A King and An Ace

It’s been a half-decade since Mickey and company released their blockbuster debut, Songs About Jane. In the meantime, Maroon 5 has swept up two Grammy Awards, charted a fistful of back-to-back hit singles, landed gigs with rock royalty like the Police and the Rolling Stones, and sold enough records to make the Beach Boys blush. As a sounding board and co-producer for beat dealer Dr. Dre, Mike Elizondo entered the pop-music game through the back studio door. Mike began stretching out as an instrumentalist and producer into the parallel worlds of hip-hop heavies, arty singer/songwriters, and glamorous pop divas.

Mickey and Mike have admired one another’s skill for years, so both bassists were thrilled to come together to help craft the new Maroon 5 release. From both sides of the studio glass, they teamed up to tap some of the slickest grooves in contemporary pop.

For a breakout band like Maroon 5, there’s always a risk the second album won’t measure up to the first. But It Won’t Be Soon Before Long goes down like a tasty and refreshing sonic smoothie: tart rhythmic hits peek out from within a deep and delicious groove base, while silky, sweet melodies mingle with complex harmonic textures. It’s a rich and satisfying batch of funk-fortified doses—a chilled-out energy boost. The record plays like a celebration of the sounds the five guys grew up with: The rhythm section of Mickey and drummer Matt Flynn produces a postmodern mash-up of contemporary hip-hop, ’80s new wave, and classic soul. James Valentine plays guitar like the demon offspring of Nile Rodgers and Neal Schon, and keyboardist Jesse Carmichael’s taste in tone and harmony reveals a youth spent spinning Quincy Jones and Ric Ocasek productions. Frontman Adam Levine’s roots are hardest to pinpoint—mainstream rock, soul, and R&B all come through in his undeniably stylish and sexy delivery.

After years of touring, Maroon 5 spent last year drafting material for the new record. They met with a few prospective producers—Eric Valentine helmed a handful of the new album tracks—but things clicked immediately with Elizondo. “We loved his vibe,” says Mickey. “He’s just a chill guy with great arrangement ideas.”

“I was there mostly to be an extra set of ears as the band got more familiar with the songs,” explains Elizondo. “We did a month and a half of pre-production, whittling the songs down and finding ways to improve them. We’d try different arrangements, change keys, or try different tempos. We wouldn’t work them out too far, though. We left room to experiment and explore in the studio.”

After buttoning down some arrangements, the band began tracking at Conway Studios in Hollywood with Elizondo and engineer Spike Stent. “Spike and I agreed that having everybody track together was a great starting point,” says Elizondo. “Once we had the drums, we’d go back and reconsider the bass part. Sometimes it would be done, or we’d do one or two little fixes. We followed Mickey’s lead. If the rough cut was cool and Mickey was happy, we moved on. Other times Mickey would overdub a completely new part.

“I had been a fan of what Mickey had done on the first record, and I was excited to see how he works,” Elizondo continues. “He’s amazing at finding a part and sticking to it. On a few occasions, we encouraged him to take more liberties. When we worked on ‘Nothing Lasts Forever,’ for example, there was room for Mickey to be more melodic—to almost harmonize with the lead vocal. It’s always fun to sit with another bass player and talk shop, or figure out what kinds of sounds he likes. Basically Mickey followed his instincts, and I suggested ideas for getting the right sound. We spent a lot of time figuring out how long to play each note—that’s a big part of what establishes the groove. We wanted some of the bass tracks to have the accuracy and precision you’d get from playing synth bass, like in hip-hop.”

Mickey Madden: Pocket Ace

Kenny Rogers said it: You’ve gotta know when to hold ’em. Mickey Madden and Mike Elizondo couldn’t agree more. As Mickey reveals, attention to note length was just one of the many ways Elizondo helped him deepen his pocket to improve the groove.

How did Mike’s knowledge and experience as a bass player impact your playing on this new record?
Having someone I respected so much right next to me definitely made me rise to the occasion. Mike’s attention to detail is unbelievable; he’s very aware of things you might not normally think of, and he has a great sense of how notes fit into a groove and within a chord. He can play jazz and fusion like a monster, but he can also groove on one note for 20 minutes, solid as a rock. He’s the biggest Beatles fan in the world, but he plays bass with Dr. Dre!

