Hahah this man is Awesome.
:lol
http://www.playboy.com/articles/john-mayer-playboy-interview/index.html?page=2
PLAYBOY: Whats your point about porn and relationships?
MAYER: Internet pornography has absolutely changed my generations expectations. How could you be constantly synthesizing an orgasm based on dozens of shots? Youre looking for the one photo out of 100 you swear is going to be the one you finish to, and you still dont finish. Twenty seconds ago you thought that photo was the hottest thing you ever saw, but you throw it back and continue your shot hunt and continue to make yourself late for work. How does that not affect the psychology of having a relationship with somebody? Its got to.
PLAYBOY: You seem very fond of pornography.
MAYER: When I watch porn, if its not hot enough, Ill make up backstories in my mind. My biggest dream is to write pornography.
PLAYBOY: How did you become a self-soother?
MAYER: I grew up in my own head. As soon as I lose that control, once I have to deal with someone elses desires, I cut and run. Im pretty culpable about being hard to live with. I have had a good run of imagining things into reality. Ive got a huge streak of successes based on my own inventions. If you tell me Im wrong or that Im overthinking something, well, overthinking has given me everything in my career. I have a hard time not looking at anxiety disorder as being like an ATM. I can invent things really well. I mean, I have unbelievable orgasms alone. Theyre always the best. They always end the way I want them to end. And I have such an ability to make believe, I can almost project something onto my wall, watch it and get off to it: sexually, musically, it doesnt matter. When I meet somebody, Im in a situation in which I cant run it because another person is involved. That means letting someone else talk, not waiting for them to remind you of something interesting you had in mind.
PLAYBOY: Masturbation for you is as good as sex?
MAYER: Absolutely, because during sex, Im just going to run a filmstrip. Im still masturbating. Thats what you do when youre 30, 31, 32. This is my problem now: Rather than meet somebody new, I would rather go home and replay the amazing experiences Ive already had.
PLAYBOY: Youd rather jerk off to an ex-girlfriend than meet someone new?
MAYER: Yeah. What that explains is that Im more comfortable in my imagination than I am in actual human discovery. The best days of my life are when Ive dreamed about a sexual encounter with someone Ive already been with. When that happens, I cannot lay off myself.
PLAYBOY: There are some angry, accusatory songs on the record, but there are also self-critical songs. It goes through all the changing moods you have on the worst night of your life.
MAYER: Yeah, Battle Studies is that feeling between 10 p.m. and two a.m. when you have this wild level of arousal and optimism. Its about the things people do to each other during those hours. I have wasted four hours of my life refusing to masturbate and believing that somehow the phone would ring and Id get a call from somebody I hadnt talked to in years.
PLAYBOY: The phone will ring and your life will change?
MAYER: Yeah. Its like looking for a fix. Ill spend four hours not even putting anything into motion, just believing somehow its going to come my way.
PLAYBOY: You talked before about being an underdog. What were you like at 16?
MAYER: I wasnt paying attention in school. I would come home and play guitar, playing for all the moments I had that day when I couldnt feel alive. I visualized I was a superhero with an alter ego: By day, a gawky, zit faced 16-year-old boy. I would sleep with my guitar because I thought it would make me play better. I had a 100-disc CD player in the basement, and I would load it up with Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Kenny Burrell and Bill Evans and play CDs while I slept on the floor. Like somehow, by osmosis, the music was getting into me. It was the only way I could build enough armor to go back to school the next day.
PLAYBOY: How many hours a day were you playing?
MAYER: Three to four hours a day when I was in school, and in the summertime five to six hours a day. I wasnt smoking cigarettes or drinking, and I wasnt trying to hook up. I wasnt going to parties. I remember being in my room when there was a party across town, sitting in my room and pretending I was at the party and playing for them. I remember saying to myself, If I have to sleep on a pool table every night on tour, Ill do it. I always had that desire to be a rock star.
PLAYBOY: Were you one of those smart kids who hated school?
MAYER: I would act up and get sent to the deans office and talk to him as though I was an adult. Im not trying to upset anybody, sir. With all due respect to you and your staff, Im just not supposed to be here. Its quite difficult for me to sit in class, because Im supposed to be a guitar player, sir. I was very cocky. But from the outset, there was opposition. My parents were not the biggest fans, to put it diplomatically. I grew up saying, Youll see. I cant explain it yet, but youll see. Early in my career, when I was 19 or 20, Id meet presidents of record companies and refused to give them my demos. Id say, Well see each other again sometime.
PLAYBOY: That is really cocky.
MAYER: It was incredibly cocky. I was so tempered in opposition that when the opposition went away, I started to look like a total asshole. When my first record came out, I was still saying, Youll see. Check out what I did. Eat it. It gave me this reputation for being really arrogant. I probably should have stood on top of a roof and yelled, Fuck you! That Ill show you instinct is still alive and well. Now, instead of We dont think you can do it, its We think youre a douche bag.
