Maroon 5’s James Valentine: Minimalist Funk, a Love of Improv, and His Signature Music Man

Countless people all around the world know James Valentine as the long-haired lead guitarist for pop mega stars Maroon 5. His clean tones and ability to weave just the right amount of funky rhythms and memorable melodies into the band’s hits have ushered in an era of guitar minimalism that has tamed the formerly aggressive sound of radio rock guitar. But what many don’t know is that Valentine is an incredibly accomplished guitarist in a wide variety of styles. His love of ’90s rock is balanced by a healthy dose of Satriani and years of jazz studies.

Yet what truly makes Valentine unique is his ability to mold all of that into a style of playing that is the definition of selflessness. According to Valentine, “The band itself and the songs are more important than any individual.” And that sentiment is backed up by the sound of Valentine’s incredibly popular signature Music Man Valentine electric guitar, singing throughout his band’s most recent album, Red Pill Blues.

With a new album hitting the charts and the success of his signature guitar, Sweetwater reached out to Valentine in an effort to learn more about the guitarist who’s sitting firmly on top of the pop world. Speaking from his home in Southern California, Valentine took the time to discuss his guitar, his band, and how Nile Rodgers helped set him on the path he’s on today.

What got you into music? Did you grow up in a musical household?

My older brother was seven years older than me, and he had a band. I used to sit at the top of the stairs to the basement and listen to them rehearse. And I was also really influenced by his collection of cassette tapes. He exposed me, early on, to all kinds of stuff. He was really into Rush, and he played me Joe Satriani for the first time. And he was into really cool art house sort of stuff, like Bauhaus. That was a good education for me.

And my parents made us all take piano lessons when I was eight years old. But I just always had the idea that I wanted to play guitar. It took me a lot of time to convince my parents to actually get me a guitar. But once I did, I was just obsessed and playing all the time.

Who were the guitarists that first inspired you?
As soon as I got a guitar it was the early ’90s, right when grunge hit. Nirvana obviously was huge, Soundgarden, and then Pearl Jam was huge for me. Especially that record Ten. That’s where I really learned how to play.

Mike McCready’s blues solos got me into playing leads. And I remember seeing Mike McCready wearing a Stevie Ray Vaughan T-shirt. So I was like, “Who’s that?” Which of course sent me on a whole other path.

And eventually the blues led me into jazz. I became fascinated by how these guys improvise these amazing solos. I just wanted to get inside of that and figure out how they did it. And I’m still doing that. That stuff just really inspires me.

You’re very open with your appreciation of jazz players such as Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, and John Scofield. What is it about that style that inspires your playing?
I was listening to a podcast the other day, and I heard Dan Wilson [songwriter] say that studying jazz is like secret songwriting training. And it’s true. If you learn the basics of jazz improvisation and the basics of jazz harmony, writing pop songs is no different. You’re playing some chords and fumbling around to see what works melodically. I think the jazz training really helps with that songwriting process. If you can play jazz, there are ways to apply it in pop music and in rock.


Are you able to inject your passion for jazz into your playing within Maroon 5?
When we were touring Songs About Jane, we didn’t have enough material for a headlining set. So you bet there was some jazz explorations going on! [laughs] But now, as we have more of a canon of hit songs, which we’re very lucky to have, there’s a little less time for jazz odysseys. But we still get those moments in there.

You have a very funky and minimalistic approach in Maroon 5. I hear a lot of single-note melodies and Nile Rodgers-esque rhythms.
Once I discovered Nile Rodgers, it was like, “This is perfect!” In fact, we met with Nile Rodgers to produce our first album, but we couldn’t afford him at the time. We were at SIR studios in New York City, and Nile walked in with his guitar on his back. We were already sort of playing. He didn’t even say anything. He just plugged into an amp that we had set up for him and started jamming. And in the 30 or 40 minutes, Nile kind of wrote the blueprint for how we would approach guitars in Maroon 5 for the rest of our career.

Maroon 5’s sound can be very dense, and your guitar isn’t always the focal point. Was that difficult to adjust to?
It was an adjustment for me, because in my previous band, my guitar was front and center and it was about my leads and solos.

