Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - Adam Levine - Part 2

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

On this week's episode of Artist Friendly, Joel Madden is joined by Adam Levine. As the frontman of Maroon 5, a coach on The Voice, and an ⁠occasional saxophone player⁠, Levine has brought his charismatic presence to many stages. Most recently, though, he’s been in Maroon 5 mode, promoting their upcoming eighth studio album, Love Is Like, out this Friday, which attempts to recapture the spirit of their early days. Before the pop giants kick off their ⁠arena tour⁠ in the fall, Levine joined Madden for a candid conversation about fame, family, and the music that shaped them. ------- Listen to their Artist Friendly conversation on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify.⁠⁠⁠ ------- Follow Artist Friendly! IG: @artist.friendly TikTok: @artist.friendly YouTube: youtube.com/@artist.friendly ------- Host: Joel Madden, @joelmadden Executive Producers: Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Jillian King Producers: Josh Madden, Joey Simmrin, Janice Leary Visual Producer/Editor: Ryan Schaefer Audio Producer/Composer: Nick Gray Music/Theme Composer: Nick Gray Cover Art/Design: Ryan Schaefer Additional Contributors: Anna Zanes, Neville Hardman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And here is part two. I had to thank you for the voice because I got a gig doing the voice because of you. Really? Absolutely. The voice worked in America. Yeah. And they said, we need a tattooed singer guy to be on our panel. And they called me and like it was a directly reference to you.

They were like tattooed singer guy. That's really funny. Right. And tattooed lead singer. That's like what they wanted. So they called me and I liked the show. I went and did it in Australia for like six years. It was a great.

Yeah, I remember you when you guys did that. It was a long trip, but I love Australia. Australia. It's awesome. And so I got the gig because of you. That's so funny.

I kept the gig because I'm fucking great on TV, but I got it because of you. Exactly. It started with me, but then you took it. You took it the distance. Exactly. Fucking problem. Exactly. That show is fun.

Yeah. That shows a blast. Yeah. I've had so much fun on that show. What's your latest tattoo? This one took a lot to recover from like emotionally. I think it's because we did, it's still heavy black. Can I see?

Can I see? It's like goes all the way up. It's the wrong shirt for to show you. Well, I see why it's painful. It's all that black. So like I am just now. And it's over other tattoos. Yeah.

Really hurt, man. That's why it hurts. For the first time of my life, like after this, I was like, I might be done being tattooed. Well, tattooing over scars is, uh, it's painful. Over 40 your nerves get wordless shot. I used to be so much more. I'd go into a shop, you know, and be people places,

there'll be people everywhere and be like, all right, let's go. And then I would grit it out and just like deny the pain. And you have your head tattooed, which I'm super jealous of. I want so bad. But yeah, like now I have no tolerance

and I'm a total wimp and sucks. It looks badass though. Thank you. It looks great. I'm jealous. And your brother just got an awesome cover of too. Yeah. But covering up that much tattoos on your arm,

especially in the ditch there. And also because it's scar tissue, you never know how it's been like, it also, oh, also, yeah, like,

and also took me, like, it took me, like, a couple of months to, like, actually contact Brian, who,

who did the sleeve over, under it and be like, because Brian has done most of the work. I love, I love Brian. I, he's one of my best friends. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. And I'm like, hey, man, and he's the chillest, coolest dude ever, but I was like, I,

uh, it's been 20-something years. Right. Right. He doesn't care. He's cool. Yeah. But I was like so.

It's very classy of you actually to tell the guy. I don't know if I would. It took me long enough. Yeah. It's thoughtful. I think I'm going to get some tattoos covered for sure because that's just what happens. 20 years later. You're like, I want to keep going.

What the fuck was that? Not that I felt that way about your tattoos, right? But it's natural, right? You're just, and so, but to be able to have a relationship with someone where you can have an uncomfortable conversation with them. And even if it's as, it could be trivial to someone. else but this is this guy's work and like you said he may not care it was 20 years ago but for you to think about his feelings i think that's important actually a good lesson like i don't think about that

because now i'm like maybe i should if i'm going to cover a tattoo should i it depends on the guy he only cried for like five minutes yeah yeah yeah and then it was like pretty cool yeah that arm looks fucking sick i'll show you the rest of it when i can actually lift my shirt up yeah so the new record love is like how many records is that for you guys this is our eighth record eight record Eighth record. Oh, us, we're on the eighth record too. No shit. By the other, congratulations. Thank you. I've heard a lot of it, not all of it, but Benji sent me some tunes. I love it. I like it. Yeah, man. It's nice.

