Adam Levine Part 1

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Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. You all ready, I hope the Juggals Well, here we go.

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Speaker 2: Suprema Shut Shut Supremo, Roll Call, Suprema Shut Shut Supremo, Roll Call, Suprema Shut Suh, Supremo, Roll Supriva, Suck Up Supremo roll.

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Speaker 1: Some say I exaggerate, some say hyperbolic.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, talking to one of my favorite comedian actors from Workaholics Supremo, Roll Call, Supremo, Suck Suck Supremo.

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Speaker 4: Call My name is Fante, Yeah, and I'm feeling free. My favorite songs about Jane si ep M d Oh.

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Speaker 2: Car Supprima Supremo, Roll Call, Suprema Sun Sun Supremo, Roll Call.

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Speaker 1: My name is Sugar.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 6: When I was thirteen, Yeah, my bar mitzvah was filled Yeah with Adam Levine.

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Speaker 1: Roll Breva Supremo, roll paid Bill.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps you've heard Yeah why Questlove? Yeah, dressed like big bird.

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Speaker 5: Roll Supremo roll It's like yeah, and isn't me?

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Speaker 7: Yeah, Adam's here Yeah, and it's hard to breathe.

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Speaker 2: So Supremo, Roll Supremo, Supremo.

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Speaker 8: Roll Call. My name is Adam. Yeah, I'd like to go Adam yeah, I want it hits Yeah, yeah, I got him bro.

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Speaker 5: Roll so.

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Speaker 1: Roll sure son sun.

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Speaker 8: Up Son was good. That was.

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Speaker 1: Straight up and then I let it go. Steve, you should leave it. I'm sorry, Stevie one.

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Speaker 7: That was amazing.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I'm in big Bird move right now? You look so yeah.

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Speaker 3: In case you guys missed, I don't know where this episode will fall, but after Wayne Brady episode of inspiring him rocking is mo hair. I have an entire mohair section, which I don't like wearing this because of course you do this tends they also.

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Speaker 1: Getting the food you eat. So the most beat boxing I do is via when the sweater the other ones go on.

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Speaker 8: So you look great, but yeah, fantastic, smell great.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate great smell, great smoking talk about yeah, walked down like damn.

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Speaker 3: All right, So this is Quest Love Supreme and your host Quest Love Team Supremes in the house.

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Speaker 1: We are in person. I hate the fact that even when we're in person, it feels like a special episode. Yeah, like I feel like we had.

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Speaker 3: Our live soul train period and now like we're established, we're just all zoom lip sync and you know these are foreign few between, but not today.

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Speaker 1: I enjoy these, yah. It's good to see you counting that money studios, the audience where we live from that money.

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Speaker 7: We're really in c that's what.

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Speaker 1: Stand for, that of money, counting money. It does now, good to see you guys. Everything is fine, great, all right, No one's going out for cigarettes.

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Speaker 3: Our guest today, I guess for the last quarter of century, our guest today, even before that. You know, our three times Grammy Award winning guests are one hundred million unit selling guests.

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Speaker 1: That's a lot of well. PJ.

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Speaker 9: Morton's here, he hasn't sold as many units, but our guests and its incredible band Room five, and then you know part of our our soundtrack, uh, and plus the way they effortlessly.

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Speaker 3: Blend pop music and soul music and funk and all various styles of music. Definitely, I will say beyond a force to be reckoned with just a damn good band.

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Speaker 1: You know, I know you made it. I fell into you, guys the same way that Prince fell into DiAngelo.

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Speaker 3: When you can't get in an event like I've heard of the name of Room five whatever, it's like when you guys came out early and you were playing a club in La and that was the first time where I realized like, oh, this might be a new it might be a new day, because like I just walked in, like Chris Rock always taught me, like just walk in like you're using the bet and you always get let in.

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Speaker 8: Let me say, if if I had known that you were trying to get into our show at that point and couldn't, I would have lost my fucking mind.

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Speaker 1: No, but it was just no one could get in.

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Speaker 3: It was you know when an artists want to do that cut thing where they like get the small and we do it too. That jam session we used to have in LA.

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Speaker 8: We were perfectly want people not to be able to get in, right people not not you, but like most people know no.

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Speaker 1: But that's the legend of it.

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Speaker 3: It was one time we did a jam session with Lenny Kravitz and Lenny Kravitz could not get into and La yes, And there was one point where it was just like a man, what if we lose the horn section, like trade the band members and so that Lenny and his people could get on stage.

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Speaker 1: And that yeah, that happened to me. And then I was like, Okay, that's very LA. These guys are big idea, you know.

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Speaker 7: A roots jam session I would have been.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I know we played together before, but Fallon besides.

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Speaker 8: Fallen that, yeah, that was the only time, well the first time we really did it was a fallen along a million years ago. But I felt like we do you remember that? There's a lot about that day that was very faithful for me. But do you remember when de Snyder like went at me for like no reason? Remember why? That's I don't really well, I know, to be totally fair, like I don't fully remember. I kind of blacked out, Like I don't remember the whole thing because I couldn't believe it.

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Speaker 1: That's how you know, you made it? Yeah, like I was.

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Speaker 8: I was doing with you guys. We were singing songs and I was just like on the sideline. So like it was weird because and it was really early in the show, right when the first start, and he was a guest on the show, and I don't know, couch guest. He was a couch guest. It's not gonna be a great story because don't remember exactly what he said, but he like went at me for no reason, like, and I was just like sitting on the side with you guys playing, and he was like talk and she had somehow and I kind of stood up for myself, and I think that was like he was like, oh ship, and that was.

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Speaker 6: Like you weren't going to take it.

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Speaker 10: I don't remember, you're pushing your luck, just being.

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Speaker 1: You should get the fun out of here. What can I say? I want to rock, dude. I totally forgot that moment.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, it was just a part of the whole thing a little. But I couldn't believe he really like, I wish I remember what he said. I wish I had it on tape, but I don't. Nothing beloved for him or whatever.

