John Mayer shares his thoughts on album, money, women
By KELLY WILSON
Get Out

While some artists might buckle under the stress of recording a follow-up to a hugely successful debut album, John Mayer embraced the pressure that came with his second release, 2003’s “Heavier Things.”

“When you’ve sold almost four million copies of your first record (2001’s ‘Room for Squares’), there should be some pressure to follow it up with something that is both evolved and also similar,” the 26-year-old singer/songwriter says. “There’s pressure to get it done in a certain period of time. There’s pressure to produce the music within the same mentality.

“But none of it was pressure I couldn’t stand or didn’t want. I like sitting in a room going, ‘Wow, whatever I come up with and decide to put on a record will be heard by millions of people.’ It’s not ‘if ’ anymore. It’s ‘will.’ ’’

With two chart-topping albums and his boy-next-door mug gracing magazine covers, Mayer says he’s discovering that he can’t go out in public like he used to.

“I just think it makes another criteria,” he says of leaving his New York City bachelor pad. “It used to be, ‘Do I feel like going to the mall?’ Now it’s like, No. 1, ‘Do I feel like going to the mall?’ and, No. 2, ‘Do I feel like having to kind of fulfill that obligation of seeing people?’ And sometimes it’s yes and sometimes it’s no ... I’Il go to a bar sometimes and someone will go, ‘I'm sorry. I hate to bug you.’ Um, you’re a beautiful girl and I’m at a bar. This is not being bugged.’’

When asked if he’s seeing anyone, the singer — who once dated actress Jennifer Love Hewitt — gets tight-
lipped.

“I'm not really looking,’’ says Mayer, who says he has a talent for reading a woman in five minutes. ‘‘I’m not pushing. I’m not pulling. I’m just living my life ... I’ll walk down the street sometimes in New York City and I see gorgeous, gorgeous girls and I go, ‘I really should turn around and go say something,’ and the next thing that comes to mind is ‘She’s probably going to (expletive) your life up completely,’ so I should probably just keep walking.

“Your first instinct is, ‘There goes my joy right there that’s the whole rest of my life.’ I walk by girls now and I go, ‘She would have wrecked me.’ That woman would have taken my love away from me. Would have made me sell my guitars. I would have married her. Would have divorced her. She would have wrecked my life. I’m going to go home and watch a porno.”

For now, though, Mayer is out on tour. He has one goal — and it’s not box-office receipts.

“I don’t really think about money,” he insists. “I don’t know how much I have. I don’t equate touring with money. It’s always weird when people reference me as being with money. All you’ve got to do is realize that I’ve been on a tour for a week now and I’ve been wearing the same pair of pants.

“I don’t care about record sales so much. I care about doing a show that made people go, ‘Wow, that was 2004 and now I have to come back and see 2005.’ ’’