Sounds great, dude. I'm just, I love that you guys are doing it again now, too. Like, it's fun to do it together. I had to take some time off. Yeah. Seven or eight years. You're back, though. Raise these kids and figure out how to do all this shit, be married and live in the world and be adults and all this shit. You've grownups. But now I feel like we're ready to go back to.

the music. For Love is like eighth album. What do you feel like you need to get out of a record when you make it now? I think that now, it's so funny too, like one of the greatest things about having moved out of L.A. was it gave me the ability to like have there be just less noise in general. I mean, when you live in a major city, when you live in L.A. or anywhere, New York or anywhere, there's buzz, right? You're living amongst millions and millions and millions of people. It's energy all the time. So much energy. And I just was able to like really kind of unplug.

And so for me, I was able to start to write again. And that to me now being on our eighth record and we've kind of experienced every form of writing music with all these different people. And then sometimes it's been just the band and sometimes it's been. So we've done it every way you can do it. And I think this this time around I wanted it to be the most kind of artistic. thing that I could accomplish on my own with the band and with by the way great producers and you know people helping me write songs but not in the same way that I've been getting the help before yeah just like collaborations that you believe in yeah and also like like my rule for this album was

the idea for the song most of the words and all of the melodies more or less give or take a melody here or there has to come from me um or the band or someone that's part of our nuclear Yeah, like it needs to be real, real self-expression. Like yeah, like this was just a need. Totally. Like this, like I wanted to take the brunt or like, I want, like when this album comes out, I want it to be on me. Yeah, something about this moment in your life and in this, in this endeavor for this record

was like, I need to express myself. I need to fucking. Yes. Make something that I get it. That's how I felt about this record for us too. Yeah. I need to dig in. I don't need to like go and do what I would think would be like the,

most business savvy. I don't want to go about this business wise. I don't want to say, oh, this person's writing great songs. Let's get together in the room with that person. It was more like, less on trend and just like, you know what, I'm going to go out and just make whatever fucking album I want to make. That's dope. And not worry about fitting into any, you know, pop music norm that is currently taking place. Like, I got super obsessed with writing his samples. Like I found weird samples and worked on them with our producer Fedet, who's an awesome dude. Do you know what I think that is when I listen to you say it? Because I feel a similar, I feel like we're in a similar place.

And it might be our age. It might be where we are in our lives. But also I think like you and even you more than me, but we both have done the other things successfully. We've said there's a time and a place for every part of your career. That's what a career is. Yeah. Like these moments.

Yeah. You guys better than anyone have. I mean, look at all the features you have in your catalog across the years. It's incredible. You have Kendal Kumar. You have Siza. You have fucking all these. cool. Across the board, every

genre you have features across your catalog. But you also, in those features are classic records, classic songs. Songs if we heard, if we went through every fucking Maroon five moment, everybody would be bobbing their head going, I forgot this song. This fucking song's amazing.

And so what I'm saying is like if you've already done that and it's like a full circle thing, right? It's like coming back to the beginning of who am I? What do I have to say? Yeah. And then you dig in and you make a record.

That's how I feel about this record with us, too, is like, it's just a different moment. We want to make something that we fucking had to dig in and make. It's back to that artistic standard of here's where I'm going, like, rather than chase and say, like, okay, well, what do I have to do to get you to like me? Yeah, yeah. You know, hey, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to write this kind of song with these people. It's like, that's fun.

That's a fun game to play. Yeah. But this is more just like, I'm going to do this and hope that you guys like it. It's a cool moment. Because this is us right now. And that's a cool moment. And it'll be a cool moment. No one's going to take that away from us, which is nice.

