70 Fun Facts About John Mayer

John Mayer grew up in Fairfield, Connecticut, but in which nearby city was he born?

Bridgeport. Raised next door in Fairfield, he picked up the guitar at 13 and within a couple of years was already playing sets in the area's blues bars.

Which film performance first made a young John Mayer want to play guitar?

Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. Marty McFly's 'Johnny B. Goode' at the school dance sent Mayer to guitar lessons, though Fox was miming: the singing voice belonged to session vocalist Mark Campbell.

Which future tennis star was Mayer's close elementary-school friend and after-school Nintendo partner?

James Blake. They spent almost every afternoon for three years at Blake's house in Fairfield; Blake later walked away from Harvard as the top-ranked college player in the country to turn professional.

What put a 17-year-old Mayer in hospital for a weekend and, he says, awakened the songwriter in him?

An irregular heartbeat. Doctors diagnosed a cardiac arrhythmia, and the scare pushed him to write lyrics for the first time, 'with a depth I didn't even know I had as a person'.

Where did Mayer enrol as a student in 1997, only to leave within a year?

Berklee College of Music. He went to Boston to sharpen his guitar playing, decided during his first year that songwriting was his real calling, and left to chase it.

With which fellow guitarist did Mayer leave college and form the duo Lo-Fi Masters?

Clay Cook. The duo soon split, yet three songs they wrote together landed on Mayer's first album, including its breakthrough hit; Cook later joined the Zac Brown Band.

Which city did Mayer move to after quitting college, playing clubs such as Eddie's Attic?

Atlanta. He played anywhere that would have him, bookstores included, and his doubts about the move became 'Why Georgia', a song about what he called a quarter-life crisis.

What was the title of the independent EP Mayer released in 1999 before signing to a label?

Inside Wants Out. He put the mostly acoustic EP out himself while playing clubs by night and mailing demo discs by day, then re-recorded four of its songs for his first album.

Which imprint first released John Mayer's debut album in 2001, before Columbia re-released it?

Aware Records. The label signed him after his South by Southwest set in 2000, and Columbia repackaged the album with an extra track for a national release later in 2001.

What is the title of Mayer's 2001 debut studio album?

Room for Squares. The title flips saxophonist Hank Mobley's jazz album No Room for Squares, trading its hipper-than-thou exclusiveness for an open invitation.

Which song was Mayer's debut single, peaking at number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100?

No Such Thing. Its lyric tells school-leavers there is no 'real world' to brace for, and Mayer had lived it: after graduating he put college off and took a job at a gas station.

Which song won Mayer his first Grammy, Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, in 2003?

Your Body Is a Wonderland. Mayer has said he wrote it about his very first girlfriend, from when he was 14, and it beat entries by James Taylor, Elton John and Sting to the award.

Which actress, whom Mayer dated in 2002, denied his hit was about her, joking her body was 'more like a pawnshop'?

Jennifer Love Hewitt. The dates back her up: the song was on an album released the year before they dated, and Mayer later called it the first of many songs wrongly pinned on a famous girlfriend.

In 2004 Mayer played a surprise three-song set at which event at Pennsylvania's Pennsbury High School?

The senior prom. Class president Bob Costa had spent two years campaigning to land him, and the students walked in with no idea that he was on his way.

Which 2003 album became Mayer's first to debut at number one on the Billboard 200?

Heavier Things. Its instant success reversed the story of his debut, a slow burner that was out for almost a year before going platinum and never climbed past number eight.

Which Mayer song won the Grammy for Song of the Year in 2005?

Daughters. Mayer has said it came from loving a woman who could not trust men, a wound he traced back to the first man in her life, her absent father.

Who played bass in the John Mayer Trio alongside drummer Steve Jordan?

Pino Palladino. He was a late stand-in: Willie Weeks could not make a 2005 benefit telethon, Jordan phoned Palladino, and the three clicked so quickly that they became a band.

Which band did the newly formed John Mayer Trio open for on three East Coast dates in October 2005?

The Rolling Stones. The blues trio joined the A Bigger Bang tour within months of forming, and in 2012 the Stones brought Mayer back as a guest at a 50th-anniversary show in Newark.

Which artist's album kept John Mayer's Continuum from debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 in September 2006?

