All posts

2017

3/24/2017 (Updated 12/6/2021)

Article published in the New York Times

John Mayer Has More to Say: The Outtakes

As I autopsy that part of my life, it turns out that I was under the impression that I was a bigger star than I was.

3/23/2017 (Updated 12/6/2021)

John Mayer Knows He Messed Up. He Wants Another Chance.

Article in the New York Times

On set the next day, there was a makeshift bamboo forest, a woman in full geisha garb and two people in giant panda suits, making up a bizarre tableau that Mr. Mayer called a “disco dojo.”

3/5/2017 (Updated 12/9/2021)

March 2017 Twitter Q&A

Twitter Q&A session with fans

I got very choked up when I pulled out “Waiting on the Day” and “Wheel” in rehearsal. I can understand my own words in them now.

2/24/2017 (Updated 12/10/2021)

Appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2017

John Mayer’s Undying Bachelor Love

Just get me the helicopters, get me the girls crying, girls crying on helicopters. If you get tears in flight on The Bachelor, that is prime stuff.

2/24/2017 (Updated 12/6/2021)

Article in Rolling Stone, February 2017

John Mayer Reveals Personal Stories Behind Four ‘Wave 2’ Songs

His favorite lyric – “I still keep your shampoo in the shower, in case you want to wash your hair” – is one of many autobiographical moments on the album.

1/20/2017 (Updated 1/21/2023)

Article in Rolling Stone, January 2017

John Mayer Details Origin, Inspiration Behind Four New Songs

The singer, who has also spent the past couple years touring with former members of the Grateful Dead as Dead & Company, says he wanted The Search For Everything to be the kind of massive production you associate with classic 70s albums like Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.

2016

6/21/2016 (Updated 1/2/2022)

John Mayer on Playing With Dead & Company: ‘It’s Like Catching Air’

Article published in Rolling Stone

Nobody handed me a record. I took it all in via SiriusXM, the Grateful Dead channel, which I still play for hours each day, whenever I’m in the car.

6/13/2016 (Updated 12/10/2022)

Tribute to Eddie Vedder

Instagram post caption

Without this man Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam I wouldn't be a singer. Or a songwriter.

5/31/2016 (Updated 12/6/2021)

Article in Rolling Stone, 2016

Bob Weir on Dead & Company’s Future, John Mayer’s ‘Classicist’ Style

When that dream came to me, it was at about that point that I started to realize that I was feeling comfortable with knowing that John had moved, musically speaking – being able to intuit the songs.

2015

9/27/2015 (Updated 12/6/2021)

Instagram post about Sara Bareilles

On Sara Bareilles' song "She Used To Be Mine"

Sit with it. Put the phone down. Let her tell you the story. It's worth the wait.

9/4/2015 (Updated 12/6/2021)

Periscope livestream (September 2015)

Road trip with engineer Chad Franscoviak

Sean Hurley said that my song called "On the Way Home" sounded like Chesapeake Bay rock, and I didn't put it on Born and Raised because of that.

8/11/2015 (Updated 12/10/2021)

Interview with My Stupid Mouth forum (2015)

Conducted by founder Richard Young

If Born and Raised had come out first, I’d have a whole different career.

Screenshot of John during MSNBC interview.

3/6/2015 (Updated 1/3/2022)

Interview with Ronan Farrow

Recovered Ego Addict MSNBC special

We have to be able to talk about Taylor Swift professionally! [Laughs] We have to be able to talk about Taylor Swift.

2014

12/5/2014 (Updated 12/10/2021)

Modern songwriting

Single tweet.

Several references to texting in some of these new songs. As a songwriter I can't authentically mention phone calls anymore.

4/12/2014 (Updated 2/5/2024)

Beyoncé Tweet

Tweet about Beyoncé's "XO"

The best thing about Beyoncé? The break in her voice on the first "baby, love me lights out" in XO. Real and raw.

4/7/2014 (Updated 4/3/2023)

Excerpt from "Someday I'll Fly"

Documentary by Eastwood Allen

It started with picking up a Dobro—it had this nautical feel to it—and I said, this is almost a song about a guy who builds a submarine.