PLAYBOY: What you describe sounds like a conversation between a father and a son. Can you talk like that with your dad?
MAYER: My dad is 82. I love him so much, but the way I communicate with him is by fixing his printer or the closed-captioning on his TV. These are the bonding moments we have.
PLAYBOY: Did kids make fun of the fact that your dad is almost 20 years older than your mom?
MAYER: No, theyd just say, Your grandfathers here.
PLAYBOY: Is your heritage Jewish?
MAYER: Im half Jewish. People say, Well, which side of your family is Jewish? I say, My dads. And they always say it doesnt count. But I will say I keep my pool at 92 degrees, so you do the math. I find myself relating to Judaism. One of my best friends is Jewish beyond all JewsI went to my first Passover seder at his houseand I train in Krav Maga with a lot of Israelis.
PLAYBOY: You said there are still things you dont have. What are those things?
MAYER: I could make anybody understand that my life is not all rainbows and unicorns, but why would I want to? Im sort of selling them the idea that its rainbows and unicorns. I could explain that, in fact, Im not a douche bag, but that would be at the expense of believing in magic. I dont want to tear down the facade. People want to imagine that if they get a record deal, they can buy a Ferrari. People need that. I dont want to take that away from people. Anything I dont have is a direct descendant of the things I do have. I mean, lets say theres a 12 percent chance Ill never marry and have kids because the music career fucked me in some way. If thats the case, I still know its my calling. I hold out hope that theres a way to be a supernatural being onstage and an extremely natural being at home.
PLAYBOY: Why are you so anxious about never getting married?
MAYER: What if I meet a woman and its love at first sight, and this woman has the greatest night of her life by telling me to fuck off because she knows my reputation? I always say, Turning me down is the new sleeping with me. What is a guy supposed to say to a girl who says You do this all the time? Girls always say that. Sometimes they say Ive been warned about you. But I can undo that in a couple of days. I have a line for that: Keep your warning for a while; lets take it slow.
PLAYBOY: Were you one of those people who thought fame would be rainbows and unicorns?
MAYER: I had a conversation about fame with Jen [Aniston] before we ever really stepped out in public. She said, Do you understand what this entails? Two weeks later I had people outside my house. I was smart enough to know it would probably make me a salable item for the paparazzi. I knew Id have to move to a home that had a gate. But that pearl of possibility that lives in your heart when you meet somebody you want to know more about has such a different molecular density than everything else that you have to pursue it. And I wouldnt undo it, man. Because if it had worked out, I would have reaped the benefits. I would be sitting here saying, What I have when I go home is the thing Ive always wanted.
PLAYBOY: Has Jen heard Battle Studies?
MAYER: Yes. I played it for her as the record was being made.
PLAYBOY: What did she say?
MAYER: Look, theres a level of honesty in that record that probably made her uncomfortable, but I couldnt let that change the way I wrote songs. There were moments when she said, Whats that line? Like, Thats not about me, is it? While I was going out with her she was on the cover of GQ wearing nothing but a tie. These are occupational hazards. When she heard Battle Studies she just wanted to be able to say I want to know that you hold me correctly in your heart.
PLAYBOY: What percentage of the album is about Aniston?
MAYER: I dont want to say. I feel bad because people think Heartbreak Warfare is about her. I want to go on record saying its not. That woman would never use heartbreak warfare. That woman was the most communicative, sweetest, kindest person. When people hear the record, I hope the songs make them think about their lives, not my life. Like, when you listen to Coldplay, do you think about Gwyneth Paltrow? I dont write songs in order to stick it to my exes. I dont release underground dis tracks. [laughs]
PLAYBOY: Youve rarely talked about Aniston. She has rarely talked about you.
MAYER: We just have a regard for each others feelings that is pretty intense. Its been a deep relationship, and its no longer taking place at all. Have you ever loved somebody, loved her completely, but had to end the relationship for life reasons?
PLAYBOY: Did you send Aniston a copy of the CD after it was done?
MAYER: No.
PLAYBOY: Maybe shell download it from BitTorrent.
MAYER: If Jennifer Aniston knows how to use BitTorrent Ill eat my fucking shoe. One of the most significant differences between us was that I was tweeting. There was a rumor that I had been dumped because I was tweeting too much. That wasnt it, but that was a big difference. The brunt of her success came before TMZ and Twitter. I think shes still hoping it goes back to 1998. She saw my involvement in technology as courting distraction. And I always said, These are the new rules.
PLAYBOY: You mean the rules of celebrity have changed since Friends made her a star?
MAYER: I said, Tom Cruise put on a fat suit. That pretty much sums up the past decade: Tom Cruise with a comb-over, dancing to Flo Rida in Tropic Thunder. And the world went, Welcome back, Tom Cruise.
PLAYBOY: Whats the moral there?
MAYER: You have to show that you dont take yourself seriously. Once you do that, people will say youre cool: You know what? I gotta say I never liked him until he made fun of himself, and now I like him.
