I'm sure he still gets mean emails and hate stuff.

I'm talking about Steven, not John saying.

Yeah, people still don't like it.

They know what he's saying.

They don't like it.

I love it myself, but I feel like, if you're watching Stephen Colbert, you know what you're getting.

Oh you do?

So anyway, what's the cafeteria like that?

Yeah?

Yeah, Yeah, There's so many things I want to ask about this show.

First of all, what what's the degree level of the of the theater?

How cold is it?

Oh?

Man, damn me.

It's like i'd say, probably fifty eight degrees.

Yeah, you can see your breath still cold.

Yeah, they've kept it cold.

They say that they keep it cold to make people make people laugh, right, and back in the day they kept it cold because the lights were so hot.

Now they're LEDs.

They don't produce any They.

Always got a reason, they say, to strip levels of the nipples hard.

It's always exactly exactly.

You got to wear a winter jacket when you're in there.

We we should say that the CBS Theater letterman was there first.

Yeah, and he started normally it should be sixty eight degrees, yes, and then when the lights come on, then it's hot.

But as she said, now it's led.

It doesn't there's no heat uh emanated from it.

And now it's like fifty eight degrees.

That's not that's ballpark.

But I think around there the other.

Day it was factually recorded at fifty eight because that was fake news.

How big was the theater though there was a it's about a five hundred seater.

Really tall ceilings.

There's a big dome.

It's five hundred seats, bigger than another woman.

Yeah, the ceiling is that's what he has.

No, No, because in my mind I thought you guys were playing for like ten thousand people.

No, it seems large.

As like a little like four ninety something looks big on cameracks.

The dome is.

The dome is pretty massive.

But yeah, seat wise, it's I think it's under five hundred.

Yeah, damn, okay, it's nice.

You guys have to warm up at the beginning.

Oh yeah, are you tired of marching out and doing It's like a it's it's good for the band if we keep it fresh.

So if we we change it.

Exactly, so you gotta you gotta come out and you have to do something that you don't even know how it's going to turn out.

It's almost like a way for us to warm up ourselves, not even just the house.

So we've recently been we've been doing sunny rollins Saint Thomas.

Oh okay, yeah, but sometimes we used to go out and it would just be like, here's here's the groove, let's play sky in G and then we'll modulate on Q.

To be flat.

Right, So you guys have your your code speaker.

Yeah, okay, since you're playing in close quarters.

I will say that for the roots, at least these last nine years brought us so close together in a way that is scary, where we can now literally have conversations with each other musically, which I mean just our our our level of code speak, certain certain reference lines, and Mark plays something we know, you know, third row five seats in polka dot shirt.

Not anymore because he's married.

Exactly look.

Touch he can't look they.

Heard that my fault mark, But I mean it's hypothetical.

But the point is that there's at least there's about thirty things we can communicate with each other without saying a word to each other.

I could literally play something on the tambourine or or or the symbol or something if I want Kirk's attention, I know what riff to play if I want the horns, and there's something I do a rhythm on the fourth.

So are you guys at that zen moment now where you guys know each other that?

Well, yeah, it's it's some wild, just coldes that we got happening with, especially with the band who the guys who were part of the band before the show.

We brought some of that in because we developed a lot of colds when we would play on the subways.

Because when we play on the subways, you couldn't always say something to the cat, here comes thugs, let's go right, yeah, you know what I mean.

So it's like taking that and then also playing together every days.

It's been a lot of little things that when we play a venue now it just feels like, oh, we're running now.

We took the weight to off our ankles.

It's like, oh, this is like way easier than it used to be.

All right.

One of my final questions, are you tired of people asking you how long is this going to be for?

Oh?

My goodness, how long it is gonna be for?

Well?

I mean, I mean.

Question, Hey, yeah, I gotta get.

You got to ask every man, every thirty year old man, that question, how long you're gonna be here for?

Because you know y'all like to.

I mean, I tell you what.

The the first part of the contract is five years.

