John Mayer: Every song that I write from now on is gonna be eminently playable on the road, but is also gonna feel great to play every night. Something like this: [plays intro to "New Deep"]
Most of these songs are on the electric guitar, which is my response to the last record. But I had to write songs on an acoustic guitar because I didn't have a band. What I like now is I always wanted to be an electric guitar. And in a lot of ways this is my first love letter to the electric guitar.
[Performing "New Deep" in Rudy's Music in New York]
If I were to put one more song on that was a real strong tune, I think it could make the record feel twice as good. I don't know if I'm going to write it in New York, but I think I'll definitely write it in LA. LA makes me feel small enough to want to write something to make myself feel bigger.
[Studio version of "Come Back to Bed" playing]
I categorize my music as pop first because I want to challenge people to what pop sounds like. It's pop music with the sensibilities of blues and jazz. So I want to find this medium ground between being accessible and also giving somebody a bit more to wrap their head around when the song is over.
[Studio version of "Bigger Than My Body" playing]
Jack Joseph Puig [Producer]: We're at week four at this point, and it's been going really really great. But the anticipation when you come off of a record that's triple platinum with a Grammy thrown in on it is so high, that everybody's just like, Oh my god, oh my god, it's gonna be great.
John Mayer: So check this out, here is the project for this evening. Here is a song—it's the most similar to "Come Back to Bed" than anything else on the record. So the idea is I guess to space it out idea-wise so that you can make them different enough, and I will go over the changes. It's a 6/8.
It's a constant smackdown if you are not done, to hear in a very sobering way, "Keep writing." It's like a kick to the stomach, it's like, I don't have anything left.
There's a main idea to that song waiting there. We haven't found it yet. That's why when we play it something's not clicking.
Jack Joseph Puig: This is one of those that we're going to hit a moment and we have to capture that moment.
This is what I'm really born to do, that I'm going to stretch my capacity, and I'm going to work in three different timelines at the same time. I'm going to work on rehearsing the songs that I've already written, working on the songs that I'm not done with, and I'm going to go back to my hotel room and I'm going to work on songs that haven't even happened yet.
[Playing acoustic version of "Wheel"]
The hardest obstacle to overcome right now is feeling like it's almost done and therefore there's no time or space to write another song. Because I can tell you right now, that I have another song to write.