Maroon 5's Adam Levine Recalls the Band's Early Days, How They Incorporated R&B: Exclusive Audio

As you may have realized by glancing at our Web site, Maroon 5 is on the cover of the current issue of Rolling Stone. Contributing editor Gavin Edwards sat down with the quintet to discuss everything from their explosive inter-band battles to the moment frontman Adam Levine realized Maroon 5 would have a career beyond their first album. Listen in on a bit of their conversation here:

Adam Levine discusses Kara's Flowers — the teenage iteration of Maroon 5 — and reminisces about playing shows at L.A. clubs when he and his bandmates were still in high school.

Levine talks about the song "Not Falling Apart" and explains how his approach to music changed as the band adopted a more R&B influence.

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter