JOHN MAYER Q and A:

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Chris McKay: Is it true that you're filming a video here in Athens?

John Mayer: Yes, we're going to do it at Georgia Theatre on Thursday. We're going to do a video for "No Such Thing" and probably tape some of the show for some other media entities. I think it'll be fun. We'll probably do it before [the actual show]. It's not going to interfere with the show. We're not going to be stopping anything except for maybe "No Such Thing" which before the show even starts, we're going to do. I don't want to confuse people. I don't want to have things get in the way. I want to play a show. We're there to do a show. So they're going to co-exist peacefully.

CM: Obviously you've made a huge leap from your independent debut Inside Wants Out to the new major label debut Room For Squares. How did you like re-recording some of the older songs and working on the new album?

JM: It was okay. The ones that I didn't re-record are the ones that I didn't think were good enough. There is a certain amount of magic in Inside Wants Out. The design was that it was just kind of a demo. It was something that would go away after a little while. People would have it at shows until the "real record." It kind of took on this charming life of half-demo, half mix tape. But "Back To You" and "No Such Thing" and "My Stupid Mouth," those were the songs off that record that I felt like were not done.

CM: Do you feel that your vision came through on Room For Squares?

JM: Uh... 11 times out of 13 [laughs]. There are a couple of songs on there that feel like I wrote them when I was 21, recorded them when I was 22 or 23 and now I'm going to be 24 and if I could make the record today... actually, I... wouldn't probably record them again. They're like commercially viable and all, but... I think I'm pretty close to a good record, but hopefully my best record hasn't happened.

CM: Listening to Room For Squares, it seems like you're definitely in a progressive stage. As you've said, it's perfectly commercially viable, but it seems like there is development and you can hear it and feel it even within the material on the CD.

JM: I'm writing songs faster than I can put songs down. It's kind of this restraint that I need to practice to not play them for people. We're on stage every night and I've been playing "Neon" for two and a half years. Of course, I want to play the new songs. Whenever I do that, though, it just confuses the pace of things. Unfortunately, in pop music the record cycles are excruciatingly slow.

CM: What do you think of all of this glowing "next big thing" press you're getting? Has it affected you at all?

JM: The first way is every once and a while I'll be sitting around and just kind of go "Whoa, that's fucked up," and then just kind of come back to reality. You know, when I go like, "Wow, my song is playing somewhere..." The other way is just, it just makes me want to get my shit together. It makes me want to say, "Okay, everybody's watching. Now what are you going to do?" The whole "what are you going to do to get people to watch," that's a whole different game.



CM: Yeah, you've made the 10 to watch in '02 list from Rolling Stone...

JM: Yeah, that's not bad at all. So all these people are going to watch. We're on the radio now. What am I going to do to keep people? I play these shows and a lot of these people are going to see me for the first time. What am I going to do to show them what this is like? It's just a matter of doing this correctly. There's not a lot of pressure in that either. It's just like... it's like the boss is coming into work today, what am I going to do?

CM: So does it still feel like mostly questions to you or are you getting some answers?

JM: I'm getting some answers and I think that the fact that I have some feedback and some answers makes this tour probably the most exciting thing for me in my life. The fact that I know a little bit more definition-wise about what I'm doing, I can stop competing for people's attention. Now that I know people are watching and they won't leave if I play a slower song, I can really take a deep breath. I know they're all in the room at this point to see me. I'm not the opener anymore. Now I can kind of enjoy that space that we created all last year. We were building a house last year and to some degree we'll always be putting additions on, but now I can stand around in my house and go "Welcome to my house."

CM: What should the audiences expect at the shows in Athens this week?

JM: Shows that are equally balanced between satisfying the people who heard about me when I was playing Eddie's Attic and the people who heard about me the week before tickets went on sale. It's going to be a little bit planned out instead of just getting up there and feeling it and playing whatever we want. It's going to be a little bit more... the shows are going to have a little bit more of a design.

CM: What do you think your music is? How do you define it?

JM: I think it is the most colorful guitar part you can come up with... basically it's making the most of the elements that you have to work with. If you're playing your guitar part, well, your whole song is going to be based on your sitting down on the edge of your bathtub and playing and just experimenting, so you better experiment with something really fucking cool because everything is going to be based on that.

CM: And still wind up pop...

JM: I still want enough cliché to succeed, yeah.

(Chris McKay/concertshots.com)

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