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Speaker 3: Is there any truth to the rumor back when guests were allowed to sit in with the roots either, you know, I mean, it's just a way to double down on it. Instead of being an actual music guest on the show, you could just play with the Roots doing the commercial bumpers and that ended weird enough after it'll fade it you got episode. Oh no, here's the thing. I love the Citzens. I love the Citzens when I'm really like at one with the guests. But then there's always like maybe eight or nine guests that are either kind of switch.

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Speaker 1: Baits for publicists.

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Speaker 3: So when you got sat in with us to promote his book, you got thought he was also going to be a couch guest.

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Speaker 1: Oh so you know, he did the old thing like Jimmy does the monologue. Then he walks to the desk and he talks about who's on the.

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Speaker 3: Show, and then he'll give a shout out and sitting in with the rooster the day lady and tell me you got from Wu Tang clan.

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Speaker 1: You got like stood up. It's like, oh, thanks for me, and then he like but the way he just walked over and crossed his legs and sat down like started doing this, I was like, oh god, Jimmy's just gonna go with this. And sure enough, Jimmy, he could have just stopped and been like no, no, I was just introduced to you. But he let you guys sit in for like two segments as wow, wow wow, okay. But we were so happy because I was like, yo, I bet you it's gonna be a never give moment. Sure enough, never again. So it's clips well yeah, so too artists. So artists always asked me, can I sit in one?

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Speaker 8: Y'all?

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Speaker 1: Sorry? Dog like you got.

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Speaker 8: But for you when you.

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Speaker 1: Sat in with us. Is it true that the producer of like he saw that NBC.

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Speaker 8: I guess that's what they told me they saw it. And then I think part of it though, also was the interaction with what Jimmy with Jimmy comedic and it was great and it was like we had the thing, and so I think that was what they saw too, is you know, me obviously standing up for myself in front.

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Speaker 1: Of a voice.

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Speaker 7: Before the voice, that's what you're saying.

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Speaker 8: We were all kind of rapping and it was like, okay, cool, you can handle both, right, And so I think that's probably what art it.

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Speaker 1: So, hey, you guys, great greatness came from that.

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Speaker 6: I probably have the the rehearsals from that day from what from the day you sat in with the Roots?

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we have all the records.

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Speaker 8: Probably by the way, that was an education. Sitting in with you guys.

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Speaker 1: Wait, can I say your name first on our show? Yes?

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Speaker 8: Okay, sitting in with you guys talk about that. It was just so fast because they move so fast, right, So you're like, you know, we take it to the band. We barely practice, like I know, but you guys, but you guys practice while you're doing, while you're performing, you guys are so good and so in it that like it's crazy to see.

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Speaker 1: But that's the thing.

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Speaker 3: I don't say this much because I don't know how Jimmy feels about it, because I don't want him to feel like this is just like a dismissive statement.

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Speaker 1: But for me, us doing that show is us going to the gym. Yeah, we've never practiced as a band.

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Speaker 3: We've even that time when we really first met, when PJ was practicing with the guys, We've only had like maybe seven of those in our entire thirty year existence because and.

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Speaker 8: They're painful when you do have to do them. I don't like to do it, Like it's not fun to practice.

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Speaker 6: Well, Amir, do rehearse quite a bit for special event concerts.

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Speaker 1: Since two thousand and nine. But that's the thing, that's ten years. So you were there.

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Speaker 3: You were there for the first week. Remember the first weeks of us figuring out like what this new life is. We didn't hit a note until an hour in and that's because I went in the hallway to call Rich and I was like, Yo, what do we do?

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Speaker 1: And He's like, what are you talking about?

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Speaker 3: What you do just start rehearsing, and to sit there with just the seven people you're in a band with and rehearse to me was like it was the hardest thing.

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Speaker 8: But it was to see it all in real time. Because also the way that the show moves, which is so quickly, and the segments are the segments you got to feel out you go crazy. It's a whole different world than what I was into.

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Speaker 3: Well, you were easy because some artists will come in and really not get the concept, you know, and always explain to them that it's how we end the song that's important.

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Speaker 1: How fast you catch on.

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Speaker 8: It's also what it's as everybody knows, it's not what you do, it's what you don't do it until you listen, and if you don't do that, it's a disaster, I'm sure for you.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, we've had a lot of crashes and which an artist will be like, no, no, let me do that again. I could do it better. I'm like, no, you don't get it like it's supposed to how this works. What was your very first musical memory in life.

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Speaker 8: I know, the first record I bought other than my parents playing music in the car, which is probably always the Beatles. This is so funny, but I remember very distinctly buying the Eddie Grant Electric Avenue.

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Speaker 4: That was.

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Speaker 8: But it was like like a tick played the song like like my parents were like I never need to hear the song again, So.

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Speaker 3: What uh, it's not unusual. It's to John Mlaney, That's what Electric Avenue was.

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Speaker 1: To use the kid.

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Speaker 8: It was like it was like ad nauseum all day long. Please God, I don't ever want to hear it again that song comes on, that song holds.

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Speaker 1: Up, dude.

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Speaker 3: Jimmy wanted him on the show to do Electric Avenue, and the first thing he wanted to do, you know, like artists might have that smells like teen spirit moment where they don't want to do the song that they're known for.

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Speaker 8: Like Bobby mcfairn, like like, you know, like I want to do like play, So listen to the song and realize what it's about and then realize he should play.

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Speaker 1: Okay, when he came on the show, you remember this, Steve, he wanted to do like a different version of it. He wanted to mix it with it. I don't want to dance like the other minor hits that.

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Speaker 6: He wanted to do the B side Time Warp.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yo, Wait, so do you know about time Warp? Dude?