What’s the band’s writing process?
Sometimes Adam brings in songs that are pretty much finished, or he’ll write over a piano part that Jesse came up with. Sometimes they come out of jams we’d all play together. It’s pretty democratic, and we don’t really have a formula. After being a band for so long, we realize what we each bring to the table.

What do you bring?
I’ve really enjoyed working on rhythmic details of songs with Matt [Flynn, drums], putting together grooves. Elizondo was extraordinarily helpful in facilitating that—groove is Mike’s real area of expertise.

What do you listen for when working on a groove?
My approach is to lock with the kick, but maybe lay a little bit behind. Most of my bass lines start more simply than they end up. I start by following the kick and then exploring the chords more as the song develops.

Were there any records you listened to for inspiration before or during recording?
The biggest reference points were Talking Heads, Prince, the Police, and Stevie Wonder.

What do you like about the bass on those records?
Tina Weymouth’s tone with Talking Heads—it’s not as round as the typical funk bass sound. It’s a little more angular and cutting. I love Prince because it’s rooted in classic funk like James Brown, but it sounds totally futuristic. Mike and I also share James Jamerson as a hero, especially when it comes to tone.

“Nothing Lasts Forever” has some cool countermelodies on bass. How did you come up with those lines?
The verses of that song are very simple—an example of where I lock with the kick. But when the chorus opens up, I slide up and play a countermelody—like a line Paul McCartney might play. I found a pretty way to slide into a high C# against a Dmaj7 chord. I couldn’t play that note low, or it would sound too muddy. We worked a lot on that chorus, because it was a real delicate pocket, and hard to place the line sweetly.

How do you guys adapt the new material for playing live?
It’s like putting together puzzle pieces—finding the song’s essential elements and figuring out what works live and what doesn’t. I really enjoy that part of it. But we were careful to avoid overproduction in the first place. We spend a lot of time on the road, and we need to pull these songs off live.

What’s some music you’ve been listening to?
I recently bought a compilation called Avon Calling, of all these Bristol-based post-punk bands, like Gl*xo Babies, Europeans, and the Skodas. I like the way those bands take dance music—disco and Philly soul—and play it hard and fast and loose, messing it up with a lot of noise and angular, naïve playing. That juxtaposition really appeals to me. To some extent, my band has the same sort of mentality, in that we are a rock band playing dance music.
I’ve been listening to a lot of doo-wop from the ’50s and ’60s, like the Orioles—those harmonies are beyond belief. That music is so soulful and sad. And I’ve been listening to a lot of ’70s reggae, as always—Big Youth and King Tubby.

Does your love for reggae translate into your playing?
There’s not much opportunity for that kind of playing in what we do; the way notes fall in reggae bass lines is so unusual. It doesn’t make much sense in most rock music.

What do you like most about this new record?
It doesn’t fit easily into any particular category—it’s unique. You can hear the various influences, but it doesn’t sound like any particular thing. That’s not necessarily what we set out to do—it just ended up that way. I think we successfully pulled off a new hybrid.
I feel that rock music is at a weird, stagnant point. To put in nicely, you could call it a neo-classical phase; rock bands get praised by virtue of who they sound like. To me, that’s just not enough. Fortunately, Adam is an extremely adept songwriter. Most of the songs he writes would translate well into any sort of presentation, which is great. Then what we do with them stylistically—how we present them—is where the band comes in.

Mike Elizondo: Groove King

Elizondo could have built an entire career on the work he’s done with Dr. Dre, but he’s branched out to rule some of the coolest gigs in the land, most recently with Fiona Apple, Ry Cooder, and Maroon 5.

How would you describe Mickey’s bass style?
There are elements that sound like early new wave, like Talking Heads, the Smiths, and Prince. He sounds like a lot of those lesser-known early new wave bass players who don’t really get their due as artists. A key to the band’s sound is it never goes too far down one path. If James [Valentine, guitar] were playing something rock-minded, Mickey might play more like Bernard Edwards of Chic.

