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NAVIGATION
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Full Name: John Clayton Mayer
Birthday: October 16, 1977
Birthplace: Bridgeport , CT
Height: 6 feet 3 inches
Eye Color: Brown
Favorite Food: Sushi
Family: Mom-Margaret, Dad-Richard Brothers:Carl,27 and Ben,23
Favorite Movie: Good Will Hunting
Favorite Color: City Morning Blue
Favorite Artist: Stevie Ray Vaughn
Past and future Opening Acts: Maroon 5, Graham Colton, David Ryan Harris, Lo-Tel, Cody ChesnuTT,The Thorns, Guster |
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Here are some questions frequently asked about John Mayer. If you have a correction or a question about John that you are just dying to get answered click here AllThisPavement@aol.com
Q: What's John's middle name?
A: Clayton
Q: What's his favorite color?
A: City-Morning Blue
Q: What's John's favorite food?
A: Sushi
Q: How can i contact John?
A: John@johnmayer.com
Q: What's John's favorite movie?
A: Good Will Hunting
Q: Who's that girl in the Wonderland video?
A: Holly Lynch
Q:What's his favorite song?
A: "Lover, You Should Have Come Over" by Jeff Buckely |
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Singer surprises Pennsylvania school with live set
Students at Pennsbury High in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, got an extra treat at their prom on Saturday night: a surprise performance by John Mayer. "It was the ultimate high school dream," says senior class president Bob Costa, who led a two-year campaign to get Mayer to play the prom. It looked like it wasn't going to happen: The singer was in Cleveland on Friday, taping a performance with Paul Simon for VH1's In Tune, and flew home first thing Saturday morning so that he could show up at Pennsbury. "It proved that you should have faith that anything is possible," Costa says. Pennsbury's prom has become somewhat legendary over the past several years thanks to its elaborate arrivals, with more than 1,000 kids parading through the town in everything from muscle cars and motorcycles to dogsleds, hearses and even a helicopter. The school is the subject of a new book written by journalist Michael Bamberger called Wonderland -- after Mayer's Grammy- winning song "Your Body Is a Wonderland" -- that narrates a year in the life of Costa and his classmates. Mayer's song had become an anthem for the senior class, and Costa's quest to recruit the singer for the prom is one of the book's main storylines. Paramount has already optioned the rights to adapt Wonderland for the big screen. "Last year my best friend got hit by a car and died," says Costa. "And a lot of kids in my school hunkered down and realized that maybe our dream of having Mayer come isn't meant to be."
The seniors showed up not knowing Mayer was on his way. At eleven o'clock, Principal William Katz corralled them to the gymnasium for a "special treat," and Mayer took the stage for a three-song acoustic set that included "No Such Thing," "Clarity" and, of course, "Your Body Is a Wonderland." Decked out in their tuxedos and prom dresses, the students stood on chairs, held their cell phones aloft, screamed, sang along, and even wept during the performance. "Go be amazing people, and I'll see you again," Mayer said, before jumping back in his car and heading home.
"It was great to get back to the simplicity of just showing up somewhere and playing," he says. "But the best part is realizing that not a single drop of that moment is going to be lost on these kids. It will be written on their brains for the rest of their lives. It was really exciting. I'm thinking I should start doing six proms a night."
Costa says that even after Mayer made his exit, the students were buzzing for hours. "People came up to me the entire night and hugged me or gave me high-fives," he says. "The girls were crying and the guys were ecstatic. This stuff just doesn't happen. It's too movie-like. For those few moments, it was perfect." |
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John Mayer's Zeitgeisty songs and "heavy" sound have won him chart success and music industry respect, writes Andrew Murfett.
You could be forgiven for thinking John Mayer is a geek. Indeed, on the surface, that seems to be the case. The 26-year-old singer-songwriter is a star, yet rejects many of the celebrity perks. He doesn't drink, smoke or do any sort of drugs ("besides caffeine"). They don't really interest him.
