John Mayer makes a comeback as a 'happy, well-situated guy'
John Mayer turns 40 this fall.
It's a fact that the polarizing singer-songwriter has embraced, as he contentedly talks about one of the better "trade-offs of aging" (a larger catalog to pull from on tour) and passing the torch to the next generation of guitar-strumming troubadours, led by pop-radio mainstay Ed Sheeran.
"I would take Ed Sheeran's worst idea on any day and it would be my biggest song of the year," says Mayer, who appeared on the Brit's new album Divide. "For me, Ed's the voice, and that's the way it's supposed to be as I transition into writing stuff that's deeper for me on a musical, artistic level ... at the expense of being popular."
But Mayer hasn't sworn off trying to write hits, of which he's notched 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart since his 2001 debut Room For Squares. (His highest being Say, which peaked at No. 12 in 2008.) The desire to return to "bolder" pop songwriting after releasing two folk albums and touring with Grateful Dead reunion band Dead & Company is what fuels his latest effort The Search For Everything, out Friday.
John Mayer is 'preparing like a boxer' for Dead tour
Released in "waves" of four tracks each over the past few months, Search is about holding on to lost love, both in an emotional (You're Gonna Live Forever in Me) and literal sense ("I still keep your shampoo in my shower," he croons on Still Feel Like Your Man). Mayer started writing the album in late 2014 after he and on-and-off girlfriend Katy Perry called it quits, although he bristles when the subject is broached.
"I wouldn't say it started as a breakup record," Mayer says. Instead, it "began with this idea of, 'I don't need to put out another (album) and I'm not going to until it proved the reason for its existence.' It had to transcend anything I had done before."
Neither artist has offered any particulars about why their relationship soured, although songs such as Mayer's Changing suggest they may have simply grown apart. ("Sometimes I wonder if she'll be the one / when I am done changing.")
Mayer, meanwhile, says it's about "getting older and comparing my track to other people's. Part of me is a quote-unquote 'rock star' and part of me is this kid from Fairfield, Conn., who really wasn't made for this. That part looks around at the other parts and goes, 'Is any of this OK? Am I alright doing this?' "
If anything, Search suggests an introspective, slightly more self-aware chapter for the serial dater, who largely retreated from the spotlight in 2010 after his ribald and racially insensitive remarks in interviews with Rolling Stone and Playboy. Now in the midst of a headlining North American tour, before hitting the road with Dead & Company this summer, he assures that "I'm pretty much where I should be" both professionally and personally.
"I have no reason to want to be any older or younger," Mayer says. "Artists put themselves through dark times, knowing that if they create enough and well enough, they can emerge with great work that lives forever. I did that, and I now have this work that I've definitely hurt for, and this is my time to celebrate it. ... The tour is like a victory lap after two and a half years of working on a record that is the deepest dive I've ever taken as an artist.
"The pot of gold at the end of the whole thing was being able to go around the world and play these songs as a happy, well-situated, excited, inspired guy. That's who you're talking to."