Justin Timberlake. FutureSex/LoveSounds reached US shops the same day and sold more than twice as many copies that week, so Continuum had to settle for number two.

Which Continuum single won Mayer Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 2007 Grammys?

Waiting on the World to Change. When Mayer handed the album in he was told it had no hits, cried, and vowed to quit for design school; its first single then won him this Grammy.

Which John Mayer song appears on Try!, Continuum and Where the Light Is, whose live version won a 2009 Grammy?

Gravity. Mayer calls it the most important song he has ever written, a reminder to himself to keep his head on, and one he expects to 'grow up with me'.

Which Jimi Hendrix song did Mayer cover on Continuum?

Bold as Love. It was the song the John Mayer Trio played at their first appearance, a televised benefit in January 2005, and the chemistry on it convinced the three to become a band.

The first two letters of the title on Mayer's Continuum cover merge to resemble what symbol?

An infinity sign. More than a year before the album came out, Mayer wrote in a magazine column that he was 'obsessed with time lately' and working out where he stood 'in the continuum'.

Which road standard did John Mayer record for Pixar's Cars, alongside Rascal Flatts' 'Life Is a Highway'?

Route 66. The film is set in a town on that very highway, bypassed by the interstate, so Pixar used the song twice: Chuck Berry's 1961 recording and Mayer's Grammy-nominated new one.

Mayer's 2007 ballad 'Say' was written for which Rob Reiner film?

The Bucket List. Mayer wrote it to order for the film's story of two terminally ill men and their wish list, and the single was then added to a reissue of his album Continuum.

Which Tom Petty song does Mayer play as an acoustic cover in the concert film Where the Light Is?

Free Fallin'. Mayer's live acoustic version was released as a single and carried Petty's 1989 hit back into the Hot 100 in July 2008, almost two decades after it first charted.

Which song was the first single from Mayer's Battle Studies (2009), noted for its open reference to drug use?

Who Says. It opens by asking who says he can't get stoned, yet Mayer maintained the song was about freedom rather than marijuana: 'being in control of the pleasure in your life'.

Mayer wanted Taylor Swift to play which singer to his Tom Petty on their 2009 duet?

Stevie Nicks. He woke up three days running with the song idea in his head, and called the finished track his love letter to the sound of Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac.

Which Battle Studies single features Taylor Swift on vocals?

Half of My Heart. Explaining his choice of duet partner to MTV News, Mayer said he had thought: 'This Taylor Swift girl is going to be around for a long time.'

What medical problem delayed Born and Raised and forced Mayer to cancel its 2012 tour?

A granuloma on his vocal cords. When surgery failed, a UCLA specialist paralysed the cords with heavy doses of Botox so they could heal, and Mayer went months without saying a word.

Near which Montana city did Mayer buy a house in 2012 and make his new home?

Bozeman. A wildfire burned towards his new property that summer, so his first concert in almost two years was a local benefit that raised more than $100,000 for the firefighters.

Which song was the lead single from Mayer's 2012 album Born and Raised?

Shadow Days. Its chorus declares that his shadow days are over, voicing the hope that the bad times that followed the backlash to his 2010 Playboy interview were finally behind him.

Which producer handled both of Mayer's albums Born and Raised and Paradise Valley?

Don Was. Decades after scoring a hit of his own with Was (Not Was) and 'Walk the Dinosaur', he produced Mayer's turn to rootsy folk-rock, and came back again for Sob Rock.

Which duet with Katy Perry appeared on Mayer's Paradise Valley while the two were dating?

Who You Love. Mayer's verse admits he has stopped running from love, and Perry wrote her own verse as an answer to it, so the couple sing two sides of one confession.

Which guest artist wrote and performed a second song called 'Wildfire' on Mayer's Paradise Valley?

Frank Ocean. The two had history: Mayer had played guitar on two tracks of Ocean's Channel Orange and backed him on Saturday Night Live in September 2012.

Which Beyonce song did Mayer cover in Adelaide and then release as a studio single in 2014?

XO. Three days before the Adelaide show he had tweeted that the best thing about Beyonce was the break in her voice on one line of the song: 'Real and raw.'

With which singer did Mayer record 'Come Rain or Come Shine' for her 2014 duets album Partners?

