Maroon 5 goes back to school with college tour by Teresa Tobat, features editor
Maroon 5 stormed the pop music scene in 2005 with its debut album “Songs About Jane” and took home the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Following its first effort was 2007’s “It Won’t Be Soon Before Long.”
Two years after its sophomore album, the five band members spent their summer abroad in Switzerland working with producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange who has created albums for AC/DC, Def Leppard, Bryan Adams, The Cars, Shania Twain and Foreigner. Their latest work will be released in spring 2010.
Maroon 5 keyboardist Jesse Carmichael spoke with the Collegiate Times over the phone on Oct. 9. Carmichael discussed the band’s upcoming album, his desire for Maroon 5 to be the first band to play a televised concert from space and guitarist James Valentine’s tennis prowess.
The band is spending November touring colleges. It went “back-to-school” on Nov. 2 and will wrap up on Nov. 22. Maroon 5 will play Burruss Hall on Nov. 10.
COLLEGIATE TIMES: How are you today? Where are you today? JESSE CARMICHAEL: I’m good. I’m back at home in Los Angeles.
CT: When did you get back? CARMICHAEL: Just a few weeks ago.
CT: Maroon 5 is playing at only college venues all throughout November. Are colleges some of your favorite places to play? CARMICHAEL: We want to get away from some of the bigger venues and get back to where we played when we first started out. There’s a certain energy and enthusiasm that college students have. They’re out on their own for the first time.
CT: You started playing keyboard in college. Why do you think you discovered this instrument later in life? CARMICHAEL: In high school, I was really focused on guitar and listened to rock bands. And then towards the end of high school, I started listening to jazz, soul and R&B. Herbie Han**** and Stevie Wonder were my heroes.
CT: How long were you in college? CARMICHAEL: I took about two years of online classes here and there. Maybe this tour is a good opportunity for me to take a few online classes.
CT: Do you regret not graduating from college? CARMICHAEL: No. Not at all. My life just evolved this way. I’ve been lucky. We’ve all been lucky.
CT: Did you ever think your life would turn out this way? CARMICHAEL: I did. (Lead singer Adam Levine) and I used to stay up and talk about how we’d end up like our favorite bands.
CT: You’re all friends with each other. What’s it like working and being around your friends all the time? CARMICHAEL: It’s basically like being in a fraternity. All you have to do is get a ticket (to one of our shows), and it’s like you’re a part of it too. Plus, it’s co-ed.
CT: Did you enjoy recording overseas in Switzerland? CARMICHAEL: Switzerland was amazing and truly beautiful. I’m very excited about how this record has turned out so far.
CT: Did you pick up any new languages while you were abroad? CARMICHAEL: No, just a few words. “Please” and “thank you” in French. That’s all you need.
CT: How do you feel about your new album? CARMICHAEL: I feel like it’s going to be a beautiful thing. People who love us will love us even more. People who are on the fence will love us. And people who hate us will be on the fence.
CT: Do you have any favorite songs off that album? CARMICHAEL: No, it’s too early to tell, and it’s not finished yet.
CT: What was it like working with producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange? CARMICHAEL: He has an incredible work ethic, and his ear is just impeccable. He hears the tiniest frequency changes. If you’re working with someone who has made so many big records, you think, “I better play like it’s just a huge record.”
CT: How have social networking sites such as Twitter changed the musicians’ relationship with fans? Do you think it is a good thing? CARMICHAEL: It’s definitely a good thing. The way that people can connect is a good thing. ... There can be something to be said about mystery though. Radiohead is one of my favorite bands, and I can’t see Thom Yorke using Twitter, but you never know.
CT: Where would you like to see the band go in the future? CARMICHAEL: I think it would be a great thing to play a concert in outer space. It would be televised on the surface of the moon.
CT: Who would be invited to this concert? CARMICHAEL: Lance Bass. (pause) I don’t know. Don’t you think it would be cool to play a concert on the moon? Hopefully U2 won’t beat us to it. We’ve got to establish ourselves a little more on the global scale. CT: Are you at U2 fan? Have you met them before? CARMICHAEL: Absolutely. We’ve only met them once, but they’re super-nice. They graduated from the Mount Olympus of bands.
CT: Where did Maroon 5 graduate from? CARMICHAEL: We graduated from the top of the highest building in Dubai.
CT: College students who follow your Twitter have a chance to play tennis against guitarist James Valentine. Have you ever played against him? Is he a good player? CARMICHAEL: James is insanely good, maybe one of the best. I don’t know what he’s doing being a professional musician. I beat James once, and it was the best day of my life. Adam is getting involved because of his competitive nature.
