Adam Levine On Controversial Decision To Play The Super Bowl: “No One Put More Thought And Love In This Than I Did”

Adam Levine says he thought long, hard and quiet before deciding to put his group Maroon 5 squarely in the midst of both a football game and an even bigger controversy. With Maroon 5 set to headline this Sunday’s Super Bowl Halftime show, Levine has faced a backlash from groups calling for a boycott in a sign of solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, the former (big emphasis on former) NFL quarterback who launched the on-field kneeling protest movement against police brutality.

“No one thought about it more than I did,” The Voice coach Levine told Entertainment Tonight last night in what apparently will be Levine’s only pre-Bowl interview. “No one put more thought and love into this than I did. I spoke to many people, most importantly though, I silenced all the noise and listened to myself, and made my decision about how I felt.”

Earlier this week, the NFL announced that Maroon 5 would not take part in a pre-game press conference that traditionally includes the Halftime musical acts.

“Maroon 5 has been working hard on a Pepsi Super Bowl LIII Halftime Show that will meet and exceed the standards of this event,” the NFL said in a statement Tuesday. “As it is about music, the artists will let their show do the talking as they prepare to take the stage this Sunday.”

Perhaps keeping in mind the thousands of signers of a Change.org petition urging Levine’s band to withdraw from the Halftime gig, Levine spoke to ET about people who feel like their voices aren’t heard.

“They will be [heard],” Levine said, “that’s all I want to say because I don’t want to spoil anything. And once again, I like to think that people know where I stand as a human being after two decades doing this. I’m not a speaker. I’m not a public speaker. I do speak, but it’s through the music. My life’s work and what I put out into the universe has been positive and hopefully inspiring … So, what I would say is, you know, we are going to do what we keep on doing, hopefully without becoming politicians and continuing to use the one voice we know how to use properly.”

Also scheduled to perform at Sunday night’s game at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta are Big Boi and Travis Scott, with Gladys Knight scheduled to perform the national anthem.

So what can viewers expect from the Maroon 5 Halftime show? Levine didn’t give much away, but here you go:

“I think we wanted to make sure we were able to speak once again through the music, so yes, absolutely, once we processed these things, it took a lot of looking inward and introspection and I thought to myself, ‘What is my greatest tool, you know, what is the thing that I can use to express myself … the best way for the band to express themselves, and how are we going to do it this year? What do we owe ourselves, what do we owe the people?’ And that is what we did, and I am beyond proud of the finished product, and literally never, never been more excited in my entire life to present this to the people because I believe that it’s truly a reflection of all of us.”

The Super Bowl airs Sunday Feb. 3 starting at 6:30 p.m. ET on CBS.