PLAYBOY: Because youre very?
MAYER: Someone asked me the other day, What does it feel like now to have a hood pass? And by the way, its sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a nigger pass. Why are you pulling a punch and calling it a hood pass if you really have a hood pass? But I said, I cant really have a hood pass. Ive never walked into a restaurant, asked for a table and been told, Were full."
PLAYBOY: It is true; a lot of rappers love you. You recorded with Common and Kanye West, played live with Jay-Z.
MAYER: What is being black? Its making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something thats seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or youll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dudes.
PLAYBOY: Do black women throw themselves at you?
MAYER: I dont think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. Ive got a Benetton heart and a fuckin David Duke cock. Im going to start dating separately from my dick.
PLAYBOY: Lets put some names out there. Lets get specific.
MAYER: I always thought Holly Robinson Peete was gorgeous. Every white dude loved Hilary from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And Kerry Washington. Shes superhot, and shes also white-girl crazy. Kerry Washington would break your heart like a white girl. Just all of a sudden shed be like, Yeah, I sucked his dick. Whatever. And youd be like, What? We werent talking about that. Thats what Heartbreak Warfare is all about, when a girl uses jealousy as a tactic.
PLAYBOY: You said that song isnt about Aniston. Why is it important for people to know that?
MAYER: Im very protective of Jen.
PLAYBOY: Do you still love her?
MAYER: Yes, always. Ill always be sorry that it didnt last. In some ways I wish I could be with her. But I cant change the fact that I need to be 32.
PLAYBOY: Last June she was given an award from Women in Film. In her acceptance speech she pointed out that the titles of her films closely parallel her private life. Then she asked if anyone in the audience had a project titled Everlasting Love With an Adult, Stable Male. It seems as if she was referring to you.
MAYER: I imagine Ive got something to do with that. Parts of me arent 32. My ability to go deep with somebody is old soul. My ability to commit and be faithful is old soul. But 32 just comes roaring out of me at points when I dont see it coming. I want to dance. I want to get on an airplane and be like a ninja. I want to be an explorer. I want to be like The Bourne Identity. I dont want to pet dogs in the kitchen.
PLAYBOY: Thats not so weird for a 32-year-old.
MAYER: Right. For a long time I was asking, Whats wrong with me? I spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on therapy for people to say, Nothing is wrong. I had seen splitting up with her as akin to burning an American flag. Do you know what I mean? I considered myself a villain.
PLAYBOY: How did you feel like a villain?
MAYER: I felt as though Id done something wrong and was going to be punished for it. When the media picked up on it, it was the worst fucking week of my life. I found notes at my front desk: I work for Us Weekly; Id like to talk to you. Im working out at the gym, and next to me on the elliptical trainer I see a woman I think already approached me and said she was with In Touch. But wouldnt that be paranoid to think? Im going insane. I havent slept. Im about to go blindyou know the phrase blind rage? All I can remember is that I was about to lose my vision. My emotional tissue was about to tear. So after I left the gym I said Come here to all the reporters and paparazzi. I was on the verge of crying and also on the verge of punching someone.
PLAYBOY: This was August 2008, when you said you had ended the relationship because I dont want to waste somebodys time if somethings not right.
MAYER: It really, really upset her. I wanted to take responsibility for having ended it because I saw it as such an offense. But a lot of people felt I was saving face. This would serve to begin the period of my life Im just exiting, when love made me feel guilty and people called me a rat, a womanizer and a cad.
PLAYBOY: Youve also been called a man-whore.
MAYER: I feel like women are getting their comeuppance against men now. I hear about man-whores more than I hear about whores. When women are whorish, theyre owning their sexuality. When men are whorish, theyre disgusting beasts. I think theyre paying us back for a double standard thats lasted for a hundred years.
PLAYBOY: What does the word womanizer mean to you?
MAYER: Well, wouldnt a womanizer have dated more than two girls in two years?
PLAYBOY: You and Aniston got back together and broke up again in 2009. How many women did you sleep with in the eight months after the breakup?
MAYER: Im going to say four or five. No more.
PLAYBOY: Thats a reasonable number.
MAYER: But even if I said 12, thats a reasonable number. So is 15. Heres the thing: I get less ass now than I did when I was in a local band. Because now I dont like jumping through hoops. Its been so long since Ive taken a random girl home. I dont want to have to submit myself for approval. I dont want to audition. Id rather come home and edge my shit out for 90 minutes. At this point, before I can have sex I need to know somebody. Unless shes a 14 out of 10.
PLAYBOY: You have been very up front about your fondness for masturbation.
MAYER: Its like a vacationmy brain gets to go free. Its a walk in the park for my brain. Pull the shades and let your mind go without having to answer for it.
PLAYBOY: The way you talk about being 32 sounds as though you were too immature for Aniston.
