Haunted hitmakers

Maroon 5 takes on ghosts, Swedish and global warming to stay on top

By Andy Hermann

Metromix

October 18, 2007

 

Talk about pressure. After spending three years touring behind their debut album, “Songs About Jane,” which sold over 10 million copies worldwide, Maroon 5 had to deliver a follow-up. And they had to do it while dealing with distractions like the tabloids—where lead singer Adam Levine was seen dating every starlet in Hollywood—and ghosts. Yes, the band worked on “It Won’t Be Soon Before Long” in a haunted house, the same one where the Red Hot Chili Peppers recorded “Blood Sugar Sex Magik.”

 

Apparently, Maroon 5 could handle the pressure. “It Won’t Be Soon Before Long” debuted at the top of the Billboard album charts and spawned the No. 1 hit single, “Makes Me Wonder.” The band’s hot streak continues.

 

Just before launching their next major U.S. tour, Levine and guitarist James Valentine talked about ghostly encounters, choosing Swedish rockers the Hives as their unlikely opening act and touring as an eco-friendly band.

 

Adam, Rolling Stone’s cover story about the band mentioned that you wrote many of the songs on “It Won’t Be Soon Before Long” by yourself. How come?

Adam Levine: I think it was just the way it happened. There was no self-conscious effort on my part to separate myself from anybody. But all of the melodies and lyrics have always come from me, even for the first record. The chord progressions and the arrangements were where a lot of the collaborations took place, so nothing changed drastically.

 

It didn’t have anything to do with the house where you worked on the album, did it? The one that’s supposedly haunted?

AL: Well, no. Although that definitely kept me away from the house when I wasn’t working, because of the strange spiritual goings-on.

 

Did you have an encounter?

AL: I didn’t. I didn’t care to have one. That’s why I wasn’t there very often. James did.

James Valentine: Yes, actually, one night when I was there alone…I was the only one who really stayed there the full time, because I was homeless at the time, so I had nowhere to go…

AL: Aw.

JV: [Laughs] So one night I saw a figure walking up the stairs when there was nobody else in the house, except for my girlfriend at the time. I was so certain that I’d seen someone that I called out to this…thing. Then I went up to the room that it had walked into, and there was nobody there. I don’t know how to explain it, but that’s what I saw.

 

I was curious about how the Hives got chosen to be the opening act on the tour. Did you guys handpick them?

AL: We love the Hives. They’re a great band and we wanted to get a really good, energetic, amazing live act.

JV: It’s going to raise the bar for us every night, because they’re going to be really tough to follow. I think it will force us to step up and bring our A game.

AL: They’re the best Swedish band; we’re the best American band. [Laughs]

 

Are you guys looking forward to learning some Swedish from them during the tour?

JV: Swedish is hard.

AL: Swedish is tough. Swedish is beautiful, though—I think mostly because the Swedish people are beautiful.

 

How are you going to approach your shows this time? What songs are you going to be playing?

AL: We’re definitely going to be playing a healthy amount of new material. When you have one album, you really need to spread it out. You’ve got to play every song, which may not necessarily be appropriate for the set. Now that we have twice as much material, I think that we’re going to really be able to diversify the way the set comes off live. I can’t wait. It’s going to be a thousand times better than the first.

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

 

What are you doing to make the tour environmentally friendly? I know you’re teamed up with Global Cool for this one.

AL: We’re doing a lot of things, but I think the coolest thing we’re doing—the “coolest” thing we’re doing—is giving a buck from our ticket sales to Global Cool to make the entire experience green. We personally are using bio-diesel in the buses…we’re also going to make sure that the dollar goes toward kind of neutralizing our [carbon] footprint for everyone that’s coming to the arena.

 

Where’s the strangest place either one of you has heard one of your songs?

JV: Someone was in somewhere really strange, like East Timor or somewhere, and there were speakers attached to a Jeep, and they were blasting through this village playing “This Love.” I think it was like a friend of a friend who was in the Peace Corps or something. I wish I could have been there to experience that.