It puts almost in a weird way, less of an expectation on it, but the door is open for it to become successful. That's kind of how I feel. I hope people love the music. I think it's the best music we've made in a long time because it's the most authentic and genuine. You shouldn't put it out if you don't feel that way. I don't know. And I don't think you would have. Exactly.

I couldn't. Yeah. There's no, I didn't have this time for that. It's on par with where you're at. You move, like, I'm the same place. Move my family out of the city. live in a quiet place where we get family time and I get to sit in life for real and go who am I what do I like what do I think and shut everything out and then I come back to work here in the city

and everything's still here everything's buzzing yeah you can participate if you want but I think it's like that thoughtful moment where you're getting to decide who you are and and I don't think at young in our younger years we've we've had to learn how to do that because I don't think we thought we could sometimes. I think we were just keeping up and moving and sticking and it all becomes a blur of like yeah. I guess I would you know and you look back right on on all the things and you're like your mindset had to have been so specifically one way and I think that changes as you get older. I think you don't have the same. Yeah and it's a real lived life and then we bring it back to our music and we're like yeah this is just where I'm at and this is where I've rounded out to

is like yeah I appreciate everything I've done. I love it. I'll never I fucking love every every single moment of it. But also, if you went back and looked at everything we did, you could pick it apart too. And like, we were just growing up in front of everybody. And we wanted to land on our feet and be real guys in a real life, doing real shit and be happy. And if you're able to be happy in this life, that's to be the luckiest thing you could ever experience. I agree. And especially in this crazy fucked up world now, I just think like if you can exist in your own space and, and be happy and be yourself against the pressure to participate in all different kinds of bullshit.

That's the challenge of now when we talk about how's the music business changed or how's the world changed. It's like there's so much pressure to participate in all these fucking conversations and all this bullshit where you're like, I don't actually want to. I'm not saying any of you're right or wrong or this or that. I just want to be me, whatever that means.

Yeah, I mean, it becomes very difficult to navigate all of that. It's too complicated. And there's too much, There's too much at stake and there's too much at play. My name's Paul. Just like stay away from all of it. Yeah.

But I think that where Maroon 5 is now, new record, going out on tour, I think you're going to see the band is bigger than it's ever been because it's a generational thing, right? The catalog stands up so that the new music stands up and the show stands up because y'all are real. You guys can play live. So you're a good band. So that's a thing that's kind of weird. It's like I know no one really talks about live, but you have to be good live. Especially these days. Yes, to build a touring career for decades.

You have to be good live. That's like the number one. You know, I'm sure kids ask you this too. Like, what do I do to make it? And I'm trying to thing. I'm young and I'm starting out. And they're always asking, I always am pretty lost when people ask that question. Because I'm sure you are too.

You're like, I don't fucking know. It's crazy now. Yeah. But I always say, be good live. Yeah, write good songs, be good live. AI is coming for everything. Be good live because the one thing that AI can not come for is people will always want to go see other people play music. And nothing hits like a band.

It's like you could layer the track. You could do all these things to make something sound bigger. But if you aren't playing together live and putting on a show, you can see it when it's good and you can see it when it's bad. And I think one of the things that me and Nicole were talking about this, we see these new artists, especially in COVID. they haven't played that many live shows. You guys have done thousands. Well, they also, it's so fast now. Yeah.

It's like some kid will write a song and put it out and then on the, literally on the internet. And all of a sudden this kid is going to be selling out giant places. Yeah, you get thrown into an arena and he doesn't know how to do an arena because you got to do a club, then a theater, then an amphitheater, then an arena. Then you can do a stadium if you do the arenas long enough. Could you imagine being a kid that has a hit song that becomes, okay, now I'm playing in an arena and I skipped all the first.

10 steps. Think about this. I always think about shit like this. Think about the panic that that kid is going to feel when they feel like a slap back and they can't hear fucking anything at all in their band is playing or the artist is trying to play and they can't even hear themselves think. Because remember that feeling of like playing a big building and like, oh, here are some more things to negotiate acoustically. I can't hear. Like super basic shit like that. Like it's just so much to handle you. You got to build yourself up. No. That's why again like, Maroon 5 Good Charler are great examples. You start in some fucking friend's basement.

