Adam Levine has gone mainstream. He began his band Kara’s Flowers as a young teenager and a few decades later he’s on The Voice, he’s been cast on FX’s show American Horror Story, he has a men’s fragrance in the works, and his band had their biggest hit to date with “Moves Like Jagger.”
Levine covers the new issue of Paper magazine to talk about his “unquenchable thirst to be the center of attention,” what’s up with the girl he wrote Songs About Jane about, and why he wants to “study marriage.”
If you thought Adam would be interested in flattering himself or hiding his flaws, he isn’t. “I can be a huge pain in the ass, huge pain in the ass. That’s part of who I am and there’s not a person I know who doesn’t think I’m a pain in the ass. But I’m also really nice and a completely affable and socially adept person. There’s a difference between being an asshole and a pain in the ass…”
On Jane, the girl he wrote songs from Songs About Jane about: “It was a brief relationship, but we really did fall in love with each other and when we broke up, my heart was broken. I didn’t have money or a job. All I had was a girl I was in love with and the dream of being a famous musician. I was like, ‘I need to turn this into something good or it’s going to be a bad thing.’”
On marriage: “I’m extremely fascinated by marriage. I want to study marriage. I want to learn about it. I want to know it. I want to figure out whether or not I want to do it. I’m not just going to leap into it, because that’s not good for anybody.”
On the upcoming Maroon 5 album, Overexposed: “This was more of a song-by-song basis. It was kind of a cool collage on this record. I’m really happy with it. It just feels like it doesn’t give a shit and I love that.”