Barbra Streisand. Mayer both sang and played the guitar solo on her remake of a standard she had recorded on her 1979 album Wet, and Partners became her tenth number-one album.

Which Grateful Dead song, heard by chance on Pandora in 2011, sparked Mayer's obsession with the band?

Althea. Its riff made him ask 'What's that?', and by 2013 he was listening to the Dead nonstop and predicting the band would make a comeback, two years before he helped deliver one.

Which guitarist joined Mayer for a studio jam when he guest-hosted The Late Late Show in 2015?

Bob Weir. The two bonded over that jam, and six months later Weir and two other longtime Grateful Dead members launched Dead & Company with Mayer in the lead-guitar role.

When Dead & Company formed in 2015, which of the Grateful Dead's four surviving core members stayed out?

Phil Lesh. The bassist said he was 'done with that kind of touring' and kept leading his own Phil Lesh and Friends, so Oteil Burbridge of the Allman Brothers Band took the bass chair.

Dead & Company's 2024 residency, Dead Forever, was staged at which venue?

Sphere in Las Vegas. The residency opened ten months after a 'Final Tour' seen by more than 840,000 fans, ran to 30 shows, and brought the band back for 18 more in 2025.

Mayer previewed The Search for Everything with two four-song EPs carrying what names?

Wave One and Wave Two. Mayer split the album into monthly instalments on purpose, telling fans the price of admission was four songs and inviting them to 'come along with me on every single wave'.

Which song was the lead single from Mayer's 2017 album The Search for Everything?

Love on the Weekend. It ended a three-year wait for a new Mayer original, a gap he had spent on the road with Dead & Company, and he says the song itself came to him fast.

Which Jay-Z and Kanye producer co-wrote and co-produced Mayer's 2018 single 'New Light'?

No I.D. With nobody able to agree on a budget for the video, Mayer says he went to a company that usually films birthdays and bar mitzvahs and came away with a knowingly cheap green-screen clip.

Which country singer sang guest vocals on Mayer's 2021 single 'Last Train Home'?

Maren Morris. She also turns up in the video, and Mayer said the song's glossy 1980s sound was a deliberate comfort: the music that 'makes me feel like everything's going to be OK'.

What is the name of the signature electric guitar Mayer launched with PRS in March 2018?

Silver Sky. Mayer says he took the design to PRS because Fender 'couldn't bring the vision that I had to life', and its Stratocaster looks set guitar forums ablaze when it appeared.

What is the nickname of the Stratocaster Mayer helped build at the Fender Custom Shop in 2004?

Black1. He spent two days there starting from a bare block of wood, then left it with builder John Cruz to be battered until it looked decades old; Fender later sold 83 replicas.

Which guitar maker gave Mayer his first signature acoustic in 2003, in an edition of 404 instruments?

Martin. Mayer chose the edition size himself: 404, he said, was the area code of his adopted home city, 'made famous by many rap artists', and 'a beautiful looking palindrome'.

Mayer is credited with reviving interest in which Marshall overdrive pedal after using it live?

Bluesbreaker. The pedal won little love when it came out in 1991, but word that Mayer kept one at the heart of his board built such a following that Marshall reissued it and its three siblings.

Mayer played the 2004 Crossroads Guitar Festival, a benefit staged by which guitarist?

Eric Clapton. He staged it to fund Crossroads, the addiction-treatment centre he founded in Antigua, and gathered the line-up himself, mixing blues elders with younger players such as Mayer.

On which comedian's sketch show did Mayer guest in a 2004 bit about whether white people can dance?

Dave Chappelle. The Chappelle's Show sketch tested which instruments get which crowds moving: Mayer brought his guitar, and Questlove's drums set a whole barbershop dancing.

Who beat Mayer to 2003's Best New Artist Grammy?

Norah Jones. She won five awards that night with Come Away with Me, but Mayer did not leave empty-handed: he collected the first Grammy of his career in a pop vocal category.

What is the name of the weekly Instagram Live show Mayer launched in September 2018?

Current Mood. Between guests such as Charlie Puth on the home-made Sunday show, Mayer let slip almost in passing that he had just marked two years without a drink.

Mayer stopped drinking in 2016 after a six-day hangover following whose 30th birthday party?