Okay, so I'm there, there you go, and the rest we'll see.

I mean, I love doing it.

I don't have plans to leave, and so it's just it's hard to know because we're actually doing the show almost every day.

And it's like, you gotta be thinking about that.

Because you can't now you can't do projects like you did the season of tre May and stuff like that.

But you want to do you want to still do things like that.

There's another question I asked, wait, digit can you does each band member, well, it's this as does each band member have their own backup sub just in case you get a call about blah blah blah being in the hospital or wow, someone's.

I'm I'm never subbed.

I'm just damn y'all love each other too.

It was like, I'm just trying to think of what would happen if we needed.

A sub So if somebody's sick, they just.

Yeah, nobody been sick.

What kind of what y'all doing?

Kind of health regiment.

I've been sick on stage before.

Steven's also been sick on stage before.

With y'all, it's kind of the show has to go on.

Yeah, I found I finally found a drummer that like, when I closed my eyes, I was like, holy shit, I'm playing drums?

Who is that?

Who?

Did I just ask you about?

Raised?

Raised drumm?

Willie Jones Jones?

I want him to be.

I want him to be.

Do you just want vacation?

No, well, I mean just in case you get a call or something like.

That's the thing.

It's it's things gonna happen.

You know, when my father passed away and I had to rush to to take care of stuff and Philly, I need someone to send him for four days, and I had that person.

But there's other things to your job besides drumming, like his.

Yeah, but at the end of the day, it's it's still I know that there's a lot that revolves, but the way that the circle is now the way that I planned it.

You know, I could as long as those twelve seconds are straight going in and going out.

My point is that your guys jobs involved more than just musicianship.

You have to be charismatic, you have to be funny.

But there's Treek, see, there's.

There's you got tore though, right, But John, Who's.

Who's the second most charismatic person in the group?

Just in case, what would you say would do that?

That's not like John, you got energy this like could step in and be the front man.

Yeah.

We I don't think we've ever.

I don't mean forever.

I just mean like a show school would do that because.

Now I think we're messing them up because get sick, you know, I feel.

Like we're getting energy has evil face.

I was thinking, even even in situations where someone has missed shows, we don't get a sub We just played with with the band without like like like Lewis Cato plays the bass and then when he was out for a while, we just did shows where there was no base, with no drugs.

We have Tuba as well.

So, I mean.

It would be interesting to do this.

I don't I think this is dangerous.

I don't know.

But you should just play, you should plan for it.

But yeah, I gotta think about that.

It's almost seven hundred shows six What.

Are you guys on, Alex We're on number No, we are, We're about we're coming up on two thousand.

We're on eight hundred something right now?

Right?

Are we in the nine hundreds?

Yeah, we're nine to fifty on the Tonight Show and we did like nine seventy on the first one.

Oh shit, I forgot about.

But who's late Night?

John?

Got about the first A John?

What's a Hollywood African?

Oh?

My good?

Nice segue?

You like that?

Well?

So in entertainment, Jean Michelle Boskia, who I've been researching for the last year because I'm doing a musical sinspired by his life for Broadway.

I've been researching him and that's one of his paintings from eighty three.

Is called fuck Why did not?

Now?

I feel ignorant?

See?

I thought she was trying to lead into something.

I thought you knew that.

Well that's the title, yeah, that title?

But title the title of my album that when we just put an album out called Hollywood Africans.

But the idol is a homage to Jean Michelle Bosquas nineteen eighty three painting where he's kind of it's an indictment of the entertainment industry and the way that there's a marginalization of African American entertainers and how they have to wear a mask while creating all these different things.

Code speaking, Yeah, we talked about code speaking on the show last week.

It was the funniest thing ever on y'all show because, uh, the actress that used to be in The Hungry Games and now in Amanda.

Yeah, yeah, I forget it.

Amanda.

She was trying to explain what code speaking was at each other, like someone gets it?

Well, you know, uh, you know, are there any other Have we covered everything?

No?

We don't everything.

Is there something that you missed?