MAYER: No, the actual day-to-day was fantastic. I have to explain this so people dont say, Sure, youre 32, and you want to fuck other chicks. If you say Im not adult and stable, it sounds as though Im someone whos watching football and playing Xbox. I have this bond with infinite possibilitywhen I go out to dinner, I bring another shirt, a flashlight, a knife, a hard drive, a camera. Its not like I wanted to be with somebody else. I want to be with myself, still, and lie in bed only with the infinite unknown. Thats 32, man.
PLAYBOY: In 2006 you began dating Jessica Simpson, and the paparazzi started stalking you, turning you into a tabloid fixture. Certainly you knew that was going to happen.
MAYER: It wasnt as direct as me saying I now make the choice to bring the paparazzi into my life. I really said, I now make the choice to sleep with Jessica Simpson. That was stronger than my desire to stay out of the paparazzis eye. That girl, for me, is a drug. And drugs arent good for you if you do lots of them. Yeah, that girl is like crack cocaine to me.
PLAYBOY: You were addicted to Jessica Simpson?
MAYER: Sexually it was crazy. Thats all Ill say. It was like napalm, sexual napalm.
PLAYBOY: But before you dated her you thought of yourself as the kind of guy who would never date Jessica Simpson.
MAYER: Thats correct. There are people in the world who have the power to change our values. Have you ever been with a girl who made you want to quit the rest of your life? Did youever say, I want to quit my life and just fuckin snort you? If you charged me $10,000 to fuck you, I would start selling all my shit just to keep fucking you.
PLAYBOY: So at this point
MAYER: Pardon me for interrupting. I love Jen so much that Im now thinking about how bad I would feel if she read this and was like, Why are you putting me in an article where youre talking about someone else? I dont want to be in your lineage of kiss-and-tells.
PLAYBOY: At this point, whats your ideal relationship?
MAYER: Heres what I really want to do at 32: fuck a girl and then, as shes sleeping in bed, make breakfast for her. So shes like, What? You gave me five vaginal orgasms last night, and youre making me a spinach omelet? You are the shit! So she says, I love this guy. I say, I love this girl loving me. And then we have a problem. Because that entails instant relationship. Im already playing house. And when I lose interest shes going to say, Why would you do that if you didnt want to stick with me?
PLAYBOY: Why do you do it?
MAYER: Because I want to show her Im not like every other guy. Because I hate other men. When Im fucking you, Im trying to fuck every man whos ever fucked you, but in his ass, so youll say No ones ever done that to me in bed.
PLAYBOY: Do you do something different in bed than other guys?
MAYER: Its all about geometry. Im sort of a scientist; its about being obtuse with an angle. Its sort of this weird up-and-over thing. You gotta think up and over.
PLAYBOY: Maybe thats easier at your height. You talked about listening to Miles Davis and Bill Evans in high school, but thats not the kind of music you make.
MAYER: I make mainstream music. I dont believe in guilty pleasures; I believe in pleasures. I know where I stand when I hear Miley Cyruss Party in the USA or The Climbwhich may be the best pop song of the past year.
PLAYBOY: Its a little surprising that you like Miley Cyrus so much.
MAYER: I took a friend and his kids to see Miley Cyrus in Vegas. After the show I said to her, That was fantastic. Fantastic. I said, Take $100,000, put it in a shoe box and bury it in your backyard. I walked away thinking, That may be the strangest thing Ive ever said. It just means put a little away. Have something nobody can ever take away from you.
PLAYBOY: Keep a secret fund in case you wake up at three a.m. thinking, Screw this, and you need to disappear?
MAYER: Exactly. Thats what I do with my blackjack winningsI keep them safe and sound.
PLAYBOY: Among the things weve read about you online is this: Youre gay. Have you ever kissed a man?
MAYER: The only man Ive kissed is Perez Hilton. It was New Years Eve and I decided to go out and destroy myself. I was dating Jessica at the time, and I remember seeing Perez Hilton flitting about this club and acting as though he had just invented homosexuality. All of a sudden I thought, I can outgay this guy right now. I grabbed him and gave him the dirtiest, tongue-iest kiss I have ever put on anybodyalmost as if I hated fags. I dont think my mouth was even touching when I was tongue kissing him, thats how disgusting this kiss was. Im a little ashamed. I think it lasted about half a minute. I really think it went on too long.
PLAYBOY: Perez describes you on his site as a womanizer, a word you dont like. Is it fair to say you have a love-hate relationship with him?
MAYER: I used to. Now I believe were fully into fighting with breakaway chairs. I think hes pretty much inert at this point. Perez is to hating as Richard Simmons is to health and well-being. [laughs] You can print that. Perez is so authentically off his rocker he will not let you finish a sentence. I think he has some dark things in his past. I think he comes from a little bit of hurt, and I say that with an understated tone. At the end of the day I go to his site, but I dont see him as a threat. The impact of his tone is beginning to wane. I give a lot more credit to Harvey Levin at TMZ.
PLAYBOY: Would you kiss Harvey Levin?
MAYER: I would rim him, probably. I cant just repeat the kissing trick.
