Monday, February 10, 2014

Kimberly Thompson to drum with house band for NBC's Late Night With Seth Meyers

Former St. Louisan Kimberly Thompson has been chosen to fill the drum chair in the house band for NBC's Late Night With Seth Meyers.

Known as The 8G Band (after the studio where the show will be taped), the group will perform on the program Monday through Friday starting on Monday, February 24, when Meyers, former head writer and cast member of Saturday Night Live, takes over NBC's late-night slot from Jimmy Fallon.

Thompson is perhaps best known as the former drummer in the all-female backing band for pop singer Beyonce. Since leaving that gig a couple of years ago, Thompson has been working on songwriting and production, teaching, and doing jazz gigs with guitarist Mike Stern and others.

The 8G Band will be led and "curated" by Fred Armisen, formerly of SNL and currently working on the IFC comedy series Portlandia. Though he's known more as a comic actor, Armisen also is an experienced drummer and guitarist who, before turning to comedy, played drums in the punk band Trenchmouth and worked as a backing musician for the Blue Man Group.

After joining SNL, Armisen also contributed to NYC rock band Les Savy Fav’s 2007 album Let’s Stay Friends and performed live in 2011 with singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom. He created numerous musical spoofs and parodies for SNL, including the character Ian Rubbish, a send-up of Sex Pistols singer Johnny Rotten, and is expected to do more as part of the Meyers version of Late Night.

Shown here with Meyers (fourth from left), the members of the 8G Band will be (from left) guitarist Seth Jabour, also a member of Les Savy Fav; Thompson; keyboardist Eli Janney, from the band Girls Against Boys; Armisen; and bassist Syd Butler of Les Savy Fav.

Late Night With Seth Meyers will air at 12:35 a.m. Eastern, 11:30 p.m. Central on NBC affiliates across the country.

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