Adam Levine Took His Daughters to See Olivia Rodrigo Last Summer and Was ‘Blown Away’ By the Show: ‘The Real Deal’

Adam Levine is a loud and proud girl dad. As the father of two daughters (as well as a two-year-old son), the Maroon 5 singer is not afraid to say that his girls’ musical taste sometimes shapes his own.

So when he sat down with the Sirius XM Hits 1 this week to promote his band’s just-released Love Is Like album as part of the radio streamer’s new Artist Residency program, Levine opened up about bonding with Dusty Rose, 8, and Gio Grace, 6, over their mutual obsession with Olivia Rodrigo. “I gotta do Olivia ’cause of my kids. They’ll be so excited. I mean, I’m also a fan of Olivia. I’m not shying away from the fact that I’m a big fan of Olivia Rodrigo,” he said.

“I took my girls to go see Olivia Rodrigo play at the Forum last summer and she was phenomenal,” Levine added. “I was blown away. She keeps it real. She puts on a rock show. All you kids out there, she does it for real. Not too much glitz and glamor and smoke and mirrors. Just the real deal. I think she’s amazing, so I’m gonna play a song by Olivia Rodrigo.”

Levine also told SiriusXM Hits 1 about the circuitous route the album’s soulful title track took to its final destination. The song, on which Levine sings in an almost rap-like cadence over a sample of the 1972 Ashford & Simpson song “Silly Wasn’t I,” was originally titled “Drugs,” but the band nixed that name because it felt too harsh.

He said he was at home writing and messing around with samples when he wrote the line, “love is like drugs,” which he wasn’t sure fit his vibe. “I was like, ‘Am I really gonna do this? This is weird. This is not my normal style,’” Levine recalled thinking of the track that started out as “a joke,” but then took on a real life when he sent it to a few friends thinking they’d agree it was a dumb idea.

“I was like, ‘Oh, this is dumb. I can’t do this. This is silly, right?,’” he asked them. “And every response I kept getting back was like, ‘No, this is actually really good,’ and so there’s that scary feeling of something when you’re doing something that you don’t usually do.” More confident he was on to something, Levine kept working on the track before having a lightbulb moment that what it really needed was a verse from Lil Wayne.

“So we got it to his team and it’s funny because when they got it, they were like, ‘Oh, this is so sick. When is Adam gonna cut it?,’ and they were like, ‘No, that’s Adam singing in the song.’ And they’re like, ‘What?’” But for Levine, 46, who is more than three decades into his career, putting the final touches on the song was “scary” because it was definitely new territory for him. “But they loved it. Wayne loved it. His verse is crazy,” he said. “It worked out, you know?”

Maroon 5’s eighth studio album also features the previously released team-up with BLACKPINK’s LISA on “Priceless,” as well as the singles “All Night” and “California” and “I Like It” featuring Sexyy Red.

Maroon 5 will hit the road in the fall to support the new album, kicking off with a Sept. 19 stop at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas, followed by the proper tour kick-off on Oct. 6 at PHX Arena in Phoenix.

Listen to Levine’s interview and watch the “Love Is Like” video below.