Interviewer: I think I'm right in saying there was sometimes when you've considered quitting music. Is that true?
JM: Yeah. There was one time in particular yeah.
Interviewer: And studying design or something's always been a passion of yours?
JM: Yeah, I really love design. Actually, I'd just finished making Continuum. Handed it in, and my manager played it for the head of the label, and I was [like], "what'd he say, what'd he say, what'd he say," and the call—I remember where I was—the call came in, and he said "uh, he doesn't hear anything on it, he doesn't hear a hit. [He] wants you to go back and write some more stuff." And I was just like, how can you not hear how special this record is. And I just thought, if I can't do this, I'm done. And the record went on to be really, really successful. And my most successful record to date, I think, and it taught me a big lesson which is, like: listen to someone's record twice before you give a point of view on it. So now if anyone ever plays me a song, I go, "play it again." People a lot of times assume what it is they must be saying to you.
But I thought, I'm just going to go to Parsons and I love design and I love where it's heading, and I want to have something to do with it. And I'm still amateur at it.
Interviewer: And how long did that feeling of disillusionment last for?
JM: A couple days. [Laughter] But then you pick yourself up off the floor. But look I didn't say like, I'm gonna quit music and go smoke crack. I said I'm gonna quit music and go to school. Which I would have promptly dropped out of to start my own design company. Because I have to do those kind of things. I can't actually follow the curriculum.
But design's weird now. I wouldn't want to be a designer right now because it's going through its pop phase. It has to or whatever. But I wouldn't want to be a designer now with the sort of celebrity aspect of what design now means. Which I wouldn't want to be a part of. I actually do design stuff and I won't tell you what it is because I should not need to. You know what I mean? You should like it on your own. So I'm still very interested in it, but I never wanna have a "John Mayer" line of something. I wouldn't want to win that way or lose that way. [Laughs] I want to lose fair and square. "They didn't know it is you, they just didn't like it." Okay, I can learn from that.