How did you start working as a producer with Dr. Dre?
The first few years, I’d just come in and play bass lines for him. The first production credit I got with him was five or six years ago, and the one that put me on the map was 50 Cent’s “In da Club” [from Get Rich or Die Tryin’]. That enabled me to go and do things that were tied into my background in rock & roll, rather than just hip-hop.
I took myself out of his world a few years ago, after a solid nine-year period when all I did was work with Dre. But I definitely don’t want to pass up an opportunity to work on another record with him. Right now we’re working on his new album, just getting together and trying out ideas.

How do you and Dre work?
I set up a portable Logic rig with all my sounds, a guitar rig, and a bass rig in the corner of his studio. We just throw up ideas and scan for sounds. Most of the time we start out with keyboard, but occasionally I’ll start out with an idea on guitar. We rarely start with a bass idea.

How did you get the gig producing Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine?
I’m friends with [guitarist] Jon Brion, and he brought Fiona over to my house one day. Our original idea was for me to work with Jon to finish the record that he had started producing. We just hung out for a day—Fiona is the kind of person who needs to feel comfortable with you on a personal level before anything creative can happen. Some time later I was approached to rework her songs for the record.

How did you go about doing that?
I did my homework and made sure I knew the songs and their arrangements so I could alter them. Fiona is very eclectic in her treatment of rhythm and harmony, which provides a very cool challenge to get to the core of what the groove should be. I’d go to Fiona with song templates showing new directions her songs could take. I did eight or nine songs like that before we even talked about actually making the record.

On the playing side, what do you have going on?
I’ve become friends with drummer Jim Keltner, and he’s introduced me to a lot of great people, including Ry Cooder. Ry recently had me come in to play on a Mavis Staples record. I played a lot of upright bass, and an old Harmony hollowbody bass. I wanted to sound a little like those old Staple Singers records, but do something modern with it.
The only gigs I’ve been playing have been very spontaneous—impromptu gigs with Fiona, Jon Brion, and Dave Palmer, plus a few others with Wendy & Lisa and Doyle Bramhall. For other session work, it’s mostly me hiring myself for the things I’m working on!

Do you write music on your own?
Not really. I like collaborating with people. Fortunately, work has been consistent enough that I just move from one project to the next—if it’s not, then I’m taking time to spend with my family. With Maroon 5, I didn’t do much writing or playing—it was a more traditional producer role. There are rare times when I go into my studio just to experiment, but I usually invite over a friend to bounce ideas back and forth. I think that comes from my background of being in bands, loving that collaborative camaraderie.

As a producer, how do you like to work?
Whenever anybody is tracking, I try to have at least one other musician playing at the same time. That way, an energy is established that can translate into a great performance. I’ve learned what makes me the most comfortable as a musician, and I try to do that for the musicians I work with. It’s important for a musician to feel, OK, now we’re just focusing on my part. He needs to feel psyched about his performance and what he’s doing. I take my lead from the artist I’m working with; I’ll suggest ideas and try to find their comfort zone.

How has your producing career come together?
Playing bass in bands got my foot in the door, and that turned into studio work. Getting credits with Dr. Dre gave me what I needed for a label to put their trust in me to produce artists like Fiona Apple and Nelly Furtado. Fortunately, some of the choices I’ve made keep me from getting pigeon-holed—as a bass player, a songwriter, or a producer. Opportunities have come in, and I’ve made a conscious effort to be open to everything and to learn from it.

How have you gotten to work with such a accomplished list of players?
I don’t know—I’m not what you would call a networker, and I can’t say I did something to put myself in this position. There’s a strand that’s somehow been woven for me to come into contact with all these great people. Some of it came through session work. Other times, label A&R guys have put me together with artists. And you’d be surprised at how close knit musicians are in Los Angeles. When I’m getting the opportunity to meet someone, I just try to connect personally before I begin to think about what we’re going to do musically. I get more out of developing those friendships, and the music benefits.