Photograph by Matt Salacuse

As John Mayer strummed the opening riff of his 2003 hit “Why Georgia” at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York, last night, he reassured the crowd of several hundred, “If you were afraid of me ever evolving away from you… if you were afraid that I could never be the guy who still wondered what the hell was going on sometimes like you do… I play this for you as the kid in his mother’s 1991 Plymouth Voyager living in Atlanta, Georgia, trying to figure it all out — and I play it for whoever you were back in 2000.”

With his fourth LP, Battle Studies, hitting stores today, Mayer’s come a long way since the quarter-life crisis he wrote about in “Why Georgia.” Even as his lyrics and banter track his journey to figuring it all out, Mayer’s live persona has settled into a confident blend of his identities: relatable singer-songwriter, nimble-fingered axeman, blues-pop player and stand-up comic. In his first time playing Studies‘ songs at last night’s MySpace Music secret show, Mayer removed the smooth-around-the-edges sound of the recording and let the tracks develop their more gritty (his take on Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads”), funky (album opener “Heartbreak Warfare”) and soulful (relationship anthem “Friends, Lovers or Nothing”) elements.

Get more John Mayer in our Essential Guitar Coverage. (more…)

Photo: Diamond/Getty (Swift), Merritt/Getty (Mayer)
Another track off John Mayer’s Battle Studies has leaked before its November 17th release date: “Half of My Heart,” a duet with Taylor Swift. The pair team up for a nice piece of Fleetwood Mac-inspired pop in which Mayer sings, “Half of my heart is a shotgun wedding to a bride with a paper ring, but half of the heart is the part of a man who hasn’t truly loved anything.” Hit up Perez Hilton to listen to a stream.

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If the track has a flaw, it’s that Swift’s appearance is, well, too swift. This weekend’s Saturday Night Live host and musical guest doesn’t pop up until the 2:45 mark, where she delivers the line, “I can’t stop loving you” twice before again receding to the background, only to appear again for some last-second harmonizing before the fadeout. Even with the lack of Swift, the track will no doubt be in constant rotation for fans of Mayer, Taylor and Rumours. Also, there’s no opening references to getting stoned, so radio should like it, too. (more…)

John Mayer may not have set out to make a concept album, but as his fourth LP, Battle Studies, developed, he found the songs’ war theme oddly appealing. “I was loving the war theme, the battle theme. The militaristic, vulgar, violent side of a relationship on the down slope,” he tells Rolling Stone in an exclusive video interview. “The record starts out sort of like the sun is out, then it gets darker. And then the sun comes back out at the end.”

Earlier this month, Mayer unveiled the video for the album’s first single, “Who Says,” which gives fans a raw look at one of his nights out on the town. In our Fall Music Preview, Mayer told Rolling Stone the song’s first lyric, “Who says you can’t get stoned?” was not about weed but, being “in control of the pleasure in your life,” adding that the record — which also features a duet with Taylor Swift — as a whole is “the next step in the story of who I am.” (more…)

John Mayer’s video for “Who Says,” the first single off his upcoming Battle Studies, gives fans a visual diary of one night in the life of John Mayer. As the lyrics suggest, Mayer spends “a long night in New York City,” noodling around on an acoustic guitar, going out clubbing and dining at restaurants so that cool that cigarette smoking is actually permitted; seemingly one of those hazy, drunken nights where Facebook photos provide the only evidence of what happened hours earlier.

The juxtaposition of the frenzied night-on-the-town feel alongside the melancholy weariness of “Who Says” is an interesting combination, and Mayer gives fans a personal view of his days out of the spotlight and paparazzi lenses as he ventures to the Comedy Cellar to perform stand-up or sits in the booth of the club just watching people dance like he was Prince. Still, as evidenced by his Funny or Die videos and his overactive Twitter page, we wish for once that Mayer would embrace his comedic side and give us a video we could laugh it.

For instance, Mayer made us laugh today when we read his (maybe drunken?) interview with New York Magazine’s Vulture, where Mayer threatened to sodomize an editor and gloated, “Have you ever heard me play guitar? I’m really fucking good. You know what I’m bad at? Answering questions about public health care.” (more…)