Yet flashy hip-hop stars such as Jay-Z and the Neptunes' Pharrell Williams heap praise on Mayer's blend of rock and soul. He was even invited to (and attended) the launch party for hot new hip-hop artist Kanye West's album in New York earlier this year.
But if you think about it - and Mayer has - it makes sense. Much of his recent music is centred around beats and rhythms. His latest single, Clarity, is a case in point. Its instrumental mix is marked by snappy loops, far removed from anything Mayer previously committed to tape.
He smiles, recalling the song. "I think this record (his last studio album, Heavier Things) was interesting in that there was never any big concept. I had developed this (he animatedly demonstrates, complete with thigh slaps and claps) and I really thought it was so heavy and I had never done anything like that before. I had just wanted to put the jazz side to it. It was inspired by the (r'n'b singer) D'Angelo thing. The way you put a beat down, you put horns over it, you put a bass line. But the fun part is how you would sing over it.
"You just add things and keep building. It's less guy-with-a-notepad-and-tape-recorder and more guy-just-layering shit, seeing where it goes."
Mayer, who was born in Connecticut and is now based in New York, studied at Boston's Berklee College of Music and began to be noticed as a singer-songwriter in 2001 after moving to Atlanta, a city renowned for its alternative acoustic club scene.
Most of his debut independent EP, the predominantly acoustic Inside Wants Out, was re-recorded and newer material added for what became his debut album for Sony, Room For Squares.
While his rise seems to have been swift, Mayer's success came after years on the road with little reward.
Clearly, the hard work has paid off, culminating in a Grammy Award last year. Typically, he's dismissive of the honour.
"I keep it on the mantle (at home) and I'm not really in that room very much. I always look everywhere else in the room and then I'm like, 'Oh, there it is'."
Unlike much of the fare played on commercial radio, Mayer's records have a subversive lyrical bent. He articulates the feelings of his generation. His fans not only feel like they get his music, they feel like they get him. As his vocal trails off at the end of the Heavier Things track Something's Missing, Mayer slyly sings: "How come everything I think I need always comes with batteries?/What do you think it means?"
It points to the general lyrical theme of the album: a generation that has everything materially, yet still feels insecure and dissatisfied.
"Given the trends," he says, "there must be other people who feel exactly as I feel - less joy, less experience and intellect, more material. My generation is the 'F--- the vacation, give me the cash equivalent' generation. I find that if I have (less experience) in my life, I make up for that lack of experience with items.
"I think sometimes when I want to shop all the time, really what I want to be doing is resting or spending time with people. It's kind of like putting all your faith in things, solid things, and becoming let down by that day after day."
Some of Mayer's success can be attributed to the cynicism that permeates much of his work.
"It's funny - one song can be incredibly sardonic and the other one really romantic. These are all songs that I still feel, and the refreshing thing is getting up on stage now and singing things to people that you would actually say to them if you had a conversation with them."
Mayer confirms that although his songs are "genuine", there's another side most will never see.
"There's a certain disenfranchisement that I think a lot of people feel. I feel it a lot, too, but the misconception is that I feel these things all the time. I don't. These are the results of feelings I have in 20-minute increments."
With his success, any previous financial constraints have been eliminated. Unlike many other successful musicians, though, Mayer hasn't had a long-lost second cousin come looking for him with their hand out.
"I know that it should have happened by now," he says. "Everybody tells me it's coming but it hasn't happened."
Does he still look at the prices of things such as petrol or food?
"No. Do you look at gas prices?"
I guess . . .
"Well, before all this I never looked at gas prices. I mean, you've got to fill your car up anyway."
Heavier Things gave Mayer his first No.1 album in the US. How did he celebrate? "Sushi," he says with a laugh. "Really good sushi." |
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On the emotional difference between the two albums: "Room for Squares was a lot dreamier, a lot more hopeful - hopeful being a lieu of having any experience. Heavier Things is a response to experience."
