The thought scares him. Adam Levine senses a trap door -- quicksand for pretentious young rock artists who dare to weigh in on a question they would be better off waiting 10 years to answer.

 

A polite reporter from a San Francisco publication asked Levine what kind of impact Maroon 5 wants to make on our culture.

 

Levine shuddered. But he did provide an answer.

 

"Bands get big and they kind of develop these grandiose opinions of themselves and what they want to do," Levine said during a recent conference call. "Then they start answering questions like this ... and you think, 'All right, let's backpedal for a minute.'

 

"We craft songs and we love to play them. And we hope to inspire people and make them smile or make them think or make them do whatever they're going to do, or dance maybe."

 

Levine, James Valentine and the rest of the band are getting quite good at that last part. Five years after "Songs About Jane" went quadruple platinum, Maroon 5 has another hit album on its hands. "It Won't Be Soon Before Long" followed "Jane" into platinum territory.

 

The guys are happy that the album is doing well but happier that they have a collection of songs to pad their set list.

 

"We're sort of known for playing cover songs, and it was because we had no choice on the first tour," Valentine said. "We only had one album's worth of material, so we had to start throwing in some other people's songs. We're just excited that we have enough songs to make a set of our own music."

 

Now about that oddball album title ...

 

"I think a lot of people can relate to that phrase, too, in a weird way," Valentine said, "because I think a lot of times in life, we're just waiting around for the next thing to happen and sort of forgetting about where you are right now."

 

Levine added, "I guess it's the closest thing to what a Ringoism would have been [with]the Beatles when he said, 'It's been a hard day's night.' You kind of understand what he's saying, but you don't really at the same time."

 

Known for pop anthems like "Harder to Breathe," "This Love" and "She Will Be Loved," Maroon 5 has attempted to expand the group's sound by practicing and performing with other musicians. The band has opened for the Rolling Stones and jammed with Prince at his house.

 

"The goal is always to play with musicians who are better than you, and [Prince] would definitely fall into that category," Valentine said.

 

But it's Maroon 5 -- not Prince -- that is the hot commodity now. They're hoping they age as gracefully as Prince so they can still play gigs 20 years from now.

 

"I think that we don't want to burn out, and there's definitely this mentality that's very strong these days about cashing in, and we're much more interested in longevity," Levine said. "We're also interested in cashing in to some extent. Who wouldn't be?"

 

Thanks to www.northjersey.com :teresa:

Edited October 6, 200717 yr by Irene

Levine added, "I guess it's the closest thing to what a Ringoism would have been [with]the Beatles when he said, 'It's been a hard day's night.' You kind of understand what he's saying, but you don't really at the same time."

 

That line is making me think now. :lol: