High 5: ‘This Love’ has Maroon 5 sitting atop the charts

Spencer Patterson

Friday, May 14, 2004 | 8:10 a.m.

"We'd been in Europe for about a month, right as this stuff was really starting to happen," guitarist James Valentine explained in a phone interview from his Los Angeles home.

"When we got back, (vocalist) Adam (Levine) and I were driving around L.A. and we heard the song on the radio three times within three hours, just running errands. We couldn't believe it."

The track, off Maroon 5's debut album, "Songs About Jane," continues to dominate airwaves 14 weeks after initially charting

and a whopping 22 months after the disc's June 2002 release.

This week "This Love" ranks No. 1 on Billboard's Adult Top 40 and Top 40 Mainstream charts, No. 2 among Top 40 Tracks and No. 5 on the prestigious Billboard Hot 100. With those statistics as the backdrop, the Los Angeles-based pop-rock quintet stops at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay on Monday night. Also on the bill: Big City Rock and the Red West. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for the all-ages show.

Maroon 5 was originally scheduled to play Las Vegas in February, as the opening

act for John Mayer at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

Days before that concert, however, Maroon 5 canceled. The reason? An offer to perform on "Saturday Night Live," which Valentine said the band simply couldn't pass up.

"We felt really bad, but it was obviously such an honor to be asked to be on 'SNL.' It was a really big deal for us," Valentine said. "But I know some fans from California had made plans to travel out there (for the Vegas show), so it was a tough decision. We apologize."

Maroon 5 played both of its hit singles "Harder to Breathe" and "This Love" on "SNL," appearing with guest host Christina Aguilera.

"I did not have high expectations for her comedic abilities, but she was really, really funny," Valentine said.

The "SNL" experience remains the highlight of what has been a wild ride since Maroon 5 formed in 2000, according to the 25-year-old Lincoln, Neb., native.

"People ask, 'What moment did you really feel like you guys had made it?' And I feel like being on that show was one of those moments, probably more than anything else I can think of," Valentine said.

"Having watched bands on there like Pearl Jam, that we admired growing up, and being in the halls of where the sketches are made was pretty cool."

Maroon 5's meteoric rise has been an unlikely success story, considering four members of the band -- Levine, keyboardist Jesse Carmichael, bassist Mickey Madden and drummer Ryan Dusick -- failed to make a lasting impression with their first band, alternative rock outfit Kara's Flowers.

"They were essentially put through the major-label ringer that a lot of bands go through," Valentine said. "Two weeks after the album had been out, radio wasn't responding well to it, so the label just pulled out completely, which is a pretty stupid mentality."

Valentine, an acquaintance of the Kara's Flowers' foursome, joined that group for its final gigs, then became an official member around the time the name changed to Maroon 5. (The origin of that moniker remains a secret. "We took a blood oath. Well, actually we didn't, but that sounds better," Valentine said).

Maroon 5 signed to a brand new independent label, Octone Records, continued touring and began recording the tunes that would eventually comprise "Songs About Jane."

For Valentine, it required a significant change in musical direction, from the "progressive rock-fusion" stylings of his previous band to the more radio-friendly sound of Maroon 5.

"In the transition to this soul, contemporary R&B sound, the guys were really into the sterile and stripped-down aspects of contemporary hip-hop and R&B," Valentine said. "It was about simplicity, so I really had to tone down my playing, concentrate way more on the feeling rather than on impressing everybody with my brilliant chops (laughs)."

"Songs About Jane" (the title refers to Levine's ex-girlfriend) hit stores in June 2002. Valentine estimates it sold "around 1,000 copies" the first week.

"It was a very quiet start," he recalled.

From those humble beginnings, however, Maroon 5's disc slowly blossomed into a major force on the pop charts.

"Every week we'd sell maybe 50 more copies, 100 more copies," Valentine said. "One of the record label guys showed us the sales graph for the last two years and it's this really slow curve that just keeps going up. It's really slow at first, but then it's like those exponential curves -- once it hit a certain point, it was just boom, boom, boom."

Nearly two years after its release and 51 weeks after it entered the charts, "Songs About Jane" rests at No. 19 on the Billboard 200.

The number that blows Valentine's mind, however, is one, as in having the No. 1 single on the Top 40 chart.

"This is beyond the realm of anything that I set out to accomplish when I came out here to L.A.," Valentine said. "Even when Maroon 5 started touring, we were in a van and I'd scrounge up quarters to buy tacos. So this is insane."