Adam Levine, the lead singer of the band Maroon 5, was never interested in college. “It never got to me that I hadn’t gone,” he said last week over coffee and a large bottle of Panna water. (He was recovering from a late night performance at Rolling Stone publisher Wenner Media’s holiday party.) “If you want to be a doctor you have to graduate.” Not so if you plan to become a pop star.

It’s one of the oldest rock dictums out there: We don’t need no education.

Luckily for the 25-year-old Mr. Levine, his talent and ambition have led to success, but he might want to keep his contempt for school quiet given his group’s legions of teenage fans.

Maroon 5’s first album, “Songs About Jane,” has so far sold nearly 3 million copies. It has been on the Billboard Top 200 chart for 83 weeks, longer than any other album currently in the top 40.The single “This Love” was the first song to become certified platinum as a download. They’ve played on “Saturday Night Live,” “The Tonight Show,” and “Total Request Live.” The video for their next single, “She Will Be Loved,” features actress Kelly Preston.

And on December 7, the band was nominated for two Grammy Awards, one for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, and another for Best New Artist. The latter is a perennial favorite among viewers. This year, the stiff competition includes Los Lonely Boys, Joss Stone, Gretchen Wilson, and multiple nominee Kanye West.

Mr. Levine is feeling some of the side effects of fame – he’s even sharing gossip column inches with Paris Hiton. On December 10, Page Six reported that the pair “partied into the wee hours before disappearing together” after the Billboard Awards in Las Vegas. Ms. Hilton told US magazine that the two are “great friends” and that Maroon 5 is her favorite band.

“I’ve gotta be honest,” Mr. Levine says now, with just a touch of awe. “We’re becoming very successful and it’s very weird. No one ever expected it to be this, kind of, gargantuan. But really, we’re BIG.”

Mr. Levine grew up in Los Angeles, and picked up a guitar at age 10 (he’s now on tour and lives on the road for the most part). He first played onstage with a band of 13- and 14-year-olds that called themselves Blurred Vision. Their only performance was on the first night of the Los Angeles riots, and Mr. Levine’s mother’s car was rocked back and forth as she drove to the show.

The core group that would eventually become Maroon 5 formed in high school as Kara’s Flowers. (It’s pronounced KAHR-ruh’s – when asked to repeat the name for clarity, Mr. Levine remarked “That was the problem.”) Their sound was a grungey blend Mr. Levine says was influenced by Weezer and Green Day. “The lyrics were all these weird nonsensical psychedelic garbage,” he said. “We still really hadn’t had any life experiences really worth writing about.”

Kara’s Flowers was signed to Reprise Records when Mr. Levine and his bandmates were still in high school. Their album “The Fourth World” was released in 1997.They had a guest spot on the television show “Beverly Hills, 90210.” Despite a large local following, sales languished and the label dropped them.

Meanwhile, Mr. Levine was in a rocky romantic relationship that he describes as “pretty emotional…It was the first time I’ve really been hit really hard, so that was a huge time in my life.”

On the flip side, it was also the kind of experience that makes up 97% of all three-minute pop songs, perfect for a songwriter sick of “psychedelic garbage” and yearning for mainstream success.

Mr. Levine was listening to old soul music at the time, and began tinkering with a new sound – more R &B and less Seattle. He also realized that smoother music was a better fit for his voice’s tone and range.

He and the other original members of Kara’s Flowers – guitarist Jesse Carmichael, bassist Mickey Madden, and drummer Ryan Dusick – reformed as Maroon 5 with the addition of guitarist James Valentine. The result of Mr. Levine’s lovelorn writing period was “Songs About Jane,” a neo-soul effort that translates Stevie Wonder into young suburban-ese.

The first single from the record was released in 2002. At first, sales were moving slowly – worrisome shades of Kara’s Flowers.

But this time things were moving incrementally up, not down. Mr. Levine can chart the band’s rise through the clubs they played in New York.

“It was this really steady evolution. We played Brownies, then we played the Wetlands, then we played Bowery Ballroom, then we played Irving Plaza, then we played Roseland, and now we’re playing at Radio City next year. It’s so cool to see that kind of progression. It makes you really feel proud of where you’re at.”

He talks about the Grammys without the casual dismissiveness affected by most musicians in his position. “I want to win. It would be awesome if we won. I really want to win. I’ll probably feel robbed if we don’t, just out of pride.”

After all, he’s been working on his homework for February’s ceremony for 10 years:

“It wasn’t like when I was 12 years old I was practicing my acceptance speeches,” he said. “But after I was 15 or 16 I started practicing those in front of the mirror.”