In this episode of Seeing Them Live<\/i>, Charles sits down with Ben Daughtry and Jonathan Palmer of Love Jones \u2014 the Louisville-born, LA-based band that has been crafting their unique blend of lounge, soul, pop, and sharp-witted storytelling for over three decades. The conversation kicks off with a shared love of live music, as both Ben and Jonathan trace their concert-going roots back to the same unlikely starting point: Van Halen. Ben recalls sneaking into a show at 14, way too young to be there, watching a then-unknown Van Halen open for Black Sabbath and feeling like “a bomb going off.” Jonathan recounts his own Van Halen baptism at Freedom Hall in Louisville on the Women and Children First Invasion Tour \u2014 complete with $7.50 festival seating and his mother taking notes in the stands.<\/p>\n
From there, the episode becomes a wide-ranging tour through decades of live music obsession. The guys swap stories about Ted Nugent crowd surges, jumping on stage with GWAR in New Orleans, playing congas with Tool at an early Lollapalooza, and watching Rage Against the Machine move 60,000 people. Jonathan shares privileged industry moments \u2014 seeing The Rolling Stones at a 600-capacity room in New York alongside Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, and Questlove, and catching Nine-Inch Nails at The Troubadour when they felt “too big for the building.” The conversation is fueled by genuine enthusiasm, with each story triggering another in a kind of joyful avalanche of rock and roll memory.<\/p>\n
The second half of the episode turns to the band’s own story \u2014 from their residency at Largo on Fairfax, where David Bowie once sat quietly in a booth and Tool’s crew became regulars, to their unexpected appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon<\/i> celebrating the 25th anniversary of their debut album Here’s to the Losers<\/i>. Charles and the guys dig into the Cocktail Nation moment of the ’90s, the making of their new album The Greatest Show on Earth<\/i> \u2014 written during COVID jam sessions in a Louisville warehouse with crickets chirping and trains passing \u2014 and the cinematic, Gil Evans-influenced sound that ties its six expansive tracks together. The episode closes with the band expressing hope to get back on the road, a shout-out to their partnership with Whiskey Thief Distillery, and a tease of possible activity around the 30th anniversary of the film Swingers<\/i>, on whose soundtrack Love Jones famously appeared.<\/p>\n
BANDS:<\/strong> Adele, B-52s, Beastie Boys, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Black Sabbath, Chicago, Combustible Edison, Devo, Earth Wind & Fire, Fishbone, Foo Fighters, GWAR, James Brown, Led Zeppelin, Love Jones, Metallica, Metric, Molly Hatchet, Morphine, Nine Inch Nails, Oasis, Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rolling Stones, Sea and Cake, Steely Dan, Supertramp, Ted Nugent, The Cars, The Cocktails, Tool, Tortoise, Van Halen, ZZ Top.<\/p>\n VENUES:\u00a0<\/strong> Comiskey Park (Chicago), Freedom Hall (Louisville), Largo (Los Angeles), Largo on Fairfax (Los Angeles), Lollapalooza, Metro (Chicago), Racket (New York City), Rose Bowl (Pasadena), Soldier Field (Chicago), The Troubadour (Los Angeles).<\/p>\n PATREON:<\/strong> Please help us defer the cost of producing this podcast by making a donation on Patreon.<\/p>\n WEBSITE – BECOME A GUEST:<\/strong> Visit the Seeing Them Live website and click on the link to fill out a form so we can consider you as a guest on the show.<\/p>\n INSTAGRAM:<\/strong> FACEBOOK:<\/strong> Charles welcomes Ben Daughtry and Jonathan Palmer of Love Jones to discuss the band\u2019s return with a new six-song album, The Greatest Show on Earth (released February 2026), and their decades of blending lounge, soul, pop, and storytelling. They swap formative concert stories\u2014both cite Van Halen at age 14\u2014plus memories of Ted Nugent, Metallica\u2019s Black Album tour, GWAR, Nine-Inch Nails, The Rolling Stones at a small NYC show, and more, emphasizing the power of live performance. The conversation traces Love Jones\u2019 formation in Louisville (1990), move to LA (1992), and weekly Largo residency where Debra Winger and David Bowie sat in the audience and Tool’s crew became regulars. They also cover their unexpected appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon celebrating the 25th anniversary of their debut album Here’s to the Losers. They describe writing new, longer compositions during COVID-era jam sessions with key collaborators and talk about their touring ambitions and their partnership with Whiskey Thief Distillery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_regular_price":[],"currency_symbol":[],"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"https:\/\/cdn.simplecast.com\/media\/audio\/transcoded\/a17b18b8-1140-472d-bc9d-8b7d74cad39a\/6fba452e-d913-428f-890c-05100e781825\/episodes\/audio\/group\/f78429d1-31c2-4837-8709-654b8c5c143c\/group-item\/b5b5c204-9f48-4449-b7aa-1b356a57b533\/128_default_tc.mp3","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"00:47:58","filesize":"43.92M","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":""},"tags":[],"series":[69],"class_list":["post-4111","podcast","type-podcast","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","series-seeing-them-live"],"post_slider_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","post_slider_layout_landscape_large":"","post_slider_layout_portrait_large":"","post_slider_layout_square_large":"","post_slider_layout_landscape":"","post_slider_layout_portrait":"","post_slider_layout_square":"","full":""},"episode_featured_image":false,"episode_player_image":"https:\/\/seeingthemlive.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/seriously-simple-podcasting\/assets\/images\/no-album-art.png","download_link":"https:\/\/seeingthemlive.com\/podcast-download\/4111\/s04-e10-love-jones-making-old-school-sounds-cool-again","player_link":"https:\/\/seeingthemlive.com\/podcast-player\/4111\/s04-e10-love-jones-making-old-school-sounds-cool-again","audio_player":"https:\/\/seeingthemlive.com\/podcast-player\/4111\/s04-e10-love-jones-making-old-school-sounds-cool-again<\/a>","episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/seeing-them-live\/id1666439746","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9FcDlfN2pGVQ","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/0N5twIpQAhq7Zg4VTNUHly","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/seeingthemlive.com\/feed\/podcast\/seeing-them-live","embedCode":"
https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/SeeingThemLive<\/a><\/p>\n
https:\/\/seeingthemlive.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/seeingthemlive\/<\/a><\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=61550090670708<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"S04.E10 – Love Jones: Making Old School Sounds Cool Again<\/a><\/blockquote>