:lol
http://www.playboy.com/articles/john-mayer-playboy-interview/index.html?page=2
PLAYBOY: Whats your point about porn and relationships?
MAYER: Internet pornography has absolutely changed my generations expectations. How could you be constantly synthesizing an orgasm based on dozens of shots? Youre looking for the one photo out of 100 you swear is going to be the one you finish to, and you still dont finish. Twenty seconds ago you thought that photo was the hottest thing you ever saw, but you throw it back and continue your shot hunt and continue to make yourself late for work. How does that not affect the psychology of having a relationship with somebody? Its got to.
PLAYBOY: You seem very fond of pornography.
MAYER: When I watch porn, if its not hot enough, Ill make up backstories in my mind. My biggest dream is to write pornography.
PLAYBOY: How did you become a self-soother?
MAYER: I grew up in my own head. As soon as I lose that control, once I have to deal with someone elses desires, I cut and run. Im pretty culpable about being hard to live with. I have had a good run of imagining things into reality. Ive got a huge streak of successes based on my own inventions. If you tell me Im wrong or that Im overthinking something, well, overthinking has given me everything in my career. I have a hard time not looking at anxiety disorder as being like an ATM. I can invent things really well. I mean, I have unbelievable orgasms alone. Theyre always the best. They always end the way I want them to end. And I have such an ability to make believe, I can almost project something onto my wall, watch it and get off to it: sexually, musically, it doesnt matter. When I meet somebody, Im in a situation in which I cant run it because another person is involved. That means letting someone else talk, not waiting for them to remind you of something interesting you had in mind.
PLAYBOY: Masturbation for you is as good as sex?
MAYER: Absolutely, because during sex, Im just going to run a filmstrip. Im still masturbating. Thats what you do when youre 30, 31, 32. This is my problem now: Rather than meet somebody new, I would rather go home and replay the amazing experiences Ive already had.
PLAYBOY: Youd rather jerk off to an ex-girlfriend than meet someone new?
MAYER: Yeah. What that explains is that Im more comfortable in my imagination than I am in actual human discovery. The best days of my life are when Ive dreamed about a sexual encounter with someone Ive already been with. When that happens, I cannot lay off myself.
PLAYBOY: There are some angry, accusatory songs on the record, but there are also self-critical songs. It goes through all the changing moods you have on the worst night of your life.
MAYER: Yeah, Battle Studies is that feeling between 10 p.m. and two a.m. when you have this wild level of arousal and optimism. Its about the things people do to each other during those hours. I have wasted four hours of my life refusing to masturbate and believing that somehow the phone would ring and Id get a call from somebody I hadnt talked to in years.
PLAYBOY: The phone will ring and your life will change?
MAYER: Yeah. Its like looking for a fix. Ill spend four hours not even putting anything into motion, just believing somehow its going to come my way.
PLAYBOY: You talked before about being an underdog. What were you like at 16?
MAYER: I wasnt paying attention in school. I would come home and play guitar, playing for all the moments I had that day when I couldnt feel alive. I visualized I was a superhero with an alter ego: By day, a gawky, zit faced 16-year-old boy. I would sleep with my guitar because I thought it would make me play better. I had a 100-disc CD player in the basement, and I would load it up with Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Kenny Burrell and Bill Evans and play CDs while I slept on the floor. Like somehow, by osmosis, the music was getting into me. It was the only way I could build enough armor to go back to school the next day.
PLAYBOY: How many hours a day were you playing?
MAYER: Three to four hours a day when I was in school, and in the summertime five to six hours a day. I wasnt smoking cigarettes or drinking, and I wasnt trying to hook up. I wasnt going to parties. I remember being in my room when there was a party across town, sitting in my room and pretending I was at the party and playing for them. I remember saying to myself, If I have to sleep on a pool table every night on tour, Ill do it. I always had that desire to be a rock star.
PLAYBOY: Were you one of those smart kids who hated school?
MAYER: I would act up and get sent to the deans office and talk to him as though I was an adult. Im not trying to upset anybody, sir. With all due respect to you and your staff, Im just not supposed to be here. Its quite difficult for me to sit in class, because Im supposed to be a guitar player, sir. I was very cocky. But from the outset, there was opposition. My parents were not the biggest fans, to put it diplomatically. I grew up saying, Youll see. I cant explain it yet, but youll see. Early in my career, when I was 19 or 20, Id meet presidents of record companies and refused to give them my demos. Id say, Well see each other again sometime.
PLAYBOY: That is really cocky.
MAYER: It was incredibly cocky. I was so tempered in opposition that when the opposition went away, I started to look like a total asshole. When my first record came out, I was still saying, Youll see. Check out what I did. Eat it. It gave me this reputation for being really arrogant. I probably should have stood on top of a roof and yelled, Fuck you! That Ill show you instinct is still alive and well. Now, instead of We dont think you can do it, its We think youre a douche bag.
