Adam Levine, foreground; PJ Morton, background (Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)It’s been several weeks since the Super Bowl, where Maroon 5‘s halftime performance was slammed by viewers and critics alike. But the band’s keyboard player says the problem was that people were expecting Maroon 5 to do something they’d never planned to do in the first place.
Speaking to VIBE, Maroon 5’s keyboard player PJ Morton says, “What I haven’t heard out of everybody is the critique that ‘They sounded bad,’ which is what I wanted to accomplish. I think they had expectations for us to do something other than play our songs.”
PJ, who’s been in the band for nine years, continues, “I can’t really let a bad critique [bother me] — or really, not even bad…just like a regular ‘It wasn’t great, it wasn’t bad’ — that’s what I’ve been hearing. It just doesn’t do anything to me. I’m happy.”
Morton says Maroon 5 had only one goal: making sure “that we play the music well and that we sounded good and we put on a good show.”
He laughs, “I’m sorry that we couldn’t live up to the expectations — like, I think we were supposed to do some backflips or something like that….I just wanted to play the music and that was our plan from the beginning and that’s what we did.”
“I’m proud of my band mates for doing what we do,” PJ, who won his first solo Grammy on February 10, adds. “We’re musicians and we play music and entertain people. That’s what we did.”
PJ, who’s African-American, didn’t discuss the controversy surrounding Maroon 5’s decision to perform in the first place. The band was criticized for participating in light of the NFL’s treatment of players who chose to take a knee to protest police brutality and racial inequality.
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