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Speaker 3: So time Warp is I didn't even notice this, but we've all heard time Warp. So Time Warris is kind of a song of his that was like a B side that wound up being not him going rogue the only way I can describe it, you know, like dog was a donut on Cat Stevens's record.

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Speaker 1: Wow, that's a metaphor. That is a deep cut. It's like an instrumental. Right, it's an instrumental.

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Speaker 8: Okay, So Encyclopedia.

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Speaker 3: In seventy seven, Cat Stevens had a synthesizer endorsement deal with the company, of which he promised, like, okay, one of these songs, I'll play your instruments on the record. But Cat Stevens ain't necessarily a synth based artist. He's like acoustic.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't say, right.

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Speaker 3: And so basically the penultimate cut, like the song before the album ends, he did a quickly little four minute demonstration song of this new drum machine and whatever, and it actually fucked around and wound the being like a bee Boy classic.

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Speaker 8: But who's about right now, Steve?

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Speaker 6: Thanks Adam let's get to Seddie and then back to my mind just exploded.

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Speaker 3: This is dog was a donut by uh okay, yeah right, which is basically like, so this is cat.

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Speaker 1: That's what you went.

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Speaker 7: Adams, Like, where do we start with this?

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Speaker 3: That's not cast it is because he contractually had to make a song up with all this jarm machines.

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Speaker 8: That's a weird contractualgat in nineteen seventy seven.

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Speaker 3: He was the first with the like Lynn drum and all that stuff. So he made this ship and of course the bee Boy community press work immediately picked up on it and it became a classic unbeknownst to him. But the same with Eddie Grant. Eddie Grant did kind of an overheim synthesizer song called time Work, which is.

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Speaker 8: He had a foot in that door already though that the cat stevehn sh is crazy. Yeah, I never heard anything like that in my life from him, Like what was that? I want to hear it.

00:16:04
Speaker 1: I didn't know, right, none of us knew what was him.

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Speaker 8: You've got to get this.

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Speaker 1: So this this is the B side of Electric Avenue.

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Speaker 3: So basically at Paradise Garage, this became an anthem and if it's played at Paradise Garage. It also means that at Crocker is also playing it on his radio show. So Eddie Grant wanted.

00:16:29
Speaker 1: To come and do work.

00:16:31
Speaker 8: I just came back.

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Speaker 1: We got full circle. I'm there. I'm very focused in the morning, and now the show's over. Thank you very much, Eddie Grant. Really anyway, so you loved Electric Gavenue. He came up and wanted to do the B side.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, he's just crazy.

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Speaker 3: Jimmy is always watching the music guests from his dressing room or his office because he has a monitor in there, and he tries not to come out and freak out the people that early in the morning.

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Speaker 1: But that's the one time in which.

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Speaker 3: You know, we're like, okay, so we'll do one verse of Electric Avenue and then we'll do time Warp and which you're not singing at all. Jimmy ran in and it was like, guys, no, I need you to do Electric Avenue. And then at that he wanted to do like a blues harmonica version of it.

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Speaker 8: Oh god, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's hard.

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Speaker 3: When that's like we had to, right, we had to wrestle them out of that and just do regular ass at your avenue.

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Speaker 6: You guys had already like sampled all the weird little samples.

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Speaker 1: In all the little all those little stuff Burbson's frame. Its like Ray Parker not doing Ghostbusters some ship like that.

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Speaker 6: True, yeah's true, So Huey lewis not doing Ghostbusters.

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Speaker 3: Since we're all music answers here, I will also maintain that, uh, the bar Kays, a group extremely for being derivative, should have really they should have been the ones that sued Ray Parker. And only because how come no one has ever brought up, you know, soul Finger by the Barks.

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Speaker 7: The Adam you didn't know you was coming to class today? Of course we don't exactly, of course we don't.

00:18:19
Speaker 8: Don't.

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Speaker 1: This is Ghostbusters for real. It is wow, well no, I mean, this is the Barks.

00:18:29
Speaker 7: I know what you mean, but we have but you get yeah.

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Speaker 1: But I'm saying like someone came in and was like, it's something strange.

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Speaker 3: But what's what's really hot about it is that the Barks are probably the most derivative copycat groups in soul history, and they have one original moment.

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Speaker 1: One original moment that could have gotten paid anyway. So besides Eddie Grant, h that.

00:18:53
Speaker 8: Was a beautiful tangent.

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Speaker 1: But but that's what this show love that. I love you as a as a music nerd. So that was that was your song.

00:19:01
Speaker 8: Yeah, that was the first like kind of thing I fell in love with and wanted to play over and over and over again. And then thankfully, thank god, my parents had good taste in music, so there was that. That was a rare thing. I feel like a lot of times you want to, like want to rebel against your parents taste when you're when you're grown up. But they love great stuff. So they my education started their Beatles and fleet with mac and all the great rock and rollers stuff that you know, kind of shape me early on, and I loved it.

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Speaker 1: What did your people do with the musicians as well?

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Speaker 8: No, I mean I still think that being musical is something you have to kind of unlock, like, and that's a lot. I think that there are people out there. There are people who think that they're unlocked, that they should not be, and people who who I think I think more people out there can sing and be creative and play music that don't think that they can. I do believe that because because it has come from somewhere and I know that my both my parents, and they would be reluctant to say can sing. They just don't sing and they don't think that they can, you know, like but I'd never not a muscle to use. You know what tone death sounds like? Absolutely and neither one of them are. So if there might have been something there, and you know, if I had gone another way, maybe I wouldn't have discovered it about myself.

00:20:09
Speaker 1: You know, do you remember the first concert you went to?

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Speaker 8: Oh yeah I do.

00:20:15
Speaker 1: I don't know. This is your base City Rollers moment, so remember everyone has the beginning of course, and by the way, like as.

00:20:26
Speaker 8: Embarrassing I'm selling. So it was nineteen ninety New Kids on.

00:20:32
Speaker 1: The Blank I was talking about.

