“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” may be synonymous with The Roots at this point, but Fallon wasn’t the first late night host to use the beloved band. That honor belongs to Stephen Colbert.
“Strangely, I actually have pieces of [‘Captain’ Kirk Douglas’] guitar, and this is true,” Colbert said during the most recent episode of the podcast “Strike Force Five.”
In 2008, “The Colbert Report” did a show in Philadelphia where Douglas and Questlove performed as the show’s band.
“So you were the first host to have The Roots as the band?” Fallon asked.
“I don’t like to brag, but I do brag all the time when you’re not around like, ‘I kinda broke that idea,’” Colbert said. “They played for one night, and they started the show with the national anthem. At the end of it, Kirk smashed his guitar, and I swept up the pieces and had him sign it and had it mounted on a wall.”
Surprisingly, that’s not the only story the late night duo has about one of Douglas’ guitars getting smashed. Once when Prince came on Fallon’s show, a guitar tech forgot the instrument, so Prince asked Douglas if he could borrow his.
Fallon recalled Douglas was “honored.” But after an “unbelievable solo,” that awe turned to horror.
“[Prince] finishes the solo, and he throws the guitar up in the air, and no one’s there to catch it. And it just shattered,” Fallon said “Kirk’s face went through every emotion. He was happy, almost crying, ‘This is the best thing ever’ to ‘You just broke my favorite guitar.’”
Ultimately, Prince paid to have the guitar repaired, and Douglas now says it sounds “better than ever.”
As late night remains off the air and the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes continue, “Strike Force Five” has emerged as a behind-the-scenes late night replacement. Composed of Fallon, Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver, each episode features the biggest names in late night sharing their favorite on-air stories and generally trying to make each other laugh. All proceeds from the podcast go to the strike-impacted out-of-work staffs on each of the hosts’ shows.
