Clothes make the band

Posted October 11, 200717 yr

Maroon 5 answered an early wake-up call — at least by rock-star standards — at New York's Radio City Music Hall last month when the "Wake Up Call" crooners attended a 10 a.m. rehearsal for Fashion Rocks, the annual Fashion Week concert that weaves style and song.

Bathed in an alternating fuchsia and violet glow, the band members, who hit the road in late September for the first time in three years, demonstrated that theirs is a diverse sartorial statement.

Bopping around in black YSL boots, black Rick Owens skinny jeans and a dark, slim-fitting shirt from Cloak was frontman Adam Levine, his hair sculpted into a subtle fauxhawk. "We all have different aesthetics. We don't look like we're in the same band," said Levine, 28. "I think that's cool."

The singer traded in his T-shirt-and-Levi's uniform for more designer duds only a couple years ago, when he was on hiatus between albums. (The group's second, "It Won't Be Soon Before Long", was released in May and made its debut at No. 1.) "I started caring about the way I looked, the way I presented myself," Levine said. "And it's fun."

At rehearsal, James Valentine and bassist Mickey Madden reached back to a slightly older era, channeling their high school grunge roots with curtains of dishwater head hair, scraggly facial hair and, in the case of Madden, tufts of chest hair poking out of his kelly green cardigan.

"Mickey's got a very — like an almost expensively chicly, rugged and dirty vibe," Levine said. "Grunge chic."

It's easy to relate the looks to musical entities. After all, "fashion has definitely been intertwined with music for a long time," Levine pointed out — even dubious fashion (Prince's bum-baring pants, anyone?). "People in bands, they're spending just as much time thinking about what they're going to wear as what they're going to play (in concerts)."

Jesse Carmichael sported an extra-wide rattail (think wispy mullet). And though Levine said he's not "the biggest fan" of Carmichael's gas-station-attendant coif, he respects such follicular pluck.

The singer's reaction when his bandmate revealed it a couple months ago was "confused. Perplexed, slightly. But I think it's funny. You know, anyone can pull anything off if they have conviction, I think."