00:20:33
Speaker 7: They say the same thing.

00:20:35
Speaker 8: Come on, kids, I know we were supposed to hate them because we were ten and all the girls liked them, and shit, right now that we do.

00:20:45
Speaker 1: We were supposed to.

00:20:46
Speaker 8: I was ten or eleven, and I was really, really, really into like the hair band ship because that.

00:20:51
Speaker 1: Was that was it, that was that was pop music, was no no real hair bands.

00:20:57
Speaker 8: Yeah, I went to see Warrant, Yeah song, I knew no, this was actually I think this might have been like either pre cherry Pie. I think it might have been like dirty, rotten, filthy, stinking Rich was with the album that was big, with like some deep shit that like. I went to go see him the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium with my dad because I wouln't go alone. I was ten, you know, And I just remember going there and I will never forget just the scene was so crazy and then hairspraying like crazy, and then they played. I can't say that they were very good, but it was so impressive just to hear sound come out of a PA loud in your face and I had never really heard that, so I was just like wow. But I remember the worst thing about the show that will never forget was the drummer did a drum solo. Yo, let me tell you what this guy did, okay, because I can't you can't even make it up because it's so eighties you can't even make it up. The dude they like put the spotlight on him and he like stood up and like.

00:22:08
Speaker 1: I started rolling into.

00:22:13
Speaker 4: And it was.

00:22:16
Speaker 8: Crazy. He didn't do anything else, but yet, never forget it.

00:22:27
Speaker 3: Charisma goes a long long way because right now, God, I hope this is doing come off front.

00:22:36
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm watching a whole slew a Verdeing White.

00:22:42
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, wind Fire, And because I witnessed that in real time as a kid, yo, I thought it was the most amazing ship I ever seen. Like he would do like all this theatrical thing, but he basically was the only pressing one note, Like he would just press e e.

00:23:05
Speaker 1: And like, but he put so much theatrics into it. He did like and then like it was like the.

00:23:10
Speaker 3: Earthquake effect, and then he was like, all right, I'm gonna do this again and then fall on the ground and then he would anyway. And then suddenly suddenly he even start levitating and floating all in the you know, because they had like Dug Henning and David Copperfield like on staff to do the magic ship. And I realized, like, wow, Verdie White just did right a four minute one note thing, and I thought it was the greatest shit on it.

00:23:44
Speaker 8: But for the record that that sounds way doper than what I'm talking about. It was too long, you know, how long was It seemed like an eternity it was, And I was so young for me to think it was lame was crazy, Like play the drums please do something. But yes, the showmanship. Of course, the showmanship has a part of it. And it was like I'm still talking about it thirty million years later, right, had an impact?

00:24:15
Speaker 1: Well, see, I didn't.

00:24:16
Speaker 3: Put myself in the corner because every gospel drummer thinks like I trashed there. Look Mino hands method that now I feel like I can't even go there. And then of course Chris Dave has his his eccentric thing with every drummer following his thing. So now it's like, even if I wanted to get back into go to showman, that's basically why stroves here.

00:24:39
Speaker 1: Like I'm feel like.

00:24:40
Speaker 5: Anderson kills it too on of them drums, the way he gets up and does his little theatrics too.

00:24:44
Speaker 1: I gotta bring theatrics back, all right, my my ike turning wig.

00:24:48
Speaker 6: It's a really good question for both of you, is like in your situations and anybody entertainment, I guess how much to what that mix is between showmanship and sh musicianship.

00:25:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I overthink it.

00:25:02
Speaker 3: I mean for me because Kirk as a guitar player, so theatrical i'd rather and you know, right, but it's it's just like everyone else is so theatrical. I don't feel the need to just add on top of like people know I'm there and I'm fine with that.

00:25:21
Speaker 1: So basically, but as.

00:25:23
Speaker 6: A band, you're blending showmanship and musicianship too as a whole.

00:25:27
Speaker 3: I think we're at our best when we're not doing shit and we're all just playing together as a unit, which is not as impressive as.

00:25:33
Speaker 8: Says you asked for a minute, But I think what makes you so special is that you don't have that. You don't know what I don't do. You want to take the extreme opposite of the dude I'm talking about this ship like he needed.

00:25:49
Speaker 5: That, so you too add him to question that that Steve asked, right, like, how do you figure that balance out?

00:25:59
Speaker 8: What's crazy is like the showmanship thing is always felt kind of secondary because and we've existed in a weird space where like there's a lot of pop pop stuff and we're a band, so like, at at the end of the day, we're kind of a very normal, you know, five piece well now six piece band, and so we've never felt like we'd actually fit in anywhere, and so performing has always just been very straightforward for us, Like the music leads first, a showmanship thing I'm working on my whole life, you know, as far as being a good front man and stuff started when we got James to play in the band because I needed that. Was when guys were like, hey, you need to like be out front and not have to play guitar the whole time. And James joined them, you know, twenty twenty something years ago, so I could focus on doing that. But it's never been like like a pop star comfortable thing for me to like perform perform. It's always just like, okay, I'm saying, I'm up here singing yeah, and then the rest of it is just kind of naturally came over.

00:26:50
Speaker 7: You always felt pop star by accident, like well.

00:26:53
Speaker 8: It's not even necessarily by accident, but okay, Like the first time I was on the Voice and we did a performance, this is a perfect example. They tried to choreographed me to put me in a spot to go, and she was like and she God bless her, she didn't know what to do with me because I was She's like, okay, and then you're gonna walk over here, and the director of the show, the choreographer, choreographer, choreographer, sh choreographed for and uh, and and she was like you need okay, so halfway through the song, you're gonna come. And I was like, hey, hey, I don't know. I don't have the capacity to know or remember that. So like, yeah, hitting marks and going here and dancing and all that is always and thank god has always will be foreign to me because I just.

00:27:39
Speaker 7: Like, oh, you don't like to be staged.

00:27:41
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm like allergic to it.

