Maroon 5’s fourth album Overexposed debuted last week at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. Frontman Adam Levine has said the album is “the first time we’ve ever completely embraced the idea of making pop music,” and guitarist James Valentine explained to CBS Local how the band made the jump.
“We really did embrace our pop side on this record and it was really because of ‘Moves Like Jagger,'” Valentine said. “It’s also the type of music that we’ve always flirted with but we’ve always reigned it in with more of our rock influences because at the end of the day we’re a band comprised of the classic rock lineup: guitars and drums and bass.”
While Valentine said in the past the band was hesitant about putting programmed, synth elements into their music, they decided to try something new this time around.
“Because ‘Jagger’ was such a success and people loved the song so much we figured we’d be doing the world a disservice if we didn’t explore that some more,” he said. “So, we were less shy about incorporating more of those electronic elements into the sound and it was a lot of fun.”
In addition to their No. 2 position on Billboard 200, Maroon 5 celebrated another landmark this June with the 10th anniversary release of their debut album Songs About Jane. With the hope to continue their evolution, Valentine expressed the band’s need to jump out of their comfort zone.
“It’s important for us to always be evolving and it’s important for us to be doing something that’s contemporary,” Valentine said. “For us it’s more interesting to do something that’s new. We’d rather fail at trying to do something new than just doing what we’ve always done.”
– Annie Reuter, CBS Local