CT: Our school colors are orange and maroon. Will you or any of your band mates be wearing maroon on the night of the concert or is that just a name? CARMICHAEL: You never know. We’re big into school spirit, big into spirit in general.
CT: Is there anything you’d like to say before we let you go? CARMICHAEL: We’re all just really excited to start playing at colleges and get back to our roots.
I can't wait to hear this album by Maroon5. I loved one of their very early, more ROCKIN' singles 'Harder to Breathe' and I hope Mutt has convinced them to get the rock out and suppress the softer songs (I never liked 'She Will be Loved' ....personally.
How nice of them to spend summer in Switzerland with Mutt!
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Spay and Neuter your cats. You can stop the homeless cat problem from multiplying.
Also, I just checked out Maroon 5's website. They have a short video of recording the album in Switzerland. No photos of the reclusive Mutt though. Naturally. Of course, now that Shania is free of Mutt's clutches, look how much we are seeing of her - including her sharing her summer vacation video with us. Just goes to show you who the recluse was. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the new M5 album.
__________________
Spay and Neuter your cats. You can stop the homeless cat problem from multiplying.
It's not the only country connection on the funk-angled rock crew's latest: Famed producer Robert "Mutt" Lange — known in country corners as the husband of pop-country favorite Shania Twain prior to their divorce in 2008, helmed Hands All Over.
Maroon 5 heads out on tour supporting the album starting in July, but no Nashville date has been announced. Check out the band's tour dates HERE.
Maroon 5's new album has a September 21st release date. Hands All Over will be previewed on their recently announced summer tour.
Adam Levine told Billboard that the album “kind of hearkens back to the spirit behind the first record and is less like the second one. Or is a combination of both, the best elements of both all in one.”
The album is highly produced by Mutt Lange, Shania Twain’s former husband, and producer of such bands like Nickelback.
Levine talked about Lange to Billboard:
"I like to say he descended from the sky in a cloud of smoke and said, 'I want to produce this record,' 'cause that's kind of what happened. He keeps to himself and doesn't necessarily come out of the woodwork unless he really wants to work on something. And he's an amazing guy. He thinks huge; he wants to reach everybody in every country. He doesn't want to dumb things down, but he wants to make things understandable and accessible.
And we don't think about things like that. I just think about how I'm feeling at any particular moment or what I want to express musically. So I think he took this music and really magnified it bigger than it ever could have been before."
The first single “Misery” still has no release date.
Maroon 5 Had No 'Distractions' Recording Hands All Over In Switzerland
'The obligation we had was to dig really deep, and we did,' Adam Levine says of working on album with producer Mutt Lange.
By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Kelly Marino
For their latest pop-rock opus, Maroon 5 headed overseas and into the arms of Mutt Lange (AC/DC, Shania Twain, Nickelback). The band made a getaway to Switzerland, the super-producer's home base, where they worked on their upcoming LP, Hands All Over. And the serene backdrop was just the great escape they needed, frontman Adam Levine says.
"Our biggest weakness is laziness and lack of focus, which mostly comes from me, because I am like that," Levine confessed when MTV News visited the set of Maroon 5's "Misery" video. "But the coolest thing about being [in] Switzerland, we weren't distracted at all. There was nothing to be distracted by, except scenery, which was very beautiful. But once you kind of took all that in, you were left with your own thoughts."
Levine also revealed that apart from battling distractions, the next challenge was to make sure the album rocked.
"It was nice to kind of have that quiet mind, especially for me, because I have the hardest time quieting my mind," the singer said. "It was nice having nothing bothering me, nothing on my mind, nothing to do, no obligations," he recalled. "The obligation we had while we were there was to make the best record we possibly could, and to kind of dig really deep, and we did."
Maroon 5 have sold millions of records, enjoyed the perks of fame (Levine has dated a few Hollywood starlets) and had a number of radio hits, but they say there's still room for even bigger successes. And Hands All Over, due in September, couldn't have come out any better, Levine said.
"I'm so satisfied. I think we all are with what we did, because I literally think it's the best that we could do."
Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Adam Levine is dangling from a crane, 6 feet above traffic in downtown Los Angeles. Gingerly, the Maroon 5 front man is lowered onto the asphalt, where he falls onto his back and plays possum. "Cut!" yells the assistant director.
Levine jumps up, grins, unhooks his harness and saunters over to his trailer to do an interview. Meanwhile, a Doppelganger stuntman in a matching T-shirt and jeans steps in and prepares to mimic the fall -- but from a higher drop.