00:27:43
Speaker 7: I like that.

00:27:44
Speaker 8: I can't I'm popping up out of the floor. And yeah, but here's the thing.

00:27:49
Speaker 3: Normally, about forty five minutes an hour into the podcast we get to this part of the subject. But I'll just bring it up now, are you a former reluctant leader? Because I also know that to be in your position is very awkward because the thing is, I'm assuming that this in every group dynamic situation one you're.

00:28:13
Speaker 1: The chosen one, more falls on your back.

00:28:17
Speaker 3: I think we also run with this narrative that like, if you're too charismatic or two in front or out there, that your credibility, like you don't a bunch of me like Wardolphin, the statler people are.

00:28:32
Speaker 1: Yeah judging you.

00:28:34
Speaker 8: You know how it is you started playing music in a band, and then people emerge and as people come to the front, and I was always kind of there, and then I think I always had like a I would say, if I'm being super honest, like I wanted to be out front. I wanted to be that guy. But then the weird thing happened. This is a whole other tangent. But when I started doing like co writes, shit up a little, Hey, what the fuck are you doing? Because this is a band, And so that happened.

00:29:04
Speaker 1: You guys, don't do the equal one fifth one fifth one fifth one Well.

00:29:06
Speaker 8: Now when you're right, well, here's the well we did.

00:29:08
Speaker 1: We did.

00:29:09
Speaker 8: And my whole thing from the beginning was like, so if you write this, you're part of it. You write this, you're part of it. But yes, it was it was always fair. And then the code write start happening, and that was that was less about money, That was more about just the soul of a band. And I think all of our minds potentially being corrupted by the process of having someone else's ideas come in and and and uh take over. So that was a controversial moment for us internally, but then it worked. So then it was like, I mean, the first code write was moves like Jagger.

00:29:41
Speaker 1: So that was wow.

00:29:42
Speaker 8: That was like, oh shit, like maybe we're gonna do this for a while, you know. And so that was a negotiation of me being like, hey, it's working. We got a couple biggies, like, let's just like trust me and if I see it and if it's not working anymore, you know, and if whatever I'm doing for us, let me lead, and if it's not working, then then well and I said this to him straight up, we'll talk about it, we'll regroup, we'll make things a little more democratic, but right now, just let me lead and let me take it. And they were super cool with it because I was, well, like they were cooler than in the time that right, But yes, I communicated very like openly and straightforwardly and they appreciated it. And then we had like eight in a row, you know, so like they couldn't really sing yet.

00:30:24
Speaker 3: Right, and that I feel like what you just said is actually the most important part, because I'll say, for what I'm doing now, this is probably the most that Treak and I have ever communicated.

00:30:38
Speaker 1: And it's it's not as awkward as it used to be. You guys will grow up and know you have to like yeah.

00:30:45
Speaker 3: But it's a very scary thing because like I'm very fragile with rejection. I work my ass off for like four days on that project and be like what do you think? You know, it's cool, and then like suddenly I started giving feelings. So I'm now learning how to and.

00:31:01
Speaker 8: Not ego all of it. We all have them, and especially bands, and so I think, like I was just talking about this yesterday too, like like we're really lucky because everyone really likes each other and wants to get along, you know, And I think, like, tell me a band has been able to stay together. We've been together for twenty years, you know, longer almost, so it's like and we actually don't want to kill each other, you know sometimes, but you know, we love each other and the respect is has always been there and it's there. But we're lucky like that.

00:31:32
Speaker 1: Do you guys try to do things off site?

00:31:35
Speaker 3: There was a moment where we would like Threek Love's cooking, so, you know, dinner at my house, that sort of thing where it's not us getting together because.

00:31:43
Speaker 8: We're bad at spending time together when we're apart from work. But I will say work for us when we work is we're hanging, so it feels like we're just chilling. Even when we're just backstage for hours or whatever. It is so like I feel like that time is super special to us them When we disperse, it's like see it, see it.

00:32:03
Speaker 1: A month probably, yeah.

00:32:07
Speaker 8: But no off premise activity we do. Of course we do.

00:32:11
Speaker 6: There's moon five go bowling together and stuff like.

00:32:14
Speaker 1: That, bowling big bowler or no, like on days off from touring, there's no.

00:32:21
Speaker 8: I'm the worst at participating in those things. Okay, I'm gonna say, vocal rest, you need a break.

00:32:27
Speaker 1: Hey, it's a real thing.

00:32:33
Speaker 3: I hate nothing more than when vocal rest gets used as a reason.

00:32:39
Speaker 8: All the time.

00:32:41
Speaker 1: Never it will be the one to scream at you too. I thought he's on vocal rest.

00:32:46
Speaker 8: Sometimes you just can't help it.

00:32:49
Speaker 1: Vocal rest is real.

00:32:51
Speaker 8: Abused as a thing also true, But it is real when you rest your voices.

00:32:58
Speaker 1: Are you the towel around?

00:33:00
Speaker 5: No?

00:33:01
Speaker 1: No, no no no.

00:33:02
Speaker 8: I don't talk from my Ship's like reasonable. I'll go to bed at like whatever time and like I wake up and I don't talk for like three four or five hours.

00:33:10
Speaker 1: Wow, So it's that real.

00:33:12
Speaker 5: But then I can talk Okay, that must be a hell of a thing when you was doing the voice and stuff and then you had to do other things like voice.

00:33:19
Speaker 7: Through me so much talk.

00:33:21
Speaker 8: I don't know. That was a hard hard time because I had to do all these different things. I want a lot of energy, want multitasking.

00:33:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, Adam. When you first realize that you could sing, that you had like a high tenor voice.

00:33:37
Speaker 8: Probably like I was like ten eleven in my voice, you know, as you can imagine, I had an extraordinarily high, pre puberty voice that was like angelophone.

00:33:46
Speaker 1: And be like, oh hey man, you put it right right right.