PLAYBOY: What you describe sounds like a conversation between a father and a son. Can you talk like that with your dad?
MAYER: My dad is 82. I love him so much, but the way I communicate with him is by fixing his printer or the closed-captioning on his TV. These are the bonding moments we have.
PLAYBOY: Did kids make fun of the fact that your dad is almost 20 years older than your mom?
MAYER: No, theyd just say, Your grandfathers here.
PLAYBOY: Is your heritage Jewish?
MAYER: Im half Jewish. People say, Well, which side of your family is Jewish? I say, My dads. And they always say it doesnt count. But I will say I keep my pool at 92 degrees, so you do the math. I find myself relating to Judaism. One of my best friends is Jewish beyond all JewsI went to my first Passover seder at his houseand I train in Krav Maga with a lot of Israelis.
PLAYBOY: You said there are still things you dont have. What are those things?
MAYER: I could make anybody understand that my life is not all rainbows and unicorns, but why would I want to? Im sort of selling them the idea that its rainbows and unicorns. I could explain that, in fact, Im not a douche bag, but that would be at the expense of believing in magic. I dont want to tear down the facade. People want to imagine that if they get a record deal, they can buy a Ferrari. People need that. I dont want to take that away from people. Anything I dont have is a direct descendant of the things I do have. I mean, lets say theres a 12 percent chance Ill never marry and have kids because the music career fucked me in some way. If thats the case, I still know its my calling. I hold out hope that theres a way to be a supernatural being onstage and an extremely natural being at home.
PLAYBOY: Why are you so anxious about never getting married?
MAYER: What if I meet a woman and its love at first sight, and this woman has the greatest night of her life by telling me to fuck off because she knows my reputation? I always say, Turning me down is the new sleeping with me. What is a guy supposed to say to a girl who says You do this all the time? Girls always say that. Sometimes they say Ive been warned about you. But I can undo that in a couple of days. I have a line for that: Keep your warning for a while; lets take it slow.
PLAYBOY: Were you one of those people who thought fame would be rainbows and unicorns?
MAYER: I had a conversation about fame with Jen [Aniston] before we ever really stepped out in public. She said, Do you understand what this entails? Two weeks later I had people outside my house. I was smart enough to know it would probably make me a salable item for the paparazzi. I knew Id have to move to a home that had a gate. But that pearl of possibility that lives in your heart when you meet somebody you want to know more about has such a different molecular density than everything else that you have to pursue it. And I wouldnt undo it, man. Because if it had worked out, I would have reaped the benefits. I would be sitting here saying, What I have when I go home is the thing Ive always wanted.
PLAYBOY: Has Jen heard Battle Studies?
MAYER: Yes. I played it for her as the record was being made.
PLAYBOY: What did she say?
MAYER: Look, theres a level of honesty in that record that probably made her uncomfortable, but I couldnt let that change the way I wrote songs. There were moments when she said, Whats that line? Like, Thats not about me, is it? While I was going out with her she was on the cover of GQ wearing nothing but a tie. These are occupational hazards. When she heard Battle Studies she just wanted to be able to say I want to know that you hold me correctly in your heart.
PLAYBOY: What percentage of the album is about Aniston?
MAYER: I dont want to say. I feel bad because people think Heartbreak Warfare is about her. I want to go on record saying its not. That woman would never use heartbreak warfare. That woman was the most communicative, sweetest, kindest person. When people hear the record, I hope the songs make them think about their lives, not my life. Like, when you listen to Coldplay, do you think about Gwyneth Paltrow? I dont write songs in order to stick it to my exes. I dont release underground dis tracks. [laughs]
PLAYBOY: Youve rarely talked about Aniston. She has rarely talked about you.
MAYER: We just have a regard for each others feelings that is pretty intense. Its been a deep relationship, and its no longer taking place at all. Have you ever loved somebody, loved her completely, but had to end the relationship for life reasons?
PLAYBOY: Did you send Aniston a copy of the CD after it was done?
MAYER: No.
PLAYBOY: Maybe shell download it from BitTorrent.
MAYER: If Jennifer Aniston knows how to use BitTorrent Ill eat my fucking shoe. One of the most significant differences between us was that I was tweeting. There was a rumor that I had been dumped because I was tweeting too much. That wasnt it, but that was a big difference. The brunt of her success came before TMZ and Twitter. I think shes still hoping it goes back to 1998. She saw my involvement in technology as courting distraction. And I always said, These are the new rules.
PLAYBOY: You mean the rules of celebrity have changed since Friends made her a star?
MAYER: I said, Tom Cruise put on a fat suit. That pretty much sums up the past decade: Tom Cruise with a comb-over, dancing to Flo Rida in Tropic Thunder. And the world went, Welcome back, Tom Cruise.
PLAYBOY: Whats the moral there?
MAYER: You have to show that you dont take yourself seriously. Once you do that, people will say youre cool: You know what? I gotta say I never liked him until he made fun of himself, and now I like him.
