Cover Story: At the Corner of Hollywood and Heartbreak

After midnight on a thursday, the five members of Maroon 5 have gathered at Levine's airy, modern house, built into one of the Hollywood Hills. While the band drinks red wine, Levine pulls out his iPhone to show off Hawaiian-vacation pictures. "The most luxurious, amazing trip I've ever taken," he says. He had his first pina colada and, more worrisome, his first golf lesson.

Madden shares an elaborate dream he had where Carmichael was wrestling a twenty-foot manta ray: "Its crazy tentacles came up and wrapped around you and you pulled it onto the balcony. We were sitting there in total awe."

"I have boring dreams," says Levine. "I had one in Hawaii that [Lakers owner] Jerry Buss came to my grandparents' house, and I showed him around room by room. I woke up and said, 'Really?' "

Levine suffers from an advanced case of Lead Singer Disease, always taking over the conversation, perpetually razzing his bandmates, rarely getting called on his own shit. Fortunately, he's funny and genial, so nobody seems to mind. Madden confides, "Adam's been the exact same dude ever since I've known him. Fame kind of justified his personality."

Perhaps inevitably, the band starts playing video games. On the tour bus, after a particularly vicious round of Halo, Levine and Valentine will sometimes not talk to each other for days. "There's rage that you wouldn't be able to understand," Levine says. "I'm a really prideful son of a bitch. I have to work on that." The game tonight is Guitar Hero, so he just watches. "I hate Guitar Hero. I get pissed that you don't play it like a real guitar."

Valentine and Carmichael plug in and are soon rocking out to "Them Bones," by Alice in Chains. When they fluff a section, Levine hoots, "You guys suck! Jerry Cantrell is really upset with you right now." He once met Cantrell. "I spilled my soul about how I thought he was amazing, and he didn't give a shit. Nor should he. I never put myself out there like that, so when I do, I get bummed easily."

The song ends; Valentine edges out Carmichael. The game announces his win with a fake newspaper front page. "triumphs in great show," drummer Matt Flynn reads. "When have we ever had a headline like that?"

Levine grew up in west Los Angeles. His father owned a chain of women's clothing stores, but he says he got his artistic side from his mom, who was busy raising him and his younger brother but who had majored in graphic design at Berkeley. His folks split up when he was seven. "I barely remember them together," he says.