Though they'll will be touring internationally during the first quarter of 2011, the members of Maroon 5 are thinking about following up last year's "Hands All Over" sooner rather than later.

"It would be nice to start working on another record next year," guitarist James Valentine tells Billboard.com. "I think with the last two records, it's been a little bit unbalanced, in that we had so much success and there was so much of the world to cover that our studio/road balance was a little off... In a perfect world we'd tour for six months and maybe record for six months, but that's not the way it works. But the whole point is to make more music, and if anything you can spend too much time out there."

Maroon 5: The Billboard Cover Story

Valentine says Maroon 5 has "tons of material" available, including holdovers from the Mutt Lange-co-produced "Hands All Over" and songs the quintet has written since then. "I think everybody's been pretty busy compiling ideas for the next one," he says. "With technology and the recording capacity we have on our laptops, we can be a little more prolific while we're [touring]. We've never been able to do that before. I think we could go in and make a record today and have a pretty solid album."

Nevertheless, Valentine acknowledges that Maroon 5 is also considering more tour dates for 2011, including another North American run after it finishes in Europe, Indonesia, Australia and Japan. "We've got a bunch of dates booked through the summer, but there's time in between them now," he explains. "I guess you just see how the momentum of the record's going. If people are still excited to hear what's on ['Hands All Over'], I guess you keep playing for them. If not, you can go make a new record. It's a tough call."

"Hands All Over" debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in September. It's so far spawned the singles "Misery" and "Give a Little More," with "Never Gonna Leave This Bed" slated to come out next. "Of course we could have liked it to have done better so far," Valentine says. "It hasn't sold at the pace that our previous records did, but we've always felt so blessed for that success you can't expect it every time. And we've always been more interested in the long-term than watching the fluctuations of each single and each album."

After a holiday break, Maroon 5 returns to the road Dec. 28 in the Dominican Republic and plays New Year's Eve in Atlantic City and New Year's Day in Windsor, Ont., before heading abroad in late January.