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Adam Levine
Multi-talented singer-songwriter and guitarist Adam Levine is best known as the front man of pop-rock band, Maroon 5.
Levine began his music career forming the band Kara’s Flowers with a group of friends from performing arts camp in 1997 and later went on to form Maroon 5 in 2001. Having sold 15 million albums worldwide, they’ve released two albums to date: Songs About Jane and Be Soon Before Long; and they’re currently working on their third studio album.
Going solo, Adam has worked on plenty more besides… He features on Kanye West’s Late Registration album, on the song ‘Wild Horses’ by Alicia Keys and co-wrote the song ‘Say it again’ with Natasha Beddingfield – as well as providing backing vocals on the track.
He’s making his way on screen too. Levine and the rest of Maroon 5 are currently filming Get him to the Greek – a US comedy film scheduled for release in 2010.
Jonas Akerlund
You might not know his name – but you’ve undoubtedly seen his work… Swedish director Jonas Akerlund is well-known and respected in the music world as the mastermind behind many influential music videos such as Madonna’s ‘Ray of Light’ and U2’s ‘Beautiful Day’.
He kicked off as the main video director for fellow Swedish pop-act Roxette and it was onwards and upwards from there. He’s worked with superstars and pop royalty the world over including Madonna, Metallica, U2, Paul McCartney, Christina Aguilera, Pink, Lady GaGa, Primal Scream, Blondie, Ozzy Osbourne, Blink 182 and the Rolling Stones…and plenty more besides.
He was also the creative eye behind the hugely controversial 1997 Prodigy music video ‘Smack my bitch up’. The video was universally banned due to its explicit content but despite this, it was nominated for four MTV Video Music Awards – eventually walking away with two of them.
Since then, Jonas has graduated to the big screen, making his directorial debut on the movie Spun in 2006 and more recently releasing the 2009 film Horsemen starring Dennis Quaid.