On the environmental inspiration for the album: "You'll never read an interview with me complaining about how much work I have to do. It's a new fad to try and garner sympathy from people after a month in the limelight. I certainly didn't want to make a record about the road - it's not about lighting trusses and beer-stained carpets. In fact, this record is incredibly domestic. Rather than write about my experiences on a bus, they're projected into what I sometimes wish I had - of being in a house. Every song on this record has a place. It's a very neighborhood, domestic kind of record, because it was written mostly in my apartment. These songs were written and recorded having owned a car and driving to my parent's house on Sundays. There's a song called "Home Life" - I almost called the album Home Life, it was that important."
On the meaning of the album title: "Sometimes titles - handles for things - just arise and that's it. Sometimes an idea calls itself finished before you're really able to reason with it. When I hear the record, I just think Heavier Things. When people hear the record, I think they'll understand. I still feel very much like I'm at the beginning of a stage in my life. When I hear the record back, I hear a certain articulation. I wasn't able to achieve before because I'm a little older now - a little older and a little smarter. Room for Squares has quite a nice rainbow effect musically for me, and I think I needed to put a record out that was a rainbow. It was like, "Look at all these colors that I can bring". Heavier Things is less of a Whitman's Sampler and a bit more into a theme. Instead of being wondrous, it's more experienced."
The first take is the deepest: "Looking back on it now, it was an absolute blessing that there was no time to rethink anything, because the one thing about this record that is completely consistent is that everything you hear is the first idea. All I wanted to do was go from the gut, put my music down, sing it, and record it. There is no plan B for any of these songs. Everything you hear on this record is very much like the first time I sang it. Whenever I went to a second idea and tried to improve something, I went "No, no, it's lost." A lot of the components were recorded in my apartment - so you're actually hearing the first time I took my finger to a string and laid an idea out."
On providing the new material with breathing space: "By the time I recorded 'No Such Thing' it had changed. This is the inverse of that. By the time I get this music on stage and play it for a year, it will have changed. But it allows me to grow. I think of it as a computer with a whole bunch of upgrade slots. With a lot of these songs, the rim of the top of the cup is a lot higher than what I've done with the songs on the record so that I can keep adding on stage. I can play these songs on stage and look around in between some of my parts. I can breathe, I can think, I can ad-lib. It's basically building your own improv."
A useful analogy: "There aren't so many chords, not so many places I have to be at every second, on this record. So I can put my things down in a measure and let my singing and lungs breathe, my guitar playing breathe. It's like building a house with an addition, but not moving into the addition yet."
On the album package: "We use a lot of statistics in the package. I got the idea from my habit of constantly writing album lists - like, "If I put an album out today, what would be on it?" And I thought it would be cool to fill it up with as many statistics as I could come up with about the record: tempos, keys, where the songs were written, keywords, like 'sunny', 'defiant', 'promissory', and 'quizzical'. We're in the Information Age; I just want to let people find the humor in that much information."
On keeping things simple: "Sometimes you feel like there is this assumed level of difficulty around you; I'm inspired by lowering that assumed level of difficulty down to next to zero. Get it down to "Man records onto tape. Tape goes to record company. Record company puts it out on the shelf". A lot of time, you assume that it's going to have to be more difficult than it is. There were moments on the record when I was reminded how liberating it can be to just reduce it down to nothing. Someone puts a microphone in front of you, and you do your thing, which really is not a thoughtful process; it's a thoughtless process."
On meeting the expectations of his fans: "People ask if I'm pressured with this record. Yeah, you know, I'm pressured to write this many songs in this short a period of time. The first record felt completely calibrated and true to what I felt. When it came out, it resonated with people; I can't take responsibility for that. So the second time, I have to kind of just as fearlessly go in with the idea of making exactly what I want to make. This is what I do, and I'm not so scared with that I'll never be able to do it again. When I write a song about daughters, I'm doing it because I have to, because I need to, not because I need to fulfill a requirement. So that's the fun of putting this record out. The question is, "Is what I love what other people love?" Maybe someday that's going to fall out of sync and then back into sync again."