Drake. On the sixth day of that hangover Mayer says he asked himself what percentage of his potential he wanted to reach, answered '100', and decided the drinking had to stop.

In 2024 Mayer was named 'Creative Conduit' of which Swiss watch brand?

Audemars Piguet. The odd title means a go-between: Mayer still buys his own watches as a paying client while carrying collectors' views back inside the company, and he designed a 200-piece Royal Oak to mark it.

For which watch website has Mayer written a horology column?

Hodinkee. In a 2015 open letter there he told IWC to 'embrace your heritage' and slim its range; the brand answered within a day, signing off with a pun on one of his song titles.

Which magazine ran the mid-2000s column 'Music Lessons with John Mayer'?

Esquire. In one column he gave away lyrics he had no song for and invited readers to set them to music; 2,213 of them sent recordings, and he picked Tim Fagan of Los Angeles.

What was the name of the fan cruise, with concerts on board, that Mayer hosted in 2008 and again in 2009?

Mayercraft Carrier. Mayer said the appeal was having nowhere to hide, at sea with a couple of thousand fans devoted enough to board a ship with him; the sequel sailed from Los Angeles to Cabo.

Which Michael Jackson song did Mayer play as a guitar instrumental at Jackson's 2009 memorial?

Human Nature. Mayer never sang a word: his guitar carried the melody alone until, about halfway through, a choir came in with the lyric at little more than a whisper.

Which Apple product did Mayer help Steve Jobs demonstrate at its Macworld launch in January 2004?

GarageBand. Jobs had Mayer record guitar and keyboard licks into the new app on stage, and he came back so often that at the 2007 iPhone keynote Jobs called him one of Apple's few traditions.

Mayer played a truck driver in which 2014 comedy horror film?

Zombeavers opens with Mayer and comedian Bill Burr as truckers who lose a barrel of toxic waste; it ends up in the water and turns the local beavers into zombies.

Mayer paid for a private jet to fly which comedian's body home from Orlando in January 2022?

Bob Saget. Three days after his friend died, Mayer and comedian Jeff Ross also collected Saget's car from the Los Angeles airport where he had parked it, sharing stories about him live on Instagram as they drove.

The Heart and Armor Foundation, which Mayer launched publicly in 2019, supports which group?

Military veterans. A 2008 visit to wounded Marines 'changed me forever', Mayer said, and the foundation spent years on research and pilot programmes before he took it public.

In 2014 Mayer sued a dealer, claiming several watches of which brand contained counterfeit parts?

Rolex. He sought $656,000, then dropped the case a year later with a statement that two years of research had shown the dealer 'never sold him a counterfeit watch'.

Which jazz pianist opened his 2005 all-star album Possibilities with 'Stitched Up', co-written and sung by Mayer?

Herbie Hancock. Reviewers noted that the jazz giant kept his own piano to the instrumental breaks and let pop guests such as Sting, Paul Simon and Christina Aguilera carry the songs.

Mayer's 2004 tour recordings went on sale on iTunes, weeks after each show, under what title?

As/Is. The four concert volumes were followed by a best-of double CD with one extra track, a Marvin Gaye cover for which Mayer brought out DJ Logic on turntables.

Mayer's voice was sampled on the Kanye West-produced 'Go!', a 2005 single by which rapper?

Common. He, Kanye West and Mayer went straight from a screening of the film Ray to the studio, where Mayer suggested the song's subject, fantasies, and sang the 'go' that was sampled for the track.

In 2024 Mayer and director McG struck a deal to buy a historic Hollywood studio lot first built by which silent-film star?

Charlie Chaplin. The lot later housed A&M Records and then the Jim Henson Company, which put a statue of Kermit dressed as Chaplin's Tramp over the gate; the new owners brought back the Chaplin Studios name.

On which service did John Mayer launch 'Life with John Mayer', a channel programmed by time of day, in 2023?

SiriusXM. Mayer said he wanted a channel built around 'our changing emotional states' through the day and week instead of around genre, so what plays depends on when you tune in.

Which Mayer song was reported to be his response to Taylor Swift's 'Dear John'?

Paper Doll appeared in June 2013, and within a day outlets were matching its lines to Swift's own songs. A year earlier Mayer had told Rolling Stone that 'Dear John' humiliated him and was 'cheap songwriting'.