“I remember when I was really interested in comedy and I was in high school, Alan Thicke had a talk show, and they had all these posters up everywhere like, ‘He’s coming, it’s gonna be better than Johnny Carson’ … and I watched his first show, and it was like, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, here he comes, Alan Thicke,’ and the doors opened, and he came running out, and the band’s rocking out, and he runs down to the band and he picks up a guitar and he starts rocking out with the band, and I was sitting there and I was 14 and I’m like, ‘You’re an ass.’ Click. I always knew that as a lesson, that [guitar playing] is my hobby, and I don’t like it when celebrities inflict their hobby [on the audience] … It’s one of those things that I’m very careful not to do.â€
Here’s an interesting quote from Conan from 2002 during an appearance on Last Call with Carson Daly on the idea of a late night host playing guitar on his show: