Adam Levine Feared 1 Song Would End His Career
Adam Levine once worried that one of his band’s biggest hits could have ended his career. During an April 2025 interview on The Howard Stern Show, the Maroon 5 frontman admitted that he didn’t want to record the 2011 song “Moves Like Jagger” after music producer Benny Blanco approached him with the lyrics.
“Benny came to us. He knew our manager,” Levine told Stern in the interview. “He brought me a song. It was funny because I was like, ‘Man, this motherf------ song is either a career ender, or it’s the biggest f------ thing on the planet. I don’t know.’”
Levine explained that while the original song had a very Maroon 5-like guitar riff, the song was originally written from the perspective of a female. “It was supposed to be like ‘He got the moves like Jagger,’” Levine recalled of the song that compared a man’s moves to Rolling Stones legend Mick Jagger.
Levine said he decided to change the lyrics around to make it work for his band. “They played me the song and I was, ‘I guess I could say, I got the moves like Jagger’ — and the whole room gasped,” he recalled.
“It was a huge swing, but we did it and, you know, the rest is history,” he added of the song’s makeover.
Levine noted that even his version of the song felt like a “no” at first. “But then it’s like this delicious piece of candy. Once you hear it a few times, you’re like, ‘OK, let’s just have fun, This is such a great, f------ song, who cares,’” he told Stern.
In August 2011, “Moves Like Jagger,” which featured Christina Aguilera, soared to the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Hot 100.
Levine previously shared the backstory on “Moves Like Jagger” in an interview on The Roots podcast with Questlove Supreme. He admitted that the song “kind of just fell” into his band’s lap.
"It was meant for like a female artist to sing about a guy, he's like he got them moves,” he said. “And nobody wanted to touch it. … I think even maybe it was pitched to like Janelle Monáe. I know that sounds crazy. She obviously didn't want to do it.”
While the song turned out to be a smart move for Maroon 5, in 2025, the band got an extra treat when Jagger himself was filmed dancing to it. Levine appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon after a video of the rock legend dancing to a cover version of the song at a bar surfaced on social media.
“It’s really surreal,” Levine said of the Mick Jagger moment. “How is it possible this is happening? I never wanted to be the bar band covering it more in my life!”
Related: Mick Jagger Explains What He Won't Do to Support His Kids