The womanizing guitar wizard is trying to get back on the pop charts, and he’s using weed, not booze, to fuel the rebirth.
It’s been almost 10 years since John Mayer, the chart-topping singer/songwriter with a penchant for dating A-list celebutantes, has been on pop-culture’s center stage. But now, after a series of very stupid comments in very popular magazines led the tabloid favorite to recuse himself to a few years of life in Montana, Mayer is back, with a new album, a new music video, and a newfound love for weed.
In a March feature from the New York Times, Mayer told reporters that he was “very thoughtfully entering cannabis life” after ditching his troubled love affair with alcohol. And in a new interview published this week by Rolling Stone, Mayer, now in the last year of his 30’s, confirms the switch and bemoans being swindled by booze.
“I put (cannabis) where drinking used to go, and the quality of life has gone up considerably.” Mayer told Rolling Stone. “Drinking is a fucking con. How much is enough? Every time I drank, I was looking for some sort of regulated amount. It always feels wrong for me. I always feel like I went overboard. ‘I said two, now it’s three, now we’re at four?’ I never had a serious issue with it, but I remember looking around going, ‘This feels rigged. I’m taking a break.’ There’s never an amount that felt like I was succeeding at life. It always felt wrong.”
To solidify his newfound stoner lifestyle, Mayer has gone all-in, fronting tours with Dead and Company, the modern rebirth of The Grateful Dead, and experimenting with hallucinogens when appropriate – and when you’re playing with the Dead, it’s pretty much always appropriate.
“I was always the guy saying that I didn’t like altered states. Once you know who you are, then it becomes OK.” Mayer said. “I’m much more open-minded to small changes in consciousness. I remember every trip I ever took. I remember every thought I ever had when I laid there.”
Without boozy hangovers, Mayer is getting a lot of work done and aiming at a return to the pop charts. The guitar guru released “The Search for Everything” earlier this year, he continues to tour, both solo and with the Dead, and his latest single, “Still Feel Like Your Man,” an ode to his ex Katy Perry, has over 4 million YouTube views in the two months since it’s been out.