00:33:51
Speaker 8: I was like, that's fun. Let the mark left the mark on it paid off?

00:33:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did.

00:33:58
Speaker 4: I was.

00:33:58
Speaker 8: I had this amazing I always talk about him because he's the greatest. He passed away, which is awful because I wish you could have seen all the wonderful things that got to happen. But my music teacher when I was in elementary school was this really kind of boisterous, loud, amazing piano player singing. This was always sweating from singing, love the whole thing. And we'd sit in music class and I wanted to be a basketball player, like an athlete. I didn't like think music was cool really when I was nine, you know, and probably like ten eleven to twelve when I started to get into it. But he told me I could sing, and he pulled me aside. And it was me and this other kid who wound up becoming an opera singer, which is crazy. And he would pulls aside every day after he said, you guys are so good at this, Like you don't understand. You guys are very very good singer. As you can sing, you should do And I was like, ah, like what evering?

00:34:44
Speaker 7: How would he hear you? How did he know?

00:34:45
Speaker 8: Because I mean he would walk around and he would see and you'd hear. Also, it's easy what no one can sing, like when someone can sing a little bit, you can tell. But I was just shy and I started playing guitar and still didn't want to sing. And the only reason I became a singer is because I was literally just the best guy in the band at singing. So I wasn't very good at it when I started, especially live, and then that of course, like overtime.

00:35:09
Speaker 3: So with Kara's Flowers, the group that Maroon five eventually morphed into what was the lineup and the whole division of labor and.

00:35:17
Speaker 8: That like who was singing who I was singing? In Cars Flowers, I was always the singer. I was always the lead singer. There was it was you know, guys did background vocals, and the songs were like like I wrote weird songs about nothing because I was so young and to write about.

00:35:29
Speaker 3: So when you started fifteen, every group starts off as a prototype of what they would like to follow.

00:35:37
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, first of it. First it was Pearl Jam and then it morphed into like Weezer, you know what I mean, Like it was like the time because it was your kids, so like you just like you take on like whatever you're in love with musically, so like, and then we got signed to Warner Brothers to reprise as Cars Flowers and we're at that point. The music it was so weird. It was like cool, kind of power popping music, but like the lyrics were so whack and crazy. I can't believe that's actually out there. So yeah, it was like a product of the times again, like the nineties, like you know, kind of poppy, power poppy. I guess what year was this, Yeah, ninety seven? Who produced it, Rob Cavallo. Yeah, so so a whole you have a whole other life.

00:36:24
Speaker 1: I want to know this hit me, hit me.

00:36:25
Speaker 8: So when I was I was in high school, we played it a I forgot how we found out, but basically we played a high school like a uni high school party, university party, and his sister saw us play. Rob's sister but yeah, anyway, he saw me play and then we got wound up getting signed before high school was over. So what was that?

00:36:42
Speaker 1: Like I woulitness boys to men and go through that in high school.

00:36:46
Speaker 8: So also remember well remember first of all, I lead nowhere, but like the initial like the contract, the hemorrhaging money making a fucking record because it was back in the day when like a spend spend.

00:36:56
Speaker 1: Spend actual recording budgets.

00:36:57
Speaker 8: Oh my god, Like you were great when you got signed eleventh grade, So what were you thinking, Like back in the eleventh grade, I'm like, yo, I'm making it.

00:37:07
Speaker 7: And who's reading your paperwork?

00:37:09
Speaker 8: We were good, like it was, but also look like the record deals of the past, because we got a little and we had a failed record deal that we soon dropped from, you know, so but we we had a record deal where it was like if they let us go, they had to pay us, Like that will never happen forever, zero success.

00:37:30
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, will co learn from repries?

00:37:33
Speaker 8: Oh yeah yeah, So like that was like a different time of the recommends, but it was a learning experience and it was fun. But yeah, Rob produced a record and this was like he just produced Green Day, So we were like, oh shit, here we go, Like bam record went nowhere, sold like eight copies. They dropped us like a year later.

00:37:49
Speaker 3: Okay, since you got signed in ninety six, can I take a while guess that because I'm like, wait, you guys were super young when they signed you.

00:37:56
Speaker 1: Were they trying to cash in on the h Hanson kind of?

00:38:01
Speaker 8: Here's what I was gonna say, No, because we were much like we were way more alternative, like like when we first started, who's.

00:38:09
Speaker 1: The trio from Australia that also was your Chair? Was it more to that or.

00:38:16
Speaker 8: We weren't that grungy either, like like it was just That's what I was gonna say, though, was so rare like back then maybe different in pop music, but being a band that's that young, there was no one literally like remember like ben Lee had a thing where he was like, holy shit, they signed this second coming sixteen. That was it. It wasn't like there was all these bands being signed, so that was it was very rare to get the deal in the first place. And I think like even back then, like everyone knew kind of like, oh, these kids might make it someday, but I'm not sure. This is the you know, iteration to day right and do it for. It was a wild time being a senior in high school. Every day leaving school and driving to like Conway.

00:38:56
Speaker 1: Wow, it was like post death Road Conway too.

00:39:00
Speaker 8: Hey canon baby, that some ship you went there?

00:39:04
Speaker 1: I did.

00:39:05
Speaker 8: I took a to say anything.

00:39:08
Speaker 1: It was post that came. That's where all the death songs and stories came from.

00:39:15
Speaker 8: So many stories. Okay, but we mixed there like years later. It was nothing. It was like two thousand.

00:39:20
Speaker 1: Wait didn't we Did we go to Conway or cam Conway is like deep?

00:39:25
Speaker 5: Like, uh.

00:39:27
Speaker 1: Did we record there once? We did an episode there once.

00:39:30
Speaker 8: I have to have been there before.

00:39:31
Speaker 1: I was there with Storms.

00:39:34
Speaker 7: That's where we did too Short with Dennis Quaid.