Then you play a bar. Then you play a proper club. And then you play a bigger club. Then you play a theater. Then you play an amphitheater. Then you get to an arena. That process gives you layers. It gives you grit.

It gives you problem solving skills on stage in real time when this cuts out or this happens or that happens. It's from hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of practice rounds. 10,000 hours, they say? That's right. And so when you think about Maroon 5 and the decades of work, you bring that with you, just like I read all your stats, the reason you can sit on the voice, the reason you can go do the arena tour, the reason you can make whatever the fuck record you want to make now is decades of fucking work.

In the world we live in today, no one wants to hear the boring part, the long part, the fucking decades of work part. The actual work part. They just want to talk about right now. Everything's turn and burn. and for better or worse. I don't even know if it's good or bad, but at the end of the day,

it's just what it is, right? The reason you can sit in this chair and talk to me about music is because you have decades of fucking all the things. It's good, it's bad, it's hits, it's misses, it's shit went wrong, shit went sideways, shit went right. Yeah.

And you kept showing up and the through line for life for me as a guy who's trying to be married, have a career, raise my kids, and live a life is, oh, you just show. You got to fucking show up and solve the problem at hand, whatever that problem is. Showing up. That's it. I think you hit it right on the head. Just show up.

Yeah. Because everything will have flaws. Everything will be riddled with problems, but show up. And if you show up, it's the absolute best foot to start on. And then the rest of it, who the fuck knows? And then you got some friends you meet along the way and you got a support system that's real. I think that's also necessary for me as I have a really good support system of people. LA's giving me that, by the way. Best people in the world. Same for me.

I can't knock that. And by the way, as much as it was like we left L.A., I like being close to L.A. I can't divorce myself from my entire history of a human being, having grown up here and built the great relationships like you're talking about. And so I do have a lot of love for it. I just think that once I had kids, I'm like, let's get out of here for a little while. Absolutely. This is a town that really feels like it's like centralized around work and doing things and

getting out of it, I realize, like, is about family. So my, when I go home, it's all about family. I come here to work and I'm not that far. So I have to be close to. But what are you the most excited about in your life coming up? What are you getting out of bed for? Like, what are you the most excited about? It's going to sound cliche and it's going to sound untrue because everyone to be like, oh, but getting out of bed for, and I think this is like, we talk a lot about family today getting out of bed for family yeah me too 100% yeah because i think like i only got out of bed for career for like a long time right before family before family existed right and i think when i was 23 years old i was like let's fucking make it let's go let's go let's go tour for 40

yeah let's go um same and that got me out of bed because that was my driving force in life and that was my whole motivation at the point. Metbiati, how to family, all of those things changed. So I think that now, priority-wise, what gets me out of bed

is like my excitement and the joy that having my family gives me, that's number one. Yeah. And what's interesting is like,

it's really, really interesting to have seen the shift in my whole being change of like, okay, so now number two is I'd probably have to say career, right?

And so album, album career, coming and doing your podcast today is two. It used to be one, right? So, and I like, really think that that is an important and necessary shift that had to take place in my life. So yeah, that's the answer. I feel the exact same way. But I think I had to learn. I think my 40s has been for, I think I started that in my 30s trying, but I had been so career minded and dedicated and also came from poverty and was scared for so long that I'd go back. And that took me therapy and everything else, learning how to,

like stop and be like, okay, I can hold this for a while. I'm not going to be impoverished anymore. Probably needed that. Probably happened 10 years later than it should have. But that's a good point. That's an important point to bring up when we're talking about this kind of stuff when it comes to balance because when you have a family, all of a sudden, your career becomes that much more important.

Yeah, you get triggered. You're providing for your family. Right. You have this thing. So one fuels the other in ways you never could have imagined, right? Like back then I'm like, okay, cool, be successful. We'll make some money maybe. amazing. Wow. Yeah. So cool for me. Right. But then it becomes like now you have like,

you know, people to provide for. And so that, I think that instinct also drives the other. Right. So that is something that you need to adjust to also of like, well, and I tell my kids every time. I'm like, I'm doing this shit at this point for you guys. Period. Like pretty much 100%. Like, I don't know if I would be doing it at the level that I'm pursuing it still. If I didn't have a family. Well, you have the same ambition. It's driven by something else now. But like, The ambition you had when you were younger, for me, it was about me. Sure, exactly. I wanted it all.

