1970s Rock Icon Reveals He Almost Became Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Bandleader

This 1970s rocker dreamed of working on Stephen Colbert‘s The Late Show.

Elvis Costello admitted he wanted to serve the talk show as its bandleader during a recent episode of the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast. The English rocker gunned for the role as soon as Colbert joined as the show’s host.

“Obviously it was an impulsive thing to put myself forward. [Colbert] asked my advice and I said, ‘What about me?’” 72-year-old musician recalled. “And I think he thought I was joking. And I said, ‘No, I’m not joking.’”

Costello was impressed with the Roots’ work as the house band on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. He admired that they still produced albums while working on something different.

“I saw… that they had saved their own lives and those of their family around them by coming off the road and basing themselves. I thought maybe that would be good for us,” he said.

Costello has been married to Diana Krall since 2003. The couple has two 19-year-old twin sons together: Dexter and Frank.

Jon Batiste and Louis Cato worked as Colbert’s bandleaders on The Late Show. The “Oliver’s Army” singer confessed that it was probably best he hadn’t ended up serving the show.

“He couldn’t have done better than Jon [Batiste]. I mean, I would have got fired in about three weeks,” he said. “Not by him, but probably by the network. I would’ve said or done the wrong thing for sure. It was like a dream I had for a minute… It would have never worked for a whole number of reasons, but it was nice to put my name in it.”

During Colbert’s final show, Costello made a cameo to say goodbye. The pair sang his hit track “Jump Up” and were later joined by Paul McCartney to perform the Beatles’ “Hello, Goodbye.”

“That was a lovely way for three performing players to work as a unit. Stephen sang great,” Costello said. “We had a conference call about it and I said, ‘Look, this seems like a very downbeat sort of number to end the show on,’ because initially he was saying it was the end of the show… But of course what I didn’t know was that they had a whole other card to play, which was Paul McCartney. And then I got to be part of that band as well, which was terrific fun.”