On his job as an artist: "My real responsibility is to stay true enough to myself to let it happen on its own, not to get in my own way and think about what people might want to hear. My job is to shut off the outside world enough to let myself breathe and do what comes naturally, what's in my blood. What is not natural is saying, 'I really want to impress people right now'. That's a terrible place to write from. Every time I've ever gotten up out of a chair frustrated and grabbing my hair, it was because I sat down for the wrong reason. I sat down and said, 'God, I want another song.' That's like saying, 'God, I want another girlfriend.'"
Why he does it: "You get in front of a microphone, you've got stuff to say - not because you want to put another song on the plastic that's gonna come out in the store; you say it because you have to get it out, and you can't get it out any other way."
On the notion of continuity: "There's nothing to reinvent, no rethinking, no retooling, no updating. It's just more; it's just continued. People always want to see one record as the calling card, and anything that happens after that record is a giant leap or a transition, or an experimental phase. No, it's not. What if you knew nothing? What if it's just the way it falls? You make a record, and you're not done, so you put another 10 songs out, and I'm not done with that, either."
On keeping his head on straight: "I don't feel like I've got to squeeze from the bottom of the tube to get anything out. It's just a trust in yourself that you don't really have to worry too much. All I have to do is not lose my head, not lose who I am as a person, and live my life."
On the critical reaction to his work: "I've got a lot of time, and I don't need to be the hippest thing in my day. Give me an inch, and I'll make the most of it; give me another inch, and I'll make the most of that. I have a problem with being handed things too early, anyway. I have a lot to prove and a lot of time, and that's a wonderful combination. You don't like this one? I'll make another one."
A final analogy: "By the time this hits the record shelf, it will be like a Krispy Kreme Donut. There should still be steam visible at the top if, because it's that new." |
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JOHN MAYER ROVE INTERVIEW
Crowd Screams
Rove: Go Crazy
John: Thanks
Rove: Gettin in on it
John: Its a secret language they're saying things.
Rove: Just had a question from an audience member who was sneaking a peak during the break, are you wearing the same shirt you were wearing last night?
John: Well, I, I, I have a theory about that. I can create a layered effect so that the shirt never actually touched flesh.
Rove: Okay, thats alright.
John: I thought about it his morning, believe me I'm onto you guys. The shirt is acutally still clean coz it is on top of another shirt which has changed.
Rove: Ah, you're doing the layered thing its a very good thing. Its a good look
John: You get more out of your cloth that way.
Rove: Now it seems to me that you are constantly touring. Now you toured for 2 years with Room For Squares, then you went to write heavier things and now you're doing it again.
John: Yeah
Rove: Do you get tired of it?
John: Um, yeah absoloutely. I've never um, you know pretended to be one of those road dogs who pretend to just love the smell of gasoline and checking in a hotel room. I mean I do it coz I like playin and I like the fact that I've been away from home for the last 4 years. Like thats not really in my blood, how do I do that? You take life one day at a time, you learn how not to be lonely anyomore. You learn to get around it, you know.
Rove: So how do you?
John: Um, DVDs, laptops, gadgets as much.....
Rove: XBOX, I hear you like XBOX.
John: I like XBOX in the states, yeah. Do as much as you can to remind yourself you're not really where you wanna be environmentally.
Rove: I get the feeling you remind yourself with the fine smell of bacon.
John: Yeah, I'm a bacon fan. I like it canadian. I just like bacon. I think you can add it to anything and charge more for it. I don't know what this applewood is but apparently if you cook bacon on top of it its just delicious.
Rove: Applewood?
John: I don't know, its this stuff they call Applewood smoked bacon and its just over the top!
Rove: Oh, have you tried it?
John: All the time! I get as much bacon as I can every morning.
Rove: So, not that I have (I sound like I'm setting up an amazing stunt).
John: Right
Rove: If I had different types of bacon and you were blindfolded could you tell the difference? Between one type and the next?
