<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"FacebookPinterest\n\n\"Do you know how far we've come from slapping naked women's asses and fucking them with fish\" Believe it or not, that's John Mayer\u2014the 29yearold king of mom rock, the man behind \"Your Body Is a Wonderland\"\u2014at the Four Seasons in Vancouver. He's talking about rock 'n' roll and all the reasons people hate him: his fey falsetto, his awkward stabs at standup comedy, his onagainprobablystilloffagain relationship with creddestroyer Jessica Simpson. \"Now we're into scrutinizing everything,\" he says. \"How could rock 'n' roll be the one place that people look and go, 'I don't know about that' Axl Rose used to wear littlebitty shorts and sneakers that said 'Axl' on them. And he was singing about burying gay people.  And it was awesome. All that really speaks to is: Choose who you want to be, know who you are, stand by the people you want in your life.\"\n\nComing from Mayer\u2014who actually cried when the chairman of Sony Music didn't like his last album\u2014this sounds refreshing, redemptive even. The quarterlifecrisis guy is turning 30 in a few months, and he seems ready to kill off the saccharine pop kid to save the guitar god inside. And you know what Maybe he deserves a second chance. He's certainly talented (with five Grammys), and his latest album, Continuum, was underrated. It's more soulful than his earlier stuff, and he manages to sing about things like Iraq and the dangers of zealotry without inducing cringes. Even better: He's coming to terms with what people despise about him. And he's planning to do something about it.\n\nAfter this summer's tour, Mayer would like to retire \"Wonderland,\" \"Daughters,\" and every other song from his first two albums\u2014which together sold over 7 million copies and branded him the artist most likely to appear on a Starbucks compilation disc\u2014so that he can evolve. \"People say it takes your whole life to write your first record, that the first record has a vitality the others don't,\" he says. \"So I'd like to go back to zero and write out of the hunger of needing songs.\"\n\nHe's at it already. Steve Jordan (a frequent Mayer collaborator) was in the studio when Mayer decided to scrap a bunch of songs they'd just recorded. \"Those songs would've been starters on anyone else's album,\" Jordan says. \"But John was concerned they'd be heard at every wedding and prom for the rest of his life. He's like, We gotta beat this.\"\n\nPlease do, John. Please do.\n\nHere, in an interview with GQ.com, Mayer talks about his relationship with Jessica Simpson, why Ryan Seacrest is his own personal Richard Simmons, and\u2014yup\u2014the environment. \n\n\"Waiting on the World to Change,\" from Continuum, was your first bit of social commentary. That song kills me. \n\n The first thought I had was, Osama bin Laden is going to die at some point. One day we'll look around at each other and go, \"The dude would have had to be 140 now.\" So that's part of waiting on the world to change. Waiting on an administration that really doesn't recognize democracy anymore. It's like, remember those rides at the amusement park, those old Model Tlooking cars. And you couldn't go very far, because there was a track under the wheels. You could just more or less do that. You can have the sensation of steering, but it's not really there.\n\n\"Belief\" takes the thought much further. I'm surprised you didn't catch flak for it. \n\n \"Belief\" is a tricky song for me. When songs come off an album and become a single, their intent changes. They're meant to stimulate and sell and move and rock the world in a way that a song on an album isn't meant to. I was watching this thing one day on the Walter Reed Medical Center. My heart couldn't take a single letter from a solider that said, \"Well, I lost both my legs on the side of the road in an IED. And I just want to know what you think I should believe in. I want you to tell me what I should be fighting for.\" It's a tricky song. I believe its success has been its inclusion on the record without anybody making a huge todo about it. But it's true. I stand by it.\n\nDid you really cry when Don Ienner, then chairman of Sony, listened to Continuum and said he didn't hear a single \n\n He didn't call me and say it, but he had told my manager. I cried that day. That was a rough day. There were other things going on, and I'd quit music in my head for about fortyfive minutes. When Marc Jacobs has a runway show, people don't say, \"I don't see a jacket.