Fred Armisen and the 8G Band

Seth Meyers recently became the fourth person in history to have taken over NBC’s Late Night and the show being only three days old, may still be a bit stiff that far, but its house band is definitely something worth to look into a little closer.

Named after the studio 8G at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, NY, where the show is filmed, the band is led by one of the funniest people around, Fred Armisen, mostly known from his eleven excellent seasons as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and also for creating the outstanding sketch comedy series Portlandia on IFC, together with Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein, which debuts its season 4 premiere tonight.

Besides being a hilarious comedian, Fred Armisen is also an excellent musician. From 1988 to their demise in 1996 he was the drummer of the post-hardcore punk band, Trenchmouth from Chicago.

Also during that period, Fred drummed for The Blue Man Group, until he joined SNL and got a lot closer to becoming a household name.

The rest of the 8G Band haven't done that bad for themselves in the past as well. Eli Janney was in Girls Against Boys, Seth Jabour and Syd Butler are both in Les Savy Fav and Kimberly Thompson has played with largely popular and commercial pop acts.

Here’s a couple of more examples of this band’s past.





Having planted that much enjoyable post-punk-ish element to a late night talk show house band, and after proving in a very organic way that one can be funny and cultivated at the same time, Fred Armisen deserves a few pats on the back.


ZR