But that was one of the things that I was aware of. I was stepping into this band where it was a very different thing. The first time I saw them play, they already had a lot of the songs written that would wind up going on Songs About Jane. I realized that this is on a whole other level. The songs were just so far ahead of what anyone else in that scene at the time was writing. This is something that’s bigger than any individual. It’s certainly more important than my ego as a guitar player.


The band has just released your sixth album, Red Pill Blues. Did you get to branch out as a player in any new ways on this new record?
I had a great time working with Ricky Reed, who is an amazing producer. He’s a guitar player himself, so we got out some weird pedals. He had some ideas of some sounds that he wanted, and we were down on the floor putting pedals together to try and come up with stuff. I loved it! We may come up with a sound that you hear for like a measure, barely in the background, but it’s a labor of love [Laughs].


What were some of your favorite pedals that made it to the record, and what other gear are you using these days?
So many effects are in-the-box. But something happens when you hit the amp with these things, you know? So we like to keep a ton of pedals around to experiment with. That’s just a fun part of it. All the JHS stuff is great. I got some EarthQuaker stuff too. And the Strymon stuff makes appearances a lot. In the studio, I don’t generally have my board. I have my tried-and-true effects like my Fulltone OCD or the Full-Drive, and I still really like the Line 6 DL4. And my Valentine guitar is all over the records, of course.


Speaking of your Music Man signature Valentine, what inspired that guitar, and how did your relationship with Ernie Ball begin?
That’s a funny story. I go way back with those guys. I basically owe them everything. My band from Nebraska won the 1999 Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands competition. That year, the grand prize was $25,000. We used that money to move out to LA. So really, they started the sequence of events that would lead to me joining Maroon 5.

Then I kept on running into Brian Ball, and he was always like, “You should do a signature guitar.” I initially took the meeting with them to just be polite, not thinking that I was going to actually do it. But when I went in, they said, “What are your favorite guitars?” I said, “Telecaster and the ES-335,” which have nothing to do with each other. Then we actually laid a Telecaster-style body right on top of a 335. They sort of connected the balance points, pulled some angles here and there, and we ended up with the shape that would ultimately become the Valentine body. It looked classic and something new.

And at first it was a little heavy because we were going for a straight slab body. So Sterling [Ball – Ernie Ball CEO] came up with the idea of the wedge body. It took some weight off and added an ergonomic feel where it’s a little thinner at the top than it is on the bottom. It makes it cradle against the body a little better.

Then after we came up with that body shape, I played one of their hand-rubbed oil necks and was like, “This is awesome! How have I not been playing necks like this forever?” And that’s one of the things people are drawn to right away when they play it.


The guitar’s electronics are really unique as well.
We designed the guitar to be a workhorse for my set in Maroon 5. The idea was that I should be able to play the guitar throughout the entire Maroon 5 set without switching. We knew we wanted the Tele-style bridge [pickup] for sure. We brought in a few of my favorite Teles to try and capture that “spank.” And I think we achieved that. But aesthetically, I just like the look of the two humbuckers. And we were doing these custom-wound Ernie Ball pickups anyway, so we thought, “Why can’t they be in a humbucker-style casing?”

And it has a noise-canceling circuit too. Because when we’re playing around in different venues every night or in TV studios, a lot of that interference can really [mess] up the sound. These pickups are really spanky, but they’re still quiet because of that circuit.


The guitar has an active clean boost function, doesn’t it?
Yeah. It’s great because it’s an adjustable boost. So if you want, it can be a nice, clean, transparent boost. Or you crank it up all the way to 20dB, and it’ll send your amp into overdrive territory. That’s really useful for me when I’m away from my pedals. If I’m wandering down the “ego ramp,” I can kick on that boost. It’s basically the “It goes to 11” on the guitar.

And it’s also got the coil tap on the humbucker in the neck position, which is really cool too. I’ll put it in the middle position and throw that on for a real spanky, Stratty type of funk sound.


Do you also use Ernie Ball strings?
I sure do! I’ve been using the Power Slinkys forever. Once I get in front of people, I play pretty hard. So anything less than 11s, I can’t keep in tune. I need the snap-back from the heavier strings. But yeah, I’ve always been an Ernie Ball guy as far as strings are considered.

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