PLAYBOY: Because youre very?
MAYER: Someone asked me the other day, What does it feel like now to have a hood pass? And by the way, its sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a nigger pass. Why are you pulling a punch and calling it a hood pass if you really have a hood pass? But I said, I cant really have a hood pass. Ive never walked into a restaurant, asked for a table and been told, Were full."
PLAYBOY: It is true; a lot of rappers love you. You recorded with Common and Kanye West, played live with Jay-Z.
MAYER: What is being black? Its making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something thats seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or youll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dudes.
PLAYBOY: Do black women throw themselves at you?
MAYER: I dont think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. Ive got a Benetton heart and a fuckin David Duke cock. Im going to start dating separately from my dick.
PLAYBOY: Lets put some names out there. Lets get specific.
MAYER: I always thought Holly Robinson Peete was gorgeous. Every white dude loved Hilary from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And Kerry Washington. Shes superhot, and shes also white-girl crazy. Kerry Washington would break your heart like a white girl. Just all of a sudden shed be like, Yeah, I sucked his dick. Whatever. And youd be like, What? We werent talking about that. Thats what Heartbreak Warfare is all about, when a girl uses jealousy as a tactic.
PLAYBOY: You said that song isnt about Aniston. Why is it important for people to know that?
MAYER: Im very protective of Jen.
PLAYBOY: Do you still love her?
MAYER: Yes, always. Ill always be sorry that it didnt last. In some ways I wish I could be with her. But I cant change the fact that I need to be 32.
PLAYBOY: Last June she was given an award from Women in Film. In her acceptance speech she pointed out that the titles of her films closely parallel her private life. Then she asked if anyone in the audience had a project titled Everlasting Love With an Adult, Stable Male. It seems as if she was referring to you.
MAYER: I imagine Ive got something to do with that. Parts of me arent 32. My ability to go deep with somebody is old soul. My ability to commit and be faithful is old soul. But 32 just comes roaring out of me at points when I dont see it coming. I want to dance. I want to get on an airplane and be like a ninja. I want to be an explorer. I want to be like The Bourne Identity. I dont want to pet dogs in the kitchen.
PLAYBOY: Thats not so weird for a 32-year-old.
MAYER: Right. For a long time I was asking, Whats wrong with me? I spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on therapy for people to say, Nothing is wrong. I had seen splitting up with her as akin to burning an American flag. Do you know what I mean? I considered myself a villain.
PLAYBOY: How did you feel like a villain?
MAYER: I felt as though Id done something wrong and was going to be punished for it. When the media picked up on it, it was the worst fucking week of my life. I found notes at my front desk: I work for Us Weekly; Id like to talk to you. Im working out at the gym, and next to me on the elliptical trainer I see a woman I think already approached me and said she was with In Touch. But wouldnt that be paranoid to think? Im going insane. I havent slept. Im about to go blindyou know the phrase blind rage? All I can remember is that I was about to lose my vision. My emotional tissue was about to tear. So after I left the gym I said Come here to all the reporters and paparazzi. I was on the verge of crying and also on the verge of punching someone.
PLAYBOY: This was August 2008, when you said you had ended the relationship because I dont want to waste somebodys time if somethings not right.
MAYER: It really, really upset her. I wanted to take responsibility for having ended it because I saw it as such an offense. But a lot of people felt I was saving face. This would serve to begin the period of my life Im just exiting, when love made me feel guilty and people called me a rat, a womanizer and a cad.
PLAYBOY: Youve also been called a man-whore.
MAYER: I feel like women are getting their comeuppance against men now. I hear about man-whores more than I hear about whores. When women are whorish, theyre owning their sexuality. When men are whorish, theyre disgusting beasts. I think theyre paying us back for a double standard thats lasted for a hundred years.
PLAYBOY: What does the word womanizer mean to you?
MAYER: Well, wouldnt a womanizer have dated more than two girls in two years?
PLAYBOY: You and Aniston got back together and broke up again in 2009. How many women did you sleep with in the eight months after the breakup?
MAYER: Im going to say four or five. No more.
PLAYBOY: Thats a reasonable number.
MAYER: But even if I said 12, thats a reasonable number. So is 15. Heres the thing: I get less ass now than I did when I was in a local band. Because now I dont like jumping through hoops. Its been so long since Ive taken a random girl home. I dont want to have to submit myself for approval. I dont want to audition. Id rather come home and edge my shit out for 90 minutes. At this point, before I can have sex I need to know somebody. Unless shes a 14 out of 10.
PLAYBOY: You have been very up front about your fondness for masturbation.
MAYER: Its like a vacationmy brain gets to go free. Its a walk in the park for my brain. Pull the shades and let your mind go without having to answer for it.
PLAYBOY: The way you talk about being 32 sounds as though you were too immature for Aniston.
