High school friends Adam Levine, Jessie Carmichael, Mickey Madden, and Ryan Dusik had the idea to start a band back in the early ’90s. At that time, they called themselves Kara’s Flowers and identified as alt-rock.

Mostly they’d mess around and play for fun, but they managed to score a show 1995 at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go. The success they had there made them realize that they were more than a garage jam band after all. They rebranded as Maroon 5 a little while later, and the name doesn’t mean as much as you think. Maroon was one of the high school colors of where the group went to school, and there are five members (now): hence Maroon 5.

Kara’s Flowers

The five bandmates met at a private school called Brentwood, in the LA area. They became famous at their school, playing different school events and claiming that they couldn’t do their homework because they’d been at the studio.

Even though they were just a high school jam band, they got signed to Reprise Records and put out one album, The Fourth World, in 1997. After the boys graduated, they went on tour and shot a music video, but their career as Kara’s Flowers never really took off. Their record label noticed this and released them from their contract in 1999. Most of the band thought their careers were over. It’d been a short but fun ride.

Setting Their Sights on Red

After Adam Levine and Jesse Carmichel spent some time at college on the East coast, they came back to LA. The duo was ready to restart the band, and everyone was willing, but one of their members had switched instruments. That’s when they added James Valentine to play the keyboard.

They renamed themselves and played the music that Levine wrote, getting them noticed by a small New York Lable: Octone Records. After they were signed in 2002, they put out their first studio album as Maroon 5, Songs about Jane. That album had the radio-classic “She Will Be Loved” on it, which shot their band straight to the top. And though their sound has evolved to be a little more rock and a little less alternative since then, they’re still out there killing it.