Maroon 5 is shooting the video for "Misery," the lead single off the band's third album, "Hands All Over," due in September.
The concept for the video is simple. Levine falls for a girl who keeps hurting him -- figuratively and literally. In Wile E. Coyote fashion, the she-devil shoves him off balconies and throws him through plate-glass windows. Pretty soon, his bandmates' lives are in danger, too. One by one, they get run over by cars and explode via rocket launcher in spectacular fashion.
It's perfect, tongue-in-cheek Maroon 5 fare, over a perfect, radio-friendly Maroon 5 track. "It's your standard sad song set to a happy beat," says Levine.
The new album is produced by Mutt Lange, who's worked with Def Leppard, AC/DC and The Cars, but is perhaps best-known as the camera-shy ex-husband of country superstar Shania Twain. He sought the quintet out, after hearing they were writing songs for a follow-up to their 2007 disc, "It Won't Be Soon Before Long."
CNN spoke with Levine and bass guitarist Mickey Madden during a break on the set of "Misery."
CNN: It's been a couple of years since you last made a music video.
Adam Levine: I have this sick, sadistic love for making videos. Usually people say they hate it. I actually really like it. I've always had a hankering to be an actor, so [I'm] seeing if I have what it takes.
CNN: It's a concept video, not a performance-based video.
Levine: MTV doesn't really play music videos anymore, regardless of what they like to say. So it's kind of one of those things where we have more freedom to do what we want to do now, which is fun. And there also needs to be something happening that makes you want to pay attention. And this is definitely one of those kind of videos, and we're really excited.
CNN: You guys worked with Mutt Lange, who we hear is kind of a famous recluse. He's produced artists like Def Leppard, but people probably best know him as Shania Twain's ex.
Levine: Yeah, people that read the gossip rags know him as that, but he's actually much more. He's a very talented man.
Mickey Madden: It's funny that anyone who basically values their privacy in this day and age is sort of tagged as a recluse, but he's one of the most affable, friendly, just easy to work with people we ever had.
CNN: Did you go to him in Switzerland? Rent a place, hole up and go to work?
Madden: We stayed in a little town right on the lake. We shared an apartment, and a couple other guys stayed above the studio -- all of which was in walking distance. It was really amazing. It's one of the most beautiful places we've ever been. We learned the value of leaving L.A. to record. It was super productive. We worked seven days a week, 14-hour days. Mutt and the engineer -- they worked even longer hours than that. They are machines. It's mind-blowing.
CNN: We hear there's a country-flavored ballad on the record, and that you had Lady Antebellum as guests.
Levine: That was one of those things that kind of came about really organically. We really don't know much about the country world, and we had heard about this band, and their dynamics seemed to be right. The harmonies and extra, additional stuff they did on the record was really great. I love 'em. We had them do it from Nashville, which was kind of a long-distance studio session. Long-distance high five, Lady Antebellum!
CNN: What were you looking to do with this third album?
Levine: I think on this record, I didn't have anything on my mind other than what we were doing musically. That took precedence over who was inspiring us -- or what was influencing us -- on the first two records.
Madden: We probably now have a sense of our own identity.
CNN: The second record had kind of an '80s vibe. Did you get any backlash from people who said, "It doesn't sound like the Maroon 5 I'm familiar with?"
Levine: Yes and no. I don't think that we really focused on that kind of thing. It's a free country. If you don't like our music, it's fine. Or if you're disappointed with what we give you, that's fine, too. We tend to focus on people that like it. That's kind of more fun.
CNN: But most self-loathing musicians concentrate on those who hate it.
Madden: Fool's trap.
Levine: Yeah. I'm not a self-loathing musician.
CNN: That's right. We forgot. You love yourself.
Levine: I'm a fan. Big fan, longtime listener. (Laughter) It hurts your feelings though, you know? I can't act too tough about it, because when people say disparaging things, it's not fun. But you kind of gotta let it roll off. I mean -- I just wish Radiohead would stop ripping us off. (Laughs)
Maroon 5/Hands All Over (Sept 21): Produced by the former Mr. Shania Twain — Robert “Mutt” Lang (a fan of the band). The band has dropped hints that this may be their second-to-last album.
I have read that 'Hands All Over' was recorded in Switzerland. How was your experience recording for the album there? Adam: While we were recording in Switzerland with Mr Mutt Lange, we decided to go and do our thing. We got three motor cycles and a car and went going through the Alps, to the Italy, under France and it was a beautiful motorcycle journey. Jesse: It was so amazing and so beautiful. Literally. It was one of the most beautiful trips I've taken. Saw lots of rich people spilling champagne and dancing to really horrible music. It was good fun.