Uh?

No, it's just so ultra interesting, you know to hear about.

Wow, Steve, what what was that way to wrap it up?

Steve?

Can I just ask I have to do this for just because I'm a female and somebody's going to want to know.

You sing, Hey, I'm in a relationship, talk.

About all right?

I am your marriage dude, don't know you always do that beauty.

People like people relationship.

They hit you too when I ask you about your personal.

When they when you when one one guest of ours was like, damn why she had to put me in the autar like that?

Nobody heard that one.

Wow, thank you taking congratulations.

And thank you John for the the the Late Night Wars edition John, go ahead, Oh yeah, all we need is what's his name formerly of mactub Oh, I can't think of his name face but I can't uh Afro, He's a He's Reggie something.

Reggie watch watch Oh yeah, another late night music director.

Yes, we need to have the a late night symposium with all the Yeah.

That would be so yeah, that would be dope.

Love Fred Armison, right, yes, yes, another drummer.

Or we like to thank you for being on the show.

Than you.

Shout out to you always come back to tonight show.

Check out John's new album on streaming on Pandora right now.

Yes, and then go look at the look at the painting.

I do have a lot of and I do have a question of course.

Go ahead, Steve.

You guys have a rehearsal room there, like yeah, yeah, it are.

Seen both so yeah, you know ours it is pretty much the same size.

Yours is a little Yours is better because you have an actual mixing board in there and you can record straight into We don't have that to get hooked up.

Wait a minute, time out, I gotta extend this show for three minutes.

Wait a minute.

You guys do that show and don't document any ideas that you have during rehearsal.

Oh yeah, we do voice memos on the iPhone, you know, wow with an organized dropbox system.

Again technology killing.

I'm saying, get a little recording system inside your rehearsal room.

Yeah, and then you can document.

See I thought you meant in the office, because I have that in the office.

No, we are.

Our dressing room is our studio.

We made We made Elvis Costell's album inside of that dressing room like places in real studios.

Yeah, and always kind of debunked the like it's also that's your just one dressing room.

There's y'all got like five, like I just y'all have.

It's you we got to It's like it's like a gym locker room there, I.

Mean, because we have we have there's the two dressing rooms, and then one of them is the band one half of it is the band rehearsal room.

And then I have the office, but that's on the other side of the building.

So that's where like the drums and the recording equipment are, but in the band area.

I never thought to put a recording situation.

Yes, that way, and get you, get you a Steve, get you a Steve.

And then when you and then have a computer on stage where everyone's in here, and then oh, yeah, you have.

That, but we just played the voice memos through it.

We record the voice and we play them that.

You don't need an engineer.

Just let's drop it.

I'm sorry.

Last random question, Can the Roots appear on that show?

And if you if your album could appear on the other show, could you'll ever be on the same show?

Sad we have uh Jon Batiste on the Tonight show.

Whether there's no who's the new Less Moons of Yes, yeah, we don't hang out y'all, y'all y'all country without a president.

Well you have the step in, but we don't have No one has been brought in.

I definitely know that, uh the Roots aren't welcome to anything on CBS, including the Grammys during the Less Moons period because the the proximity of the Late Night Wars was like a thing.

In his head.

Oh wow, day, I want it, you want it, you want it.

No, I'm just saying that I have zero qualms.

And you know, Stephen and Jimmy have done that.

They did want each other shows before.

Oh okay, and to me, one of the greatest things, like I would love to do in April Fool's Day where it's like both those straight they're so stupid, but that would do.

Would show Remember that Charlie Brown, I think Brown battle.

That was so we weren't allowed to post that though, but maybe we'll take it out of the archives and on Instagram, the Late Night War situation.

He don't like you.

I'm sorry, I don't know it was.

I'm wasn't us to do it.

Yeah, don't, I don't.

I'm not saying to look like I'm supposed to know what's going on on the Lord Michael's level.

Again, this is what happens when executives and lawyers and red tapes get involved.

Let's take it out of the cool.

