Entertainment

When bands attack!

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What does iconic “Tonight Show” bandleader Kevin Eubanks think of the Roots’ controversial entrance song for Michele Bachmann on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”?

Eubanks, now on the road touring with his band, tells The Post he found Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s choice “very funny.” As she walked on the show, he and the Roots played “Lyin’ Ass B – – – h” by Fishbone — for which NBC has since “severely reprimanded” the frontman. On second thought, Eubanks says, it was “perhaps a bit too in your face.”

Eubanks, 54, who led “The Tonight Show” band for 15 years, continues, “However, I loved it. I wonder if that would happen at 11:30? You can get away with more at 12:30.”

Questlove has since apologized for the incident in an interview with pitchfork.com on Thursday, saying he chose the song because of Bachmann’s “whole revisionist history angle,” but added, “Blocking 3,500 Tea Party extremists [on Twitter] in a three-day period is no fun.”

Although the Minnesota congresswoman demanded and received multiple apologies from NBC, former “Tonight” musical leader Eubanks says she played the whole incident all wrong. “She should go with the flow and say, ‘If I have to be a tough b – – – h for America, so be it, and that ain’t no lie.’ You know what I mean?”

The Roots’ play-on song choices are often in-jokes that celebrate or skewer guests. Past songs include: Stevie Wonder’s “Creeping” for Tiger Woods; Genesis’ “Illegal Alien” for Lou Dobbs; “C is for Cookie” for Gabourey Sidibe, Beck’s “Loser” for Heidi and Spencer Pratt; Digital Underground’s “No Nose Job” for Joan Rivers; “Won’t Get Fooled Again” (The Who) for Anne Hathaway; and D’Angelo’s “Sh – -, Damn, Motherf – – ker” for foul-mouthed “Curb Your Enthusiasm” co-star Susie Essman.

Asked if he ever had a guest express displeasure at a play-on song he chose, Eubanks said, “Not that I can remember. I sound like Herman Cain, right?”

The general philosophy among bandleaders, Eubanks says, is to keep the show moving.

“If nothing is specifically asked for, it’s fun to think of something related to the guest,” he says. “Colin Powell likes calypso music so we’d do that. Hilary Clinton requested a song, and we played it. As soon as she sat down she said, ‘It would have been nice if the band played the song I wanted.’ She later apologized off air. [But] you have to realize that [most]guests are so preoccupied with that walk onstage and the applause and lights that they probably don’t notice anything at all, really.”

When he did “Tonight,” he did get in a few digs of his own, though.

“We sometimes played a few things that were more of a statement, but even then I tried to keep it subtle,” he says. “Serena Williams got ‘Brick House.’ President Jimmy Carter got ‘Salt Peanuts.’ Donald Rumsfeld got ‘Wake Up’ by Rage Against the Machine. Well, that one wasn’t so subtle. But you get the idea.”

mstadtmiller@nypost.com