I wanted it all. I wanted to see it all. I wanted it. And that's a healthy thing for like a 23-year-old, I think. Ambitious. Being ambitious is fine. In good taste. Yeah.

And in balance of like, I want to experience it all for all these reasons. And if you can find the balance, great. But at the end of the day, what gave me balance was I met my wife. And then I would say the first 10 years of our marriage was me learning how, to participate in a functional family. I didn't have a functional family growing up. It was dysfunctional. And I think that was a big, she's a fucking saint, dude.

She put up with me learning, the learning curve of how to like be the dad I want to be, work on myself. I'd say my 40s has been what you're saying is it came all the way to fully develop, fully realized family that I'm super proud of. And that's why when I see other couples out there, especially that first 10 years,

I'm like, you're in your growing period and you're in the learning curve. And so I'm like, just hang in there and work together to figure out how this thing functions. And then my 40s has been about like exactly where you're saying, I get out of bed for my family. Yeah. I'm excited about my family. Everything that I do for a job, I choose things I want to do, but I do them for my family. Of course. Working to support our family habit.

Exactly. And it's less about like fiscal reasons. It's more just like spiritual. reasons of like, I'm going to do this because I want to be that person for my family. It's more of symbolic, I think. And also just adjusting to like, I, I would say, like, the appreciation that I have for what I do now is at a high, the highest level. Like I get up now, I go to Brazil or Southeast Asia or touring the States or wherever it is. And I get up there and there's thousands of people there and I'm like, I think it's also

because we've been doing it for so long that now full circle moment of like, I'm like, wow, Oh, fuck. This is so amazing. That I still get to do this. Like, and these people are here. They're showing up for us to see our band play still after 20, something, three years or something. So my appreciation level, which I also think that the fans really respond and appreciate. Well, and they can feel it.

They feel that. Maybe there was a moment where they didn't feel it quite as much as they, now I'm going there. And I'm talking about it the whole time on the mic. I'm like, fuck, this is amazing. You know, because it's so real. Like, I really genuinely appreciate that people still show up to come and see us. It's a manna

And like my music, my new thing and has to be able to make a reason for

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don't they're not things but it not it has

to be that way though we have to have those moments

in our life because what do you want? Like you can't, it's not a straight line. It's a long winding road of like, I actually think our generation of bands and musicians, I think there's a weird through line like where all the guys like, one, we were raised by bands that like had really bad behavior and bad habits. And it was glamorized and these fantasies were like put in our heads in the 90s. Like drugs were cool. Everything was kind of made to seem like it was like. Caring wasn't cool. Caring wasn't cool. And you grew up. with this idea that like all these bad things were good and all these good things were bad. And it's like, don't sell out.

Right. It's weird. Right. Don't be successful. Don't have success or don't. Whatever the messaging were, it was weird. And I think we're all around the same age because I see other guys and bands that are all actually just trying to have like real lives and do this thing and find the balance of like

what does that mean and be real people and not be these like weird alien like people that live in these like bubbles and don't interact with the world in a real way. So I think like over the last 20 years, we're this like generation of musicians that have one grown up in front of everybody. Two, want more out of life than just whatever this was sold to us as. What this is going to be is like, you're going to be rich and famous and you're like, what does that mean? And then you kind of get on the other side of it and you go like some of it's good, some of it's bad. That's the nature of life. And now we're in our 40s. We have kids. We have families. Amazing wives. I love your wife, By the way, she's amazing.

And by the way, also, she's a fucking goat. Awesome. She's a goat. We're also just so lucky that we get to have a little bit of all this. I think that it's so hard to balance things like that and to be able to say that you have these priorities. And like I said, always the best intentions. Nothing is perfect. It can't be.

But just to have all the right priorities in the right order is just mentally the challenge of that, I think. And being able to have success, but also being able to balance. That's the hardest thing to do. It's like, what would you say over the last 23 years personally, but with Maroon 5, my experience of your band is you guys are having this like solidifying moment. You've always put out music. You've toured. For me, it's always been on brand.