John: Yeah, I think so I could tell the difference between your back bacon and Canadian bacon. Then there’s always the bacon McDonalds is trying to push as being bacon but its more like those things you open a jar with.
Rove: Well you're intelligent. Well your parents are academics. Your father was a principal. Were you ever going to get into that? Was music always your path in life?
John: I think so yeah, I was the music guy. The thing about music guys is that it doesn't matter if they've chosen their instrument yet but, they can say this is bong and this is booing and somewhere in-between there is a logic. I went through all the instruments before I found the guitar and it made ultimate sense to me. It was like Marty Fly's guitar thing. It was Back To The Future. That was my thing. So thats really what stuck with me with the guitar.
Rove: Have you got in touch with Michael J Fox to let him know that he inspired you?
John: I have well, I tried when I was 11 I wrote him a fan letter. It was the only fan, letter I ever sent. Not the only one I ever wrote but the only one I actually got postage applied to it and I asked him how I could get his hair. Coz I was like, he always has really great hair. He could always say like Are you tellin me? (strokes hand through hair). Then he would take his hand out and his hair would be perfect still. But it got better, he has a fund raiser every year and he invites me to his fund raiser every year and he invited me to play at his fund raiser. That was a dream come true coz I played acoustic and then he got up there and played so it was me playing with him and it was awesome.
Rove: Did he give you any hair tips?
John: No, no but hes still probably the coolest dog around. I mean he’s, I think he's cooler than Springsteen. I think hes cooler than the Strokes.
Rove: Well that’s saying something
John: Michael J Fox is one of the coolest people I've ever seen in my life.
Rove: What about Sting, I know that he's someone you admire and look up to as well, and thats what admire means. Its weird. But ah, you actually got the chance to perform with him and perform for him as well there was a concert that was put on.
John: Well, yeah
Rove: Is it great to meet someone that you respect and admire that much? Ah, are they everything you expected them to be?
John: Ah yeah, heres the thing, they might not be everything you expect them to be but when I meet them they're on their best behavior. Is how i figure it out you know, 'Stay away from this guy hes kind of a prick'
'Alright, well let me see for myself'
and I come back and I'm like 'this guy was great!' then its like oh, thats because I was playing onstage with him. But, no I mean so far everyones been really cool. I got to play, I mean I got to sing with the Police. It was just really weird, I got to sing with the Police one night. I mean the police got together again for like 18 minutes and within that window that wormhole in that space time continuem, I was able to sing with them on Every Breath You Take and its just all this stuff, I’m going to get so laid when I get off the road.
Rove: But, you you get all this stuff where you’re like this heartthrob the singer thing that you get tagged with quite a lot. But you didn’t get to your school prom which I thought was very interesting.
John: No, no I didn’t really have any, uh uh, I stayed home, man. I liked to think that I was imagining that I was at the school prom. While I was playing guitar in my room. I always put myself in the centre of every fantasy in life. I was always some of the weirdest, in my fantasies I was like banging neighbours mums and I was like 14 years old and I was like no, its possible, I’ll do it, I’ll do it. So I was like always thinking that I never went to the school dance but I always imagined that I was like playing at the school dance and all the kids are gonna be like, I had no idea. But no I just ended up falling asleep watching cops.
Rove: Top night anyway. Well, the mans album is out now. Its called Heavier Things, thanks for coming it to chat to us, John Mayer everybody |
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Call it the next best thing to having John Mayer serenade you with “Your Body Is a Wonderland.’’
During his show Sunday at the Resch Center, the 26-year-old singer/songwriter and reluctant heartthrob told the crowd that a girl he met at college inspired his next song. Her name was Victoria, he said, and she was in the audience that night. He went on to sing “Victoria,’’ a song from his lesser-known “Inside Wants Out’’ album.
It turns out Mayer’s muse was in the second row, and she was Green Bay singer/songwriter Victoria, who goes by only her first name.
She attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston with Mayer in the late 1990s. He lived seven doors down from her room, and they hung out with the same group of friends.
