Maroon 5's Adam Levine on posing nude and album Hands All Over - MAROON 5's debut album sold 16 million copies and singer Adam Levine knows that can never be repeated yet he is happy there's a music revolution happening. Q and A
You performed with Eminem and Rihanna at the Grammys. Any other highlights?
Mumford & Sons. I love to see a band that doesn't sound like everybody else. It's nice to see them breaking through into the US. It's so funny how important success in the US is to a lot of bands. Including bands from the US.
Well, you've recently spoken about how you're not happy with the sales of the latest Maroon 5 album, Hands All Over.
I'm really not that happy, but I kind of have to be happy given the circumstances of the record industry - it's definitely in a weird place right now. Because this isn't our break-out record; it's just another Maroon 5 record. But I think it's a great record. I want it to be well received. There's just no way of knowing until you get to the end. It's a marathon. We'll see how it goes. It is selling. It's nice to know people are buying it every week.
You seem to be taking it pretty personally ...
It's a combination of things. It's falling short in some ways, but you have to face that. You can't pretend it doesn't exist. But it's doing well at the same time. When you become accustomed to a certain level of success, anything less becomes unsatisfying. But in the current world we live in, it's successful. It's difficult to come to terms with that and make it more successful by using the existing norms in the business. The record industry is on its way into the s---ter, which is good. I think there needs to be a revolution in the music industry.
Which will be ... ?
I don't really know. I don't claim to know. I just know things have to change. And they are.
Are Maroon 5 part of the revolution?
Music being available to people all over the place all the time in different formats; MP3 has changed everything, obviously. I don't know how the business side will adapt. It's not our problem. And that's cool. It's time for the bands to take the power back. I don't know how to lead there, but I know it's an interesting thing to watch bands get all the power and record labels become a little more powerless.
You're lucky Maroon 5's debut Songs About Jane was released in 2002 when bands could still sell upwards of 10 million albums worldwide.
Yeah. It sold 16 million before that became an insane figure to even conceive of. The fact that's a true statement is mindblowing. That figure will forever exist. I hope we'll keep selling records, but it's much more important to play and be creative, to play to our fanbase.
Bands are making more money by playing live these days.
Yeah. Clearly the album sales and radio play for this record isn't reflected with attendance to our live shows, which is cool. As much as a band like us needs to be played on the radio to sell records, it's a nice marriage of both. We don't necessarily rely on one or the other. We're in a cool middle ground. We'll seemingly be able to play shows for a long time. We have incredibly loyal fans. We just played to 10,000 people in London. You don't want to start f*@#ing your mind up and think that's not huge because it is. And we've really taken our show to the next level. Our show is a lot more energetic than people realise. We want to push that side of our band, we want people to know we're a good live band. We're better than we've ever been.
You posed nude for a British magazine to raise awareness of men's prostate and testicular cancer.
I thought that would stay in the UK. That wasn't the case.
You didn't think it'd go online?
I guess. But it's for a good cause. I wouldn't have posed naked for no reason. It raised cancer awareness. That was the point. So it did its job.
Was posing with your girlfriend's (model Anne Vyalitsyna) hands covering your bits a Janet Jackson shout-out?
That was my idea, a reverse Janet Jackson. Why is it OK for a woman to do that and not a man? It's interesting how people really did freak out. It caused a big stir, that picture. My manager told me it was heavily Googled. There are pictures of beautiful famous women who are naked all the time. It's a strange double standard. If more men did that it wouldn't be so weird.
What kind of feedback did you get from doing that?
Good and bad. When you put yourself out there and make yourself vulnerable, people will respond. Occasionally I'll see comments on YouTube. If you're going out of your way to comment on YouTube, you clearly need to get a life.
Did you tell your bandmates you were about to get your kit off?
I told them, but it was for a cause, to shock people into thinking. Every time the image was online, it was paired with the literature. It was hard to argue with. It was bulletproof.
You've talked about an image problem with Maroon 5, that some people see you as a pretty boy out front of some faceless dudes. You think the nude picture might hurt that?
Nah. A picture's just a picture. As far as the perception problem, that bothers me less and less. It's just silly. I'd rather be uncool and successful than really cool and not successful. The only reason I'd be upset, above us not selling records and not being considered cool - whether that's true or not, I don't think people give a shit - is if people stop coming to our shows. That'd really upset me.
Source : http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/music/maroon-5s-adam-levine-on-posing-nude-and-album-hands-all-over/story-e6frexl9-1226034757267
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