Exclusive Clip: Maroon 5’s James Valentine Recalls How He and Adam Levine Wrote One of the Band’s Biggest Hits

All Maroon 5’s James Valentine was doing was playing a simple bossa nova riff on his guitar. But it soon turned into one of his band’s biggest singles. In the exclusive clip (above) Valentine tells the story of the night “She Will Be Loved” was born and how Adam Levine plucked the hit song nearly out of thin air.

“That’s kind of the awesome thing about combining ideas like that,” James says about his and Adam’s collaboration. “I brought it in, it was more of a bossa nova sort of thing. You listen to it now, it really has nothing to do with bossa nova.”

According to James, Adam came up with the song’s more modern melody on the spot that night while jamming out on his own guitar.

“It was so late at night, I remember, then I went to sleep and then Adam woke me up the next morning and he had written a whole song around that,” James recalls in the video. “She Will Be Loved” became the third single off of Maroon 5’s debut album “Songs About Jane” and later even earned the band a Grammy nomination.

“That’s kind of the cool thing that happens when you filter those varied sort of influences through yourself,” James explains. “It comes out, the other end, something completely different but it comes out something new.”

For more Maroon 5 behind-the-scenes stories and band footage, watch James Valentine on “Ernie Ball: The Pursuit of Tone,” Friday at 8 p.m. ET on Audience Network. Click here for more info.