Adam Levine "would have hated" his grown-up self as a teenager.

The Maroon 5 frontman has reflected on the way he's changed over the years. As a younger man he loved bands such as Nirvana, but his group's latest album Overexposed is a far cry from such rock music.

"Pop isn't a bad word. I'm not afraid to say that I love to have hits. Huge hits," he confessed to Q magazine, who asked what his younger self would make of his success. "I probably would have hated me," Adam added.

The group's recent success was kick-started by their single Moves Like Jagger, which has sold eight million copies since its release last summer. Yet despite the popularity of their earlier albums, Overexposed's predecessor Hands All Over didn't perform as well.

"That was a disappointment," he conceded. "I blame, partially, myself, myself because my ego was getting in the way. I wanted to be at the helm of every aspect of every tiny thing.

"It got to the point where there was a really good reality check. This record was struggling so, you know, what can we do differently."