Maroon 5 Minus 1? (Then +1 Again?)

“take a break from the band for an undetermined amount of time to focus more on his studies of music and “spiritual healing”.”

This particular quote is fragile in factuality, as it comes from an un-cited wikipedia edit on Carmichael’s wiki page, and is identically written on Maroon 5’s wikipedia page as well.

The new individual listed to have taken the “5th spot” to replace Carmichael is a singer/songwriter named PJ Morton. Morton is a Soul, Pop and Alternative musician. He is indeed the real thing folks. His official website is HERE, which lists tour dates for solo work and links to his Facebook, Twitter and ReverbNation pages.

The news itself though, is official –as Morton’s Twitter headline does read the following:

“Singer/songwriter… YMCMB recording artist. Keyboards/Vocals in MAROON 5. NEW EP FOLLOWING MY FIRST MIND drops MARCH 27!!”

In addition, if Twitter isn’t solid enough evidence for you, the official Maroon 5 website sees Carmichael’s image absent and replaced with Morton as part of the group and citable news on the band’s News page in fact from March 9th.

Thus far, hearing the track “Heavy” (ft. Adam Levine) that automatically plays when you open up Morton’s site, he certainly has a strong and appealing voice. (Definitely sounding similar to his Facebook listed influence of Stevie Wonder) How will this line up change affect the band –especially while they are in the throes of their next new album, “Overexposed?” (announced HERE) As Morton is shifted from a solo vocalist to a group vocalist/keyboardist capacity for things concerning Maroon 5, he certainly won’t be running over the band’s ‘signature sound’ of Levine’s voice. (see my post on Patrick Stump and band alterations)

Clearly though, as is evident by the backlash Stump suffered at the hands of his so called ‘dedicated’ fan base, (border lining on singularly obsessed,) either Carmichael or other four of Maroon 5 could be in for some lingering social media shock and knee-jerk reactions from fans. It’s already started, and potentially, ‘quietly raging’ via Tumblr. One user, whose blog is titled, “The Invisible Girl,” speaks her mind on the topic and can be seen in the context of her page HERE:

“Nobody told me Jesse was taking a break from the band. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Actually, I do know how I feel. I am deeply upset. And who in the world is this new person? Jesse will NEVER be replaced!”

Not the best indicator but there are leagues of Maroon 5 fans, so passionate words will come from both sides I’m sure. We’ll see how the media unfolds the story. My first impulse thought is that the story will come out in full, through “official” channels, sometime today or tomorrow, because of the “coincidence” I mentioned above. I will be interested to hear how this new combination of voices and artistic styles comes together –particularly since Maroon 5 has previously had more prominent arrangements and instrumentation connecting to Funk, Soulful Blues and the occasional element of Jazz, as heard on their 2002 debut, Songs About Jane.

Don’t start falling completely to pieces though. As long as Maroon 5 doesn’t take an excessively and unnecessarily long time to track their fifth album, we won’t be without Jesse Carmichael for too, too long…