John Mayer has enough songs to put out a new album – but he’s taking a “breather” for now.
The 47-year-old rock star hasn’t put out a record since 2021’s Sob Rock, and while he’s been enjoying freely making music and touring, he’s admitted he wants to continue living in the moment and has no plans to release a follow-up for the time being.
He told People: “I don’t know when it’s coming out, but I’ve been going around making music, touring, making music, touring for a lot of years, and I think it would make sense at this stage in my life [to] just take a breather and figure out when I want to do it and how I want to do it.
“So I’m enjoying just taking it day-by-day and doing the projects I love.”
He continued: “I have enough songs that I could put a record out right now.
“But if I put a record out right now, I would want to go on the road, and I just want to take a minute and practice this newfound going with the flow.”
Mayer has been inspired to “let go” by the Grateful Dead, who he’s been touring with since 2015.
On what the legendary band has taught him, he said: “Let it happen — and I have to relearn that all the time.”
He expanded: “The number of times that they’ve winged it or we’ve winged it, and I said, ‘You can’t wing it.’ No. I realised the irony. This is the [Grateful] Dead, or this is Bob [Weir] and Mickey [Hart] and Billy Kreutzmann from the Dead, but my thing was always, ‘Oh, you got to stretch it.
“Some of the best shows we’ve ever played were just letting it go and playing, and so it’s taught me how to do that.”