\" Now, it's insanely hard to make this a radio record, because everything just falls in the purgatory between really melodic and really soulful and really patient. And patience isn't really cool on the radio. It may not be the biggest radio record of all time, but that record matters.\n\nYour summer tour is using biodiesel trucks. Is the environment your celebrity cause \n\n When you make so much money in your life that the last thing you get to is What about this globe\u2014that's a very unique way to look at things. The environment is the last thing you think about when you're still trying to do right for yourself. I've always had a problem with people who wanted to argue all day about things that another person just doesn't see.\n\nWhat's the hardest part of a longdistance relationship \n\n That's a relationship question. I have to watch out for myself. I've gotta play defensive ball. I'm on douchebag landmine aversion duty right now.\n\nDid you see the Saturday Night Live skit \"An Intimate Moment with John Mayer &amp;amp; Jessica Simpson\" \n\n I did.\n\nDid it make you laugh \n\n I laughed. I was not pissed off. I laughed. In some ways, the more different the perception is, the more singular the truth becomes. The only thing you need to do is have some fucking dignity about it.\n\nWhat was the truth, then \n\n I'm actually finished with that part of my image\u2014with caring about that part of my image. I'm kind of at my quietest that I've ever been. And I'm at my happiest I've ever been. I do not take the outside world into my house with me. I just don't care anymore. It's vapor. When somebody wants to take a picture of you coming out of a restaurant, it doesn't matter. Whether you save a falling baby's life or whether you fall yourself on the ground drunk, it's gone, lost in the sea of DUIs and crotch shots. And it just doesn't matter.\n\nWhat does matter \n\n What does matter is answering your fans, letting them know you exist still in the same way you always did, that the names change and the dollar values go up but you still exist in the same timeline of a person as you always did. That you still love playing music, you still know right from wrong, you can still smell bullshit like anyone else can.\n\nAt the Grammy Awards earlier this year, Ryan Seacrest asked you about Jessica\u2014and you answered him in Japanese. It must have felt good to stick it to Seacrest. \n\n Ryan Seacrest is like my own little Richard Simmons. I like bits. I practiced that line for three days. When Ryan says, \"You know I have to ask you\" \u2014which is one of the dumbest prefaces of all time\u2014I think, Maybe I'll just answer you in Japanese. And then you'll have to figure it out. So now I'm the guy on top.\n\nYou're about to turn 30. What have you learned since your \"quarterlife crisis\" days \n\n I've come to the point where I've set my expectation for myself. If you don't set your expectation, you'll never be happy. I just got older. I got some distance from it and said, \"I am not my chart position. I am not any of these things. And these things are going to kill me if I continue to link up my bank account\u2014if I have direct deposit from my career into my heart.\" Now I've got hobbies and friends outside of music.\n\nWhat are your hobbies \n\n I'm a pretty big watch collector.\n\nI heard you bought a $260,000 Patek. \n\n It's like, you know how some people have Ferraris They drive up to dinner in a Ferrari. And you're like, You're an idiot, dude. But there's another type of guy: I like the Ferrari that they made in 1973 and the engine was made, actually, out of Italy and it's a German engine they made for two years.  That's when you're like, Enjoy your Ferrari.\n\nDo you wear them \n\n Of course. I mean, you're not gonna play touch football in it. But you take it out to dinner. Here's the thing: no carbon emissions.\n\nAny other hobbies \n\n Right after the 2004 tour ended and I was off, I taught myself basic blackjack strategy. I bought all the blackjack books I could buy. And I dealt myself blackjack for two weeks straight, night after night after night.\n\nGot any tips \n\n Take a Xanax before you play. You will offset all of their bells and whistles trying to distract you. Also, don't drink. Never drink when you're trying to win money. And set a goal. When you hit the goal, no matter what time of night it is, you leave. I was driving home at four o'clock in the morning from Atlantic City, and I'd throw thousands of dollars on the bed and fall asleep. That's how I rolled."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/john-mayer-guitar-wonderland-pinups?currentPage=2>