What is the one song in your new album, that you are really excited about/looking forward to? And why? Jesse: We are all very excited about 'Out of Goodbyes'. I was sitting on the couch, playing some acoustic guitar and Mutt was in the room when he said, 'That's a little nice part out there. Why don't you sit down with James and get something else going?' Then Adam walked in and heard it and wrote some lyrics quickly, melodies, and the song took shape. When we were done, Adam worked hard on the harmony and thought it would work great as a duet. So we thought a lot about who would be good for this song. Then we realised Lady Antebellum could be a great choice. Adam: A country shimmer was needed and a banjo. I swear there is a banjo in this song. It caused a bay between me and James but there is a banjo.
A meeting place of many sounds, how would you describe your band? Jesse: It's like crazy... The way our band kind of is. We are like AC/DC meets Shania Twain. Adam: And I'm Twain.
How was it working with legendary rockstar 'Mutt' Lange? Adam: Mutt is an amazing guy and an incredible producer. He pushed us as hard as we have ever been pushed. I am as delighted with the results as I think we are. Jesse: Mutt wanted to make the best Maroon 5 record possible. He did not want to repeat himself and neither did we. So it was a good pairing.
Interestingly, the lyrics of 'Misery' are sad yet the music is so lively. Tell us something about this song. Adam: When I think about that song, I don't realise the fact that it is so depressing. I also like the lyrics but, I love the upbeat template for it. I've been using the work 'juxtaposition' a lot. And that's what exactly it is. Jesse: It's kind of cool. I think we all like that. Happy music, sad lyrics and vice versa.
Is there a particular formula that you adhere to for writing music? Adam: Sometimes it happens from the ground up. Sometimes it's an idea that the band works on and I later jump in and write a melody to it. It is very varied though. There is not one formula. And actually that's nice as it makes things interesting.
What is your song "Hands All Over" about? Adam: The song "Hands All Over" is very 'Mutt' Lange. It was definitely very consciously made. That song actually came later in the process of making this record. There is nothing like it on the record. He makes you think larger than life as he puts you in that mind frame that what is going to be the biggest thing that is going to reach everyone. Across cultures. Jesse: 'Mutt' Lange is a very inspiring person.
By Ed Condran | Posted: Friday, August 5, 2011 12:15 am
You can’t blame Maroon 5 if they’re a bit drained after working with celebrated producer Mutt Lange. The stern taskmaster, who has helped craft some of the most popular rock (AC/DC’s “Back in Black”), pop (Def Leppard’s “Pyromania”) and country (ex-wife Shania Twain’s “Come On Over”) certainly has the touch.
Lange, 62, who was prolific a generation ago, picks and chooses projects these days. He recently chose to work with Maroon 5. The sturdy veteran pop-rock band and Lange created “Hands All Over.”
The disc, which dropped in 2010, is the group’s most consistent and hook-filled album.
“I don’t think that should come as a surprise,” keyboardist Jesse Carmichael says. “Mutt helped a great deal.”
Carmichael, who co-writes songs with singer Adam Levine, believes the band benefitted from Lange’s boot-camp approach to making music.
“He certainly made us work hard,” Carmichael says. “It was a good thing.”
Lange is known for making recording artists go through a myriad of takes to nail a song. “He put us through that and that was fine,” Carmichael says. “You want to make the best song possible and I think we did that again and again with this album.”
Lange stripped the band’s rock ’n’ blue-eyed soul down to the core. As a result, the group never sounded so tight. Each of the new songs is no longer than three minutes and most hit the listener in the gut almost immediately.
“I think we’ve become a different band because of this experience,” Carmichael says. “We’ve more knowledgeable and more open. This set us up for our next album, which will be the most diverse of our career.”
Before Maroon 5 ventures into the studio, the group will have to complete its tour, which stops today at the Susquehanna Bank Center and Saturday at the Bethlehem Musikfest.
“We’re not trying to look too far ahead,” Carmichael says. “We’re having fun living in the moment with this tour. We’re still having fun playing songs prior to this album.”
Maroon 5 built a nice career off of material prior to “Hands All Over.” The band, which also includes guitarist James Valentine, bassist Mickey Madden and drummer Ryan Dusick, has crafted a number of hits, such as “Harder to Breathe,” “This Love” and “Sunday Morning.” Along the way, the band has sold more than 14 million albums.
“We’ve certainly accomplished a lot,” Carmichael says. “We’re doing well now and the cool thing is that our future looks really bright.”