Make room for Mayer

In America, singer-songwriter John Mayer is massive. Not only has his debut album Room For Squares gone triple platinum in his native country, but earlier this year he picked up his first Grammy award. And he’s only 25.

But so far, despite celebrity patronage from Elton John and an on-off relationship with Hollywood actress Jennifer Love Hewitt, who he’s currently rumoured to be back together with, Mayer is still a little known musician in Ireland and the UK.

That might just be about to change with the re-release of his single No Such Thing. Sunny folk-rock of an irresistibly catchy nature, the song is getting plenty of airplay and looks set to give Mayer his first proper Irish hit.

It’s a funny, uplifting song that sees Mayer running through the school halls at his high school reunion laughing in the faces of the “prom kings and drama queens” who once looked down on him.

Mayer’s own high school reunion takes place in 2006 but he’s unsure if he’ll go.

“It would be kind of corny,” he ponders. “It would be like, ‘Oh like the song!’ I probably wouldn’t because it would be more discomfort than most people feel going to their reunion.”

Mayer’s metamorphosis into one of America’s most popular singers started in his hometown of Fairfield, Connecticut. His father was a high school principal and his mother an English teacher.

At 13, Mayer decided he wanted to be a musician after hearing blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan.

“[His music] has something palatable in it,” says Mayer of his idol. “He’s one of the few guitar players who – at the time of his life, and still now -was able to connect to people who didn’t play guitar. I’ve always gravitated towards being that kind of musician.”

By the age of 15 Mayer was playing in blues clubs despite being incredibly nervous every time he performed. The experience made him even more determined to succeed.

“I always felt that at any moment there was someone in the room that was better than me,” he recalls.

“But that feeling made me want to write original music. That way I would be different enough to avoid scientific comparison of who played the notes better.”

Mayer’s parents weren’t very enamoured of their son’s choice of career.

“It was scary to say to them, ‘I’m going to play music for the rest of my life’,” he says. “When someone cares about you they say, ‘Oh no you’re not’. They didn’t want me to do music for a career at all. I think out of care.”

For a time Mayer studied at Boston’s Berklee College Of Music. But after a couple of years he decided he could do without the training and dropped out, much to his parents’ dismay.

“At that point I don’t think anything surprised them,” laughs Mayer. “I dropped out because I felt like I knew what I wanted to do. I’m very cocky sometimes where I go, ‘Give it to me, I know what to do’ and then I’ll break it. But I suddenly felt like I’d got it at Berklee because I’d started to write songs that put me on my own path.”

Moving to Atlanta, Mayer quickly gathered a cult following by selling his music on the internet. Then in 2000 he found himself being courted by major labels after performing at influential US music conference South By Southwest in Texas. Eventually he signed with Sony.

In an interview conducted by Elton John for Interview magazine, Mayer said he felt he got his record deal too early. “I’m very good at saying it’s not my time,” he explains.

“I hope that sentence didn’t get misconstrued by people. It was really the idea that I’m so early that I bet it wouldn’t have hurt me to wait a couple of years.”

Though he’s happy with his debut album, Mayer says he still feels he can do better. His second album Heavier Things, which is released in America in the autumn and here next year, marks a step forward for the singer.

“It’s not an about-face for me,” he says. “It’s just further down the road in what I’m doing. It’s a little more experienced.”

Mayer is certainly now experienced in the game of being famous. He says a lot of his ability to deal with his huge success is down to his friendship with Elton John.

“He always seems to call me right when I need him,” says Mayer. “He’s like the oracle. He usually gives me a two-line piece of advice that completely kicks my ass and makes me go, ‘Oh my God, gotcha’.”

Despite his success, Mayer has managed to avoid becoming part of the celebrity set.

“My success is different to a lot of other people’s because it’s just about a guy playing music,” he says. “I’m not a celebrity and I really enjoy that because I’m not cut out to be one.”

It’s for this reason he refuses to talk about his relationship with Jennifer Love Hewitt, even to confirm whether they’re back together or not.

“I talked about [my relationship with her] for a while because I didn’t want people to think I was skirting an issue,” he says. “But I don’t really talk about it any more. On a small scale level it’s just not that becoming for a man to spend that much time on the subject.”

So Mayer just talks about his music and hopes that people will remain interested in it enough for him to be writing songs as long as his pal Elton.

“I want to have a really secure job,” he says. “I want to maintain the ability to make records for the rest of my life. Writing music and trying to make that perfect record or that perfect song is a lifetime thing. I haven’t made that perfect song yet.”