Adam Levine thanks The Voice for making him a household name

Although Adam Levine has left The Voice, and he appears to be grateful for what the show has done for his popularity.

The lead singer of Maroon 5 served as a coach on the NBC singing competition series for its first 16 seasons before the surprise announcement in May that he will not return for the next instalment.

In an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music’s Beats 1show, Levine said he was very young when he joined the band in the early 2000s and it was a different time.

He spoke of the pressure in the showbiz business, adding not everyone had a camera on them at all times, “and you enjoyed a certain kind of privacy that I think you don’t enjoy anymore.

“And then being on The Voice and stuff really changed that even more. You know, it kind of launched me into the bizarre territory of being, I guess for lack of a better phrase, a household name.”

“So then people’s grandparents know who you are, and then you know, it’s a different thing,” he added.

Levine, 40, is nowadays concentrating on his music. On Friday, Maroon 5 released a new single, “Memories.”

He also spoke on the length of time he is in the business and the need to look at how this is reflecting on his work.

“For roughly 20 years, almost, I’ve been writing songs about relationships, successes, failures,” Levine said.

“And so then I think when it came time to think of another song, we thought, ‘OK, hey, let’s try to write a song that’s not about girls. Let’s try a song that’s not about…relationships and not about the broken relationships of the past and let’s move on to something that’s maybe a little more, even more universal, I think,” he said.

He said it’s an amazing moment to have something that forces “all of us to take a look at…something that makes us innately human, which is exploring loss and the things that have happened..”