Feb 18, 2009 01:29 PM
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Tue Feb 9
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In 12 days, a ready-as-he'll-ever-be Jimmy Fallon will take Conan O'Brien's slot, backed by Philadelphia hip-hop outfit The Roots. Drummer ?uestlove spoke to Rolling Stone about their miserly new bosses, NBC.
The network has informed the band that they'll not pay any licensing fees for published music. So forget clever musical guest introductions, like scoring Miley Cyrus's entrance to "Feeling Japanese," or bringing audiences in from commercial with a rousing, Paul Schafferesque take on "Werewolves of London." Rather, the band will have to perform a new, unrecorded composition every single time:
NBC will no longer pay for published music: That means, the only thing that the Roots can play are original songs. "We have to write 200 new songs, which will probably last about a year," he says. "We've written about 55 so far." [...]
The Roots are booked for five years: "I think if Jimmy turns on the charm like he did on Saturday Night Live, I'm almost certain that this show will work. Anything can happen. Knock on wood that this isn't the Chevy Chase Show or [Magic Johnson's] Magic Hour.
Or, heaven forfend, Thicke of the Night. Did anyone else's knees buckle when they heard the number five years, though? Forgetting for a moment the 1000 new compositions the Roots will be forced to produce as Jeff Zucker cracks a whip in their sweatshop composition room; we just don't know if we can take half-a-decade of SNL-era Fallon charm. Didn't the American people just issue an overwhelming mandate for change?
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