00:39:39
Speaker 1: We did. Yeah, but I didn't known that studio, did he?

00:39:42
Speaker 5: No?

00:39:42
Speaker 7: No, no, no, I'm just saying I don't think it was.

00:39:43
Speaker 1: I think it was Conway's studios.

00:39:45
Speaker 8: There's no way you've lived your whole life and not been there at least once.

00:39:49
Speaker 1: Maybe not been there once. It's super cooler.

00:39:51
Speaker 8: It's like a great studio. Anyway, I was a kid, I was going to place. I was like, wow, like it was the most and I get there two years young too. I was like, let's get food. Let's order all of the cheesecake factory, that whole menu.

00:40:03
Speaker 1: That's a big son.

00:40:06
Speaker 5: It was the.

00:40:10
Speaker 1: Books, like, I do not need some podstickers and a steak, dude? Can I Okay?

00:40:19
Speaker 7: The avocado eggrollround they give you in the beginning, that was.

00:40:24
Speaker 1: The most soulful I've ever seen.

00:40:29
Speaker 7: That was so so much pressure. It's so much pressure.

00:40:34
Speaker 3: Wait, give me a second, because I have to acknowledge like that was the most I felt scene moment I've been on the show, because I got to explain to you guys that when you realize what the perks are of this job, the second that you realize that you get access to free, unlimited quality food. I always tell the story of Wendy Goldstein having a refrigerator with nothing but orange juice in it. Like thing of the way that they opened refrigerator in nothing but a g thing whatever.

00:41:13
Speaker 1: It's like.

00:41:16
Speaker 3: When she opened that specific all the roots look at each other like yo. And then next thing, you know, she went to the bat whatever.

00:41:23
Speaker 1: We just housing oliver orange juice. But dog, you can't believe it.

00:41:30
Speaker 8: I can't believe it. I'm telling you the orders, you know, the three the books Mexican food, every menu food, like three menus per page. As Oh yeah, we.

00:41:43
Speaker 3: Wouldn't even have sessions at We would just know that we had an account at a specific studio like that was the original post Mates.

00:41:51
Speaker 1: We just go buy battery studios and orders it and be like charge.

00:41:55
Speaker 8: How about that? How about the fact that someone's gonna go get it and bring it back before our dad?

00:42:00
Speaker 5: Y'all don't know what these these folks are talking about right now, Ya, there's ultimate before Postmates.

00:42:06
Speaker 8: It's still I still do not over it. I'm still like you get this from me in long distance?

00:42:12
Speaker 5: Oh god, as you finished reading a cheese cakement and long distance, boy, that was awesome.

00:42:17
Speaker 1: So what were your expectations at that time? Super high?

00:42:23
Speaker 8: Just so high, because I mean they were always high. But I think like the only time that I had delusional I think. I always say, like, you have to have a delusional amount of self confidence to make it, because you have to really believe like a lot.

00:42:39
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, though, in this mind state that I'm trying to permanently place myself in, like is delusion? Is that really a thing? Yes?

00:42:49
Speaker 8: Okay, well yes, yeah. It's all semantics how you want to word it, because.

00:42:55
Speaker 4: It's very much like it's like, there is this book I read like a while but when uh, it's called Good to Great.

00:43:00
Speaker 1: It's a business book.

00:43:01
Speaker 4: And one of the things that they talk about, like the CEOs that like took their companies to like record growth and shit. One of the things they all found out was they used something called the Stockdale paradox, and what it is is based on this general gym Stockdale. I don't want to fuck his name up, but anyway, he was a pow president like Vietnam and shit, and so when he made it out, you know, he would talk and people would ask him, well, how did you make it like.

00:43:24
Speaker 8: What it was?

00:43:25
Speaker 4: And the thing he said was, you know, the first thing I did was I understood that I had to accept the brutal reality of what it was like. I had to accept just the brutal reality, but still at the same time understand that there was a way that I couldn't make it out. And he said, you know, the people who didn't make it were the people who was like, ah, we'll be out by November. Then November comes, we'll be out by December, then January comes, we'll be out by whatever. They don't make it, because those are the people. They don't make it because they die of a broken heart, you know what I mean.

00:43:57
Speaker 1: So you have to have.

00:44:00
Speaker 4: You have to senter how especially in the music industry, you shitn't me like, you have to see like, Okay, this shit is fucked up, but you have to have that delusional belief in yourself that you'll make it no matter what.

00:44:09
Speaker 3: So I feel the filtered way that makes total sense, and I get it. So basically, you're saying you have to stay in the present and pivot towards your future, which we rarely do. Like a lot of people are either ruled by either tragedy or charmer in their past that makes them how they are now and they don't get over the past. And so I see that now, but I also do believe that for everyone that I've ever judged. Mind you, these are toxic people now sort of going through their shit. But anyone that we ever ruled as arrogant or fool themselves or that sort of thing, I also noticed that they've made it because they had to convince themselves that, yeah, that m ward social paths.

00:45:01
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you have to well here's the thing.

00:45:06
Speaker 5: To be.

00:45:07
Speaker 1: Don't don't be that in a nice way.

00:45:11
Speaker 8: God, these are all very tricky conversations, you think so, But delusional self confidence and manifest destiny could be the same thing, right, Like, It's just I think one is a little more cynical and silly, like okay, delusional self like that's like you say that tongue in cheek, and then manifest that's these a little more more gravitas. It's heavier, so you're like, okay, it's more serious. It's the same idea. There's also a time to know when you want to talk about like things like flow state and ship where it's like, okay, you also need to know what the is going on to you can't just be crazy and I'm gonna make because then there's that side, which is like and by the way, it's people who have no talent can have the ship that work out for them.

00:45:53
Speaker 1: That's the talent.

00:45:54
Speaker 8: That's exactly.