2/11/2014 (Updated 1/19/2024)

Hayley Williams Tweet

Tweet about Hayley Williams, one week after release of Paramore's single "Ain't It Fun"

<Paramore>This Hayley Williams I'll tell you what sensational</Paramore>

1/3/2014 (Updated 1/13/2023)

2014 New Year Reflections

John Mayer's tumblr Blog

I want to enjoy being an artist. Artists are weird. We’re fucked up in some of the wrong places, sure, but that’s part of the deal.

2013

John Mayer and Katy Perry on Ellen show.

12/20/2013 (Updated 12/6/2021)

Ellen Appearance with Katy Perry

From a guest appearance with Katy Perry on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2013

Well, it’s a good thing that we switched out a love seat that we have room for you. Imagine if we didn’t have a love seat we wouldn’t have room.

11/28/2013 (Updated 11/28/2023)

Interview with Ari Shapiro on All Things Considered

'It's Hard To Stay Patient': A Conversation With John Mayer

Basically, I don't know how to reconcile this job I have as a musician with this desire to be a guy who stays at home. I even tattooed it on my arms - Home Life - as some sort of like, thug life alternative tattoo.

11/23/2013 (Updated 9/1/2022)

Interview with My Stupid Mouth forum (2013)

Conducted by founder Richard Young

Demographics are more than just age. Demographics are like, where you are from, what you think is cool. These are things you can’t put on the U.S. Census [...].

John with interviewer at Oxford University.

10/25/2013 (Updated 7/23/2023)

Interview at the Oxford Union

"Life in Music"

There's a certain kind of arrogance that I've trained myself to have where I take a song that doesn't exist and I pretend it into existence by way of the arrogance of forgetting that that's not really a song yet and playing it like it is.

10/1/2013 (Updated 1/25/2022)

Live in Albuquerque, NM 2013

Concert at Isleta Amphitheater

But then people get married, and their husbands don't necessarily like it when rock stars come knocking on the door.

9/9/2013 (Updated 12/6/2021)

Article in Time magazine

"10 Questions for John Mayer"

I didn't know I had a granuloma for most of the making of Born and Raised. The songs are all low [in pitch] because I would hit a ceiling faster. Looking back on it now, I've been making these records based on those limitations.

9/2/2013 (Updated 7/23/2023)

Interview on Studio Q

Aired on CBC Radio One, hosted by Jian Ghomeshi

I don’t lob songs—I've never in my life written a song for somebody, or to somebody.

8/26/2013 (Updated 12/12/2021)

Live in Pittsburgh, PA 2013

Speech during performance of "The Heart of Life"

And then I went to the supermarket one day and on the way into the supermarket I came up with, "pain throws your heart to the ground."

8/22/2013 (Updated 12/6/2021)

VEVO Q&A with fans

VEVO Ask:Reply

When I sing Born and Raised I'm having the best time. I've waited to sing that song live for quite a while now.

8/16/2013 (Updated 12/6/2021)

Live in Hartford, CT 2013

Concert at Comcast Theater

If someone's singing too loud, everyone sounds like an angel in their own head. Just let it be!

8/11/2013

Live in Springfield, IL 2013

Concert at Illinois State Fairgrounds

This is just all the people that you want to talk to at a party, just put together into one room.

7/27/2013 (Updated 12/9/2021)

Live in Irvine, CA 2013

Live intro to "Call Me the Breeze"

I woke up to learn, very sadly, that the world of music and guitar playing lost a really incredible musician and writer and guitar player and singer, Mr. JJ Cale.

7/6/2013

Live in Milwaukee, WI 2013

Summerfest concert at Henry W. Maier Festival Park

I want to dedicate this next song to my Katy, who is my face to call home.

3/21/2013 (Updated 8/30/2022)

Interview and performance from Google+ Hangout

Promoting Born & Raised album

My inspiration has kind of always come from enjoying the sound of someone else’s music. I’m still discovering music that’s existed before I was born.

2/10/2013 (Updated 1/2/2022)

CBS Sunday Morning

From CBS Sunday Morning special hosted by Anthony Mason

I wish that I grew up a year every year of my life, and I didn't. I stopped for a certain period of time. And I was 24 for six years or whatever. And then the logjam cleared. And I'm dead-on for 35. It's just, it was a weird way to get here, you know what I mean?