MAYER: No, the actual day-to-day was fantastic. I have to explain this so people dont say, Sure, youre 32, and you want to fuck other chicks. If you say Im not adult and stable, it sounds as though Im someone whos watching football and playing Xbox. I have this bond with infinite possibilitywhen I go out to dinner, I bring another shirt, a flashlight, a knife, a hard drive, a camera. Its not like I wanted to be with somebody else. I want to be with myself, still, and lie in bed only with the infinite unknown. Thats 32, man.
PLAYBOY: In 2006 you began dating Jessica Simpson, and the paparazzi started stalking you, turning you into a tabloid fixture. Certainly you knew that was going to happen.
MAYER: It wasnt as direct as me saying I now make the choice to bring the paparazzi into my life. I really said, I now make the choice to sleep with Jessica Simpson. That was stronger than my desire to stay out of the paparazzis eye. That girl, for me, is a drug. And drugs arent good for you if you do lots of them. Yeah, that girl is like crack cocaine to me.
PLAYBOY: You were addicted to Jessica Simpson?
MAYER: Sexually it was crazy. Thats all Ill say. It was like napalm, sexual napalm.
PLAYBOY: But before you dated her you thought of yourself as the kind of guy who would never date Jessica Simpson.
MAYER: Thats correct. There are people in the world who have the power to change our values. Have you ever been with a girl who made you want to quit the rest of your life? Did youever say, I want to quit my life and just fuckin snort you? If you charged me $10,000 to fuck you, I would start selling all my shit just to keep fucking you.
PLAYBOY: So at this point
MAYER: Pardon me for interrupting. I love Jen so much that Im now thinking about how bad I would feel if she read this and was like, Why are you putting me in an article where youre talking about someone else? I dont want to be in your lineage of kiss-and-tells.
PLAYBOY: At this point, whats your ideal relationship?
MAYER: Heres what I really want to do at 32: fuck a girl and then, as shes sleeping in bed, make breakfast for her. So shes like, What? You gave me five vaginal orgasms last night, and youre making me a spinach omelet? You are the shit! So she says, I love this guy. I say, I love this girl loving me. And then we have a problem. Because that entails instant relationship. Im already playing house. And when I lose interest shes going to say, Why would you do that if you didnt want to stick with me?
PLAYBOY: Why do you do it?
MAYER: Because I want to show her Im not like every other guy. Because I hate other men. When Im fucking you, Im trying to fuck every man whos ever fucked you, but in his ass, so youll say No ones ever done that to me in bed.
PLAYBOY: Do you do something different in bed than other guys?
MAYER: Its all about geometry. Im sort of a scientist; its about being obtuse with an angle. Its sort of this weird up-and-over thing. You gotta think up and over.
PLAYBOY: Maybe thats easier at your height. You talked about listening to Miles Davis and Bill Evans in high school, but thats not the kind of music you make.
MAYER: I make mainstream music. I dont believe in guilty pleasures; I believe in pleasures. I know where I stand when I hear Miley Cyruss Party in the USA or The Climbwhich may be the best pop song of the past year.
PLAYBOY: Its a little surprising that you like Miley Cyrus so much.
MAYER: I took a friend and his kids to see Miley Cyrus in Vegas. After the show I said to her, That was fantastic. Fantastic. I said, Take $100,000, put it in a shoe box and bury it in your backyard. I walked away thinking, That may be the strangest thing Ive ever said. It just means put a little away. Have something nobody can ever take away from you.
PLAYBOY: Keep a secret fund in case you wake up at three a.m. thinking, Screw this, and you need to disappear?
MAYER: Exactly. Thats what I do with my blackjack winningsI keep them safe and sound.
PLAYBOY: Among the things weve read about you online is this: Youre gay. Have you ever kissed a man?
MAYER: The only man Ive kissed is Perez Hilton. It was New Years Eve and I decided to go out and destroy myself. I was dating Jessica at the time, and I remember seeing Perez Hilton flitting about this club and acting as though he had just invented homosexuality. All of a sudden I thought, I can outgay this guy right now. I grabbed him and gave him the dirtiest, tongue-iest kiss I have ever put on anybodyalmost as if I hated fags. I dont think my mouth was even touching when I was tongue kissing him, thats how disgusting this kiss was. Im a little ashamed. I think it lasted about half a minute. I really think it went on too long.
PLAYBOY: Perez describes you on his site as a womanizer, a word you dont like. Is it fair to say you have a love-hate relationship with him?
MAYER: I used to. Now I believe were fully into fighting with breakaway chairs. I think hes pretty much inert at this point. Perez is to hating as Richard Simmons is to health and well-being. [laughs] You can print that. Perez is so authentically off his rocker he will not let you finish a sentence. I think he has some dark things in his past. I think he comes from a little bit of hurt, and I say that with an understated tone. At the end of the day I go to his site, but I dont see him as a threat. The impact of his tone is beginning to wane. I give a lot more credit to Harvey Levin at TMZ.
PLAYBOY: Would you kiss Harvey Levin?
MAYER: I would rim him, probably. I cant just repeat the kissing trick.