We had a we had a like Lucy Lionis.

Via text message and it started out, how did it start off?

I think the James or James James.

So Megan Trainer was on the show promoting the Peanuts movie and uh, go.

Back, wait to look on your face.

That was like, I wish the audience could see your face right now, all of our viewers.

Yeah, John's taking a picture.

Stories like that's what.

I don't remember can Train on the Peanuts movie.

Soundtrack song song on it?

But long story short, we go back and she texted me and she was like, I'm at tonight's show and I used to intern there back in two thousand and I don't know something something, So she recorded James.

Uh or no, I recorded John playing the Peanuts theme song on the piano and texted over to her.

Five minutes later, we get a text from James.

He's playing it back.

It looks like black Charlie Brown, a little bit of like.

He was like, okay, let's go.

So John's like, all right, well, we got to send one back.

So we record John and he throws this like bluesy flavor and it's like I tried the level up.

So then James sends back one again and his is even more insane.

Than John's and we're like, all right, we're stepping it up.

Let's go.

So we go to the rehearsal room, like, tell the band, all right, guys, we're gonna send another video to them.

We're gonna reveal you when the camera pans around.

So I got my iPhone.

John starts a little intro and then then we pan around.

The band comes in and we're like, all right, we got them, we got them, send it back.

We send it back, probably about like two hours past.

We're like, all right, we won Like pretty much, they can't.

They have nothing on us.

Get a text message and it's a close up of a mirror and they're in the studio and they start playing the Peanuts theme song.

I'm pretty sure.

I'm pretty sure Keith.

Filmed this or something.

The phone pans back, the studio is full with the audience and they're all doing the Charlie Brown dance and this is probably this was about i'd say, two minutes before we were supposed to go.

On stage, and.

What are we gonna do?

Then?

What are we gonna do?

So we go on stage and you got I don't want to say who I thought one.

I mean, you guys like went around the house and everyone was cheering going to.

March to the audience.

I don't know, I'm gonna.

Say I think the Roots.

The Roots kind of had it down though with the Charlie Brown dance in the audience that was that was tight.

But so we brought it to Steven and we were like, we did this thing.

It was so random.

It's funny how it turned out, you know, like the late night bands are friends, and he was like, oh, this is a great idea.

Do you know what we should do.

We should get we should do ours over and get everyone to wear Charlie Brown T shirt and do something like crazy like that, but then have the to have John and the band march out of our theater and into the tonight show theater.

I joined them on stage and make it like a charity thing around Christmas.

So this is twenty fifteen and.

Three years of fast.

We might bring it back Dan, which is dead, which is big.

He's done make it happen.

We will make it happen.

I never knew what happened with it.

I thought, sitting on my computer, wait, but we didn't put it.

On Twitter or Instagram or anything.

They told us anything with it this Christmas, bring it back.

All right, we shall bring it back.

Continue, Let's do it.

No, it's not late night friendship.

That's the jokes.

Continue always.

Mister Rogers was still here.

Second starter war between me and mister Rogers.

Some bloods and crips between Street and mister Rogers.

Johnny Costa, Yes, John Costa, Yeah, all right, well on behalf of our all questions.

Thank you, all right, thank you, John, Patissa Amerson don't know this, y on, behalf of Sugar Steve and Boss Bill and and and and Boss Bill and unpaid Bill.

I forgot unpaid bills like I wasn't even here.

I know and Bill for this week.

Yes you are overdue Bill.

I'm what's Fontcolo?

He's not here doing his basement or something.

He's definitely like Matt finishing the stairway.

Okay, well this is quest love of course, Love supreme, and we will see you on the next go round.

And I'm with I was waiting for purchased all of Kyoto's all his scoring music.

He it was like a Japanese with the roots.

Yeah, he said with us, Yeah, I forgot that.

Yeah, you win.

And all we did was his songs.

Wow, what drink I want to get?

Yokoshima mourat Yeah yeah.

Man, all right, we're out, We're out, We're out.

John H.

Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.

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