1/30/2013 (Updated 1/3/2022)

Article in Rolling Stone, 2013

"John Mayer on His New Voice, Summer Tour and Dating Katy Perry"

I love Frank [Ocean]’s stuff. Frank is such an interesting, deep, touched, wonderful guy.

2012

John Mayer posing with a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar.

6/6/2012 (Updated 12/12/2021)

2012 Interview in Rolling Stone

The Dirty Mind and Lonely Heart of John Mayer

I have these accidents, these mistakes, these self-inflicted wounds, and then I tear my head to shreds about it for days.

6/6/2012 (Updated 12/12/2021)

Rolling Stone interview summary

Taylor Swift's "Dear John" Song "Humiliated Me"

I mean, how would you feel if, at the lowest you’ve ever been, someone kicked you even lower?

5/19/2012 (Updated 5/21/2022)

Interview from All Things Considered

"John Mayer: Restoring An Image, And An Instrument"

This record was all about like, it's sort of improv. And so I would, like, enter this kind of trance - I know it sounds a little bit highfalutin - but I would enter this sort of trance.

5/10/2012 (Updated 7/3/2022)

Interview at the Grammy Museum

"An Evening With John Mayer"

I'm such a people pleaser, I'm trying to make the engineer enjoy the music, you know?

2011

4/20/2011

Live in Los Angeles, CA 2011

Speech during performance of "Edge of Desire"

It's a Sunday night, a night never to be trusted for emotions.

2010

12/3/2010 (Updated 12/6/2021)

Jimi Hendrix by John Mayer

From "100 Greatest Artists", published in Rolling Stone magazine

he sings, "My yellow in this case is not so mellow/In fact I'm trying to say it's frightened like me" — that is a man who knows the shape of his heart.

8/22/2010

Live in Los Angeles, CA 2010

Speech during performance of "I Don't Trust Myself (With Loving You)"

This song is basically medical indications of dating me, in a song.

8/22/2010 (Updated 12/6/2021)

Live in Los Angeles, CA August 2010

"Perfectly Lonely" live intro

To anybody who's trying to take a dark situation and turn it into a bright one by being alone, cause [sings] being alone can be fun, fun, yeah!

7/30/2010 (Updated 12/6/2021)

Live in Camden, NJ 2010

Live intro to "Do You Know Me"

I wrote this song in fifteen minutes. I wore my sunglasses for 24 hours a day for seven days straight.

4/1/2010 (Updated 12/8/2021)

Interview in Guitarist magazine

Conducted by Mick Taylor (Issue 327)

So for "Vultures" [from Continuum, 2006], I have to play the gold-leaf Strat. That's what I wrote the song on, and that's got that incredible second position - what do they call it, the quack? That's the quackiest Strat of all time!

3/12/2010 (Updated 12/6/2021)

Interview in Playboy Magazine

The Playboy interview with John Mayer

Lately I’ve realized it’s okay to enjoy being a rock star. Like, it might actually be fun to wear sunglasses in the airport and sit in the first-class lounge as a fucking rock star who’s about to go on a world tour.

2/1/2010 (Updated 1/19/2023)

Interview in Guitar World magazine

Published in Guitar World (February 2010)

I’ll tell you, the argument about string gauges is about the silliest thing a guitarist can engage in. Maybe you get a better tone off of bigger strings, but if you can’t bend up to the note, what’s tone anyway?

1/28/2010 (Updated 11/2/2022)

Appearance on VH1 Storytellers Episode

Recorded in Brooklyn, NY

And here's the thing about songwriters: they always have more songs than they're playing you.

2009

11/19/2009 (Updated 12/8/2021)

Article in The Guardian 2009

'You can't make music as a famous person'

He and his engineer, long-time friend Chad Franscoviak, built a studio in a rented house in suburban Calabasas, as much for practical reasons as artistic ones.

11/16/2009 (Updated 11/19/2022)

Interview with Steven Smith on Fuse

On The Record: Fuse

It's like, you know I don't want to be like one of those guys who is like, "It's like Stevie Wonder lived down the street from Jackson Brown and they hung out in Van Halen's basement." It's just like, Shut up.

11/1/2009 (Updated 12/9/2021)

iTunes Exclusive Interview

Excerpts from 2009 iTunes Exclusive Interview

"All We Ever Do Is Say Goodbye" is a special song, because it is the most honest song I've ever written.