I've always been like, but I think it's just you being yourself. That's probably why it's on brand. But I look at it and I go, okay, this is a band that's classic by any standard, but also is in the world. right now and not out of touch with the world and engaging in the world making music putting on shows so i look at it and i go that's someone who's done it really well and none of us know how to do this shit we're just like going through we just haven't stopped right i think i think that's probably like i think at a certain point you know how this is where you have some success and then it's like hey you want to do this hey you want to do this maybe you could try this and you feel like you

can do anything and i think for me like and then the tv show and then like you know you experienced it Oh, now I'm on TV all the time. It like, it can take away from that momentum of like, no, but like the music is what I'm here for. Because I've seen. The music's first. Always. So like as long as that's what I lead with, it's like, I'm not going to go try and pretend

like, I'm going to be this or be that. This is all I know. Really. And even the fucking voice, it's music. So that, you're talking about having a brand. Like there's never been a sit down or a conversation about it. It's just like all I know how to do literally is music. So as long as I just keep doing.

doing that, put my head down, focus, that will be what defines me as like just continue doing this. It's that dumbly simple, but I think that's where I'm at. I'm just saying, 23 years as Maroon 5, that's exactly kind of what I thought. You know what's funny too about what I admire most about you guys too? It's like, you guys are so good at doing other things. Like when I come to you this office and I see all the things you've done, I know you've worked and signed other artists and done other. record label stuff like the way in benjy tells me about business shit you guys do which we won't get

into but like i'm incapable of that like like and i think that's what if anything i would have liked there to be some more all i can do all i have any confidence in in this world is the fact that like i can sit down and write a song i can go perform and play that's it but like i don't know like that is my like you said that is my brand whereas like you guys were able to do other shit so i could see how that could be tempting to go and take seven years off and do that i do that i don't just am incapable of it, if that makes sense. Yeah, well, I think your empire is more than music. But I think it's all of us being ourselves, right? Because when I see what you've accomplished, it's 10 times or however many multiples greater than what we have in the music sense of like,

how many records have we sold, this, this, than that. Not that we could compare, but if I look at the equity, but yeah, if I look at the wall you've built by putting one brick in at a time, it's almost like what we've accomplished in our businesses, is similar. It's the same amount of energy going in because we work the same. We all work all the time. And that is why I envy about it. Is it equally impressive to me. I'm actually blown away by that aspect of what you guys do. Is that like I just, I think, I think in, I think in establishing what we're talking about for me, which is like, how have it, how have I done it? It's basically by sticking to that, that one thing. Yeah. And that's, like I said, that's all I know. I've tried

to do some of the shit you guys have pulled off super successfully and I fucking can't do it. It's impossible. But that's only because you kept the music first and I see it. That's exactly what you hit the nail on the head. When I think about Maroon 5, I think music. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Think about it. When I think about Maroon 5, I think music.

It's a musical, it's a very rich musical brand entity, whatever you want to call it. But when I think about you, I think music. When I think about Maroon 5, I think music. Yes. And it's not just, it's not any one song. It's not, it's not any one genre. It's music. And that to me, you nailed it.

You put the music first always. That's kind of the North Star. And with us, we didn't. We went and we'd through and which one's better, which one? I think we're all just being ourselves. But that's what I'm saying. That's part of my thing and what's part of y'all's thing is what you've done, which has obviously been hugely successful too.

So it's not, that's why the metrics mean less. It's more about like, okay, well, what do we build? What do we build? How do we build it? What kind of thing? And so I envy both things. You know what I mean? It's pretty cool.

It's cool to know you. It's cool to know you too, bro. Yeah. I'm excited for the record, man, and the tour. Yeah, man, I can't wait. We shall see. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me, dude.

Appreciate it, dude. Great. Right on. Thank you for listening to Artist Friendly. We really appreciate it. If you like the show, you can also follow us on Spotify. You can follow us on Instagram at Artists. And you can watch us on YouTube and Veeps.

leave comments, I always read them. See you next time.