00:45:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like great imposter syndrome. And like real imposters, they don't have that syndrome, you know what I'm saying, Like there's no like like damn, he's fonte just like scammers and ship like them. Niggas believe every word they saying. They have no disbelief in themselves. They will lie like a motherfucker. So I yeah, imposter syndrome.

00:46:16
Speaker 8: That ain't believing it you have. Imposter syndrome is almost like the insecurity that exists when you're not exactly because you actually have a conscience.

00:46:25
Speaker 3: But also we're pre programmed as people pleasers to like I gotta seem humble out this thing.

00:46:31
Speaker 1: I'm trying to lose that ship.

00:46:33
Speaker 8: It fascinates me though, to see when someone is capable of being borderline sociopathics and not giving a ship about how they come off and being crazy about it because you're like wow, that is like that would make me so uncomfortable.

00:46:47
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's a hard thing to learn, but basically, what I'm trying to get out of you is. So there was a moment where I felt like, Yo, we got a deal, everyone grew great, it's awesome. And then three weeks into it then I was like, oh shit, this is not going to work. And it took it took five years to get me out of the depression.

00:47:09
Speaker 1: Of we're not going to make it.

00:47:10
Speaker 8: But that's a big moment.

00:47:11
Speaker 1: How did but how did you that?

00:47:13
Speaker 8: We haven't gotten there yet in the story right, because if you're successful now standing here today, every single one of us has had a failure that they had to deal with a big one, at least one big one. And so yes, you experience that first failure. You're riding high, you're like, hey, we got this record deal, money, fucking cheesecake, and then all of a sudden in which we all know, it all goes away and you're like, oh shit, no more cheesecake, no more money, no more, no more fame. I'm not going to go platinum, you know. And how long start over?

00:47:42
Speaker 1: How long was it until we got signed?

00:47:44
Speaker 8: We were like seventeen eighteen, almost eighteen. Our parents had to sign the contract. Fucking awesome, it's just crazy crazy. They also had sat in the room, so we graduated high school, and I was like peace, like you know, I'm over straight to the road. And then I would say by like December of that year, graduating only the summertime, early summer, and then by December it was like, oh ship, this is not happening. All right, it's done, and then it kind of started unwrapling. So that moment was like whoa, this is uh, this fucked up because your dreams are just dashed. Like you know how that it goes because a minute the minute it's so fascinate you think you're going somewhere and then you're not. And then back then at least I don't know if it's the same thing now, but like once, you're tainted in the record business. So if we get anyone to like us again, to sign us, it'll be really tough. Fortunately we kind of did, but that moment is like, really the water you made of moment?

00:48:41
Speaker 1: How hard was it to change the name because that's the moment where you realize that.

00:48:45
Speaker 8: Stupid name so much. I hate all I hate room, the name of Room five, I hate the name of cars Flowers, I hate band damn band names are stupid. All of us, all of us get to be called the Roots, bro.

00:48:56
Speaker 1: We were forced. We wanted to be square rooms. Yeah, well to go with the Roots was smart. Well it's a great band name, is what I'm saying. How did you? How did you come up with Carris Flowers and my room? Five?

00:49:09
Speaker 8: Cars Flowers was easy? More than five. I will never tell anybody. I told Billy Joel.

00:49:13
Speaker 7: He knows.

00:49:14
Speaker 10: Ask him.

00:49:15
Speaker 1: We gotta get Joel.

00:49:16
Speaker 8: We will at it. And he doesn't remember because really had a few and didn't care.

00:49:22
Speaker 1: It sounds like every day.

00:49:23
Speaker 8: Yeah he was. I told him because I knew for a fact, and it's a very unremarkable story. Cars Flowers is so dumb, I mean, like so dumb because we were fifteen, so we snuck out of the house. Our boy, the drummer could drive. Our rummer could drive, so he, like I had a big old wagoneer and uh, we went to Norms on on like LOSTI Inaga in West Hollywood and you know you're out and like your parents know you're gone, and you're the norms getting steak and eggs for three ninety nine and being a band and being stupid norms bro. I mean, come on, it's nasty.

00:49:58
Speaker 1: You gotta it's great at one in the morning.

00:50:01
Speaker 8: Oh yeah, it was late night norms and we're eating. We're like, we're gonna be in a band or be fucking huge. We gotta get a name. It was that time. So there's no better time in your life than that those times. And uh and then we were like, and we all loved this girl named Kara. I don't know why, we just loved it. God bless your car, you're amazing. So she lived like north of Sunset, like like right above the whiskey, like you know, the whiskey was, yes, like right there, and we like loved her for some reason, and so we did our drummer like wanted it.

00:50:32
Speaker 1: He brought her.

00:50:32
Speaker 8: We brought her flowers that night or something like. The recollection of it is probably pretty hazy, but anyway we were. And so we're back at his house and we're like cars flowers.

00:50:41
Speaker 7: It was kind of awesome.

00:50:43
Speaker 8: And then like we played the whiskey for our first gig and it said car flowers and like she lived, you know, so.

00:50:50
Speaker 1: So she was the Rosanna Arquets you guys, is Toto exactly nice?

00:50:54
Speaker 7: Oh sorry, y'all, I hate to do this, but this is where part one.

00:51:01
Speaker 5: That's okay, Stay tuned next week or check your podcast feed for part two of Quest Love Supreme with Adam Levine. Oh, and then that next one, he's going to talk about some of those Maroon five songs that you know in love and other collaborations.

00:51:14
Speaker 7: Oh, plus he listened to some of his favorite albums of all time.

00:51:18
Speaker 5: And oh, y'all, just when you think he doesn't get any better, a surprise guest drops through.

00:51:25
Speaker 7: I really want to tell you who.

00:51:26
Speaker 5: I'm gonna hurry up and end this before I spoiled a surprise that they may have been on the show before. So thank you and please like, subscribe, review, follow, and all that other good stuff.

00:51:40
Speaker 7: See y'all next week.

00:51:44
Speaker 1: West Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.