Fame

MS: A lot of young musicians think it would be great to become famous. Can you talk about fame from your vantage point?

JM: Everything in your career is based on decisions. You have more control over the outcome of your life than you can imagine. If you are going to get into the arena where you will be famous, you’d better understand what that will mean. I’ve had to make some hard decisions at some points. I’d hear, “John, do you want to come to this premiere with this person, or do you want to go to this party where so-and-so will be? He really wants you to be there.” Some of those choices would mean that I’d appear in a newspaper or magazine, and then that would attract others to follow me with cameras. If I had done things differently, I’d probably have the paparazzi waiting around for me. At the studio where I’ve been recording, Jessica Simpson is working there, too. The paparazzi are outside waiting for her to come out. That’s the result of her decisions. My decisions have led me to the point that when I walk out in front of the paparazzi, I’m considered a waste of film.

Fame is interesting. It can come to life. You have to know yourself so well. There are nights when I want to get trashed on heartbreak, Hollywood, camera flashes, cars, the music and the romance, and pushing past the line. But those are tickets out. I’ve been able to somehow get all the things that people who want to be famous get without any of the things that make you think fame is not all it’s cracked up to be. I’ve passed up a lot of tempting things that would lead to things I don’t want. There is a lot of restraint involved. I am not in Us Weekly. I’d have to be going out with someone who is in there to be in there myself. But I get paid as much as the person who is on the cover.

RT: What about living your life in the white hot spotlight that has become the last year?

JM: It's not that white hot. In here it's all very much the same. I know it becomes very cynical, it becomes very suspicious. That there's board meetings and round tables and someone's cracking their knuckles and saying, What shall we do? How do we send this next message of how John Mayer has really made it as a celebrity?

It doesn't happen. I don't know anyone in life where that actually does happen to. The truest course of my life lived out according to the plan that I want for myself, and sometimes that wanders into places where there's cameras and sometimes it wanders into places where there's not. If you keep your head down and do your thing, the spotlight doesn't get inside. It may shine on shine, but it doesn't get in you. 

My main concern—I think the main concern of the fans—is always been, Is he still going to close the door and make a record that I'm going to be able to relate to? Without being able to really say it, that's what fans have always worried about. And that can be anything. That could be falling into any situation that might be less organic than being the guy who came up playing guitar in little clubs. So that's my concern too, is could I be untainted and un-jaded to be able to sit down and write a song that people can relate to.

RT: I think though what happens to you, because of your talent and because of your songs, all of a sudden as time goes by that escalates and that changes and that becomes something else. For instance, I bet when you were first writing, you never thought you'd have your spread in GQ magazine. 

JM: If I had ever thought I'd be in GQ magazine I never would have worked that hard at music.

[Laughter]

I was talking about this the other day, the concept that you become a heart throb or something, it was never in the plan. And it still has nothing to do with me, it's all kind of vapor around me that other people are taking in, in one way or another. I really picked up the guitar and practiced hard cause I was like, this is all I got. I'm a technician sonically. If anyone thinks I'm cute, it's a goof, it's like a side effect.

SS: You're discussing celebrity and surviving it, do you ever worry that with unnecessary coverage of you and your life, affects people's perceptions of your music?

JM: It's absolutely a concern. But if you gave me the choice of one or the other I still wouldn't change making the decisions that I will continue to make in my life. If it means that you're staying human and you're staying in touch and you're learning your lessons and you're, you know, rope-a-dopin' in life. Then everybody is gonna be alright because I'm gonna be alright. And I'm also gonna make music that continues to be from the heart. Because if you close your heart out, you're not able really to make music anymore you are just making tracks, you know.