“He was one of the first people I met at Berklee,’’ Victoria said of Mayer. She remembers the first time they played a song for each other.
“When he got done, I was like, ‘Wow.’ I couldn’t believe he was a freshman, because he was so far advanced. He’s an amazing guitar player.’’
Victoria once recorded a few songs in the makeshift recording studio in Mayer’s dorm room, and she has a photo of the two of them at Berklee in her scrapbook. She also has a “more perverted’’ and unreleased version of the original “Victoria’’ on cassette.
Mayer eventually dropped out of Berklee; Victoria graduated in 2000 with a degree in songwriting. She hadn’t seen the Grammy winner “in like forever.’’ The two caught up with each other backstage at the Resch after the show.
On Friday night, Victoria will team up with another of her Berklee friends, Kellie Lin Knott, for a show at the Historic West Theatre. Billed as Tres Femmes, Victoria, Knott and Stolie — all singer/songwriters — will each perform her own acoustic pop-rock songs with backing by the other women.
Green Bay native Ben Gordon is coming home from Minneapolis to open the all-ages show, along with De Pere native Bob Parins.
Advance tickets are $10 adults and $8 students at The Exclusive Co. and the West. They’re $2 more at the door.
Goat Boy alert!
Hard-rockin’ and hard-knockin’ comedian Jim Breuer is bringing his backing band, his famed Goat Boy character and his Joe Pesci impersonation to St. Norbert College. The “Saturday Night Live’’ alum and star of the stoner comedy “Half Baked’’ will perform a stand-up show at 8 p.m. April 13 in the Walter Theatre. Tickets for the public are $12 in advance and $15 at the door, plus fees. Call the box office at (920) 403-3950 or (800) 762-2699.
Gigs
Wait long enough and the Jackson family weirdness was bound to find its way to Green Bay. Tito Jackson — Jackson Five member and sib to chronic newsmakers Michael and Janet — is booked for a three-night run July 8-10 at Oneida Bingo & Casino’s Main Lounge.
The Riverboat Gamblers, who had to cancel an earlier Green Bay stop after their lead singer severely clobbered himself with a mic stand, The Wednesdays and The Shut Ups play at 10 p.m. Friday at The Bull in De Pere. Cover is $5.
California jazz quartet Damon Zick and Friends plays at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Luna Café in De Pere. Cover is $5.
Mysterious BoDeans
When Green Bay’s the Mystery Girls reported back last week after their performance at the South by Southwest Music Conference & Festival in Austin, Texas, they forgot to mention one little thing — how they posed as The BoDeans to get into one of the hottest gigs.
With only $100 to get them from Texas to Green Bay, band members didn’t have the cash for the $20 cover to see one of their heroes, Alex Chilton, perform as part of the Big Star reunion show. Bummed out, they wandered the strip with their friends in The Cuts from Oakland, Calif., and slipped into a block party serving free beer.
“The conclusion was if we got drunk enough we’d figure out how to get in (to the Big Star show),’’ said the Mystery Girls’ Jordan Davis.
They later piled into The Cuts’ new and important-looking Dodge van and pulled up to the venue with a plan. “Yeah, we’re The BoDeans. We’re late,’’ they told the person directing traffic.
Since Waukesha’s The BoDeans were indeed slated to open the Big Star show, the Mystery Girls entourage scored rock-star parking right next to the building. After more smooth talking with the bouncer at the side door, they were directed to The BoDeans’ dressing room, which, as luck would have it, was empty.
“Once we got in there we stood around for a bit and we were like, ‘Now what do we do?’” Davis said.
They decided to look like they belonged and casually headed for the main room, where they got lost in the 3,000-person crowd and took in the show.
The BoDeans, by the way, have signed to Zoe/Rounder Records and will release their long-awaited studio album, “Resolution,’’ in June. A nationwide tour will follow.
Hey, maybe the Mystery Girls could open. Oh wait… they’re not BoDeans fans.
“Their show wasn’t that good,’’ Davis said of The BoDeans’ SXSW set.
Etc. |
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