Playboy Interview: John Mayer

Playboy: So at this point—

Mayer: Pardon me for interrupting. I love Jen so much that I’m now thinking about how bad I would feel if she read this and was like, “Why are you putting me in an article where you’re talking about someone else? I don’t want to be in your lineage of kiss-and-tells.”

Playboy: At this point, what’s your ideal relationship?

Mayer: Here’s what I really want to do at 32: fuck a girl and then, as she’s sleeping in bed, make breakfast for her. So she’s like, “What? You gave me five vaginal orgasms last night, and you’re making me a spinach omelet? You are the shit!” So she says, “I love this guy.” I say, “I love this girl loving me.” And then we have a problem. Because that entails instant relationship. I’m already playing house. And when I lose interest she’s going to say, “Why would you do that if you didn’t want to stick with me?”

Playboy: Why do you do it?

Mayer: Because I want to show her I’m not like every other guy. Because I hate other men. When I’m fucking you, I’m trying to fuck every man who’s ever fucked you, but in his ass, so you’ll say “No one’s ever done that to me in bed.”

Playboy: Do you do something different in bed than other guys?

Mayer: It’s all about geometry. I’m sort of a scientist; it’s about being obtuse with an angle. It’s sort of this weird up-and-over thing. You gotta think “up and over.”

Playboy: Maybe that’s easier at your height. You talked about listening to Miles Davis and Bill Evans in high school, but that’s not the kind of music you make.

Mayer: I make mainstream music. I don’t believe in guilty pleasures; I believe in pleasures. I know where I stand when I hear Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA” or “The Climb”—which may be the best pop song of the past year.

Playboy: It’s a little surprising that you like Miley Cyrus so much.

Mayer: I took a friend and his kids to see Miley Cyrus in Vegas. After the show I said to her, “That was fantastic. Fantastic.” I said, “Take $100,000, put it in a shoe box and bury it in your backyard.” I walked away thinking, That may be the strangest thing I’ve ever said. It just means put a little away. Have something nobody can ever take away from you.

Playboy: Keep a secret fund in case you wake up at three a.m. thinking, Screw this, and you need to disappear?

Mayer: Exactly. That’s what I do with my blackjack winnings—I keep them safe and sound.

Playboy: Among the things we’ve read about you online is this: You’re gay. Have you ever kissed a man?

Mayer: The only man I’ve kissed is Perez Hilton. It was New Year’s Eve and I decided to go out and destroy myself. I was dating Jessica at the time, and I remember seeing Perez Hilton flitting about this club and acting as though he had just invented homosexuality. All of a sudden I thought, I can outgay this guy right now. I grabbed him and gave him the dirtiest, tongue-iest kiss I have ever put on anybody—almost as if I hated fags. I don’t think my mouth was even touching when I was tongue kissing him, that’s how disgusting this kiss was. I’m a little ashamed. I think it lasted about half a minute. I really think it went on too long.

Playboy: Perez describes you on his site as a womanizer, a word you don’t like. Is it fair to say you have a love-hate relationship with him?

Mayer: I used to. Now I believe we’re fully into fighting with breakaway chairs. I think he’s pretty much inert at this point. Perez is to hating as Richard Simmons is to health and well-being. [laughs] You can print that. Perez is so authentically off his rocker he will not let you finish a sentence. I think he has some dark things in his past. I think he comes from a little bit of hurt, and I say that with an understated tone. At the end of the day I go to his site, but I don’t see him as a threat. The impact of his tone is beginning to wane. I give a lot more credit to Harvey Levin at TMZ.

Playboy: Would you kiss Harvey Levin?

Mayer: I would rim him, probably. I can’t just repeat the kissing trick.

Playboy: From following your Twitter feed we’ve learned about many of your interests. For instance, you love the Toto Washlet bidet.

Mayer: God, I want one.

Playboy: But you already have platinum records and stardom.

Mayer: A platinum record is not going to wash your ass for you.

Playboy: Good point. A Washlet isn’t that expensive. Why don’t you have one?

Mayer: It speaks to my level of transience. I’ll get a Washlet when I finally find a shitter I’m going to be at for a good block of time in my life. [laughs] I’m really going to enjoy that. That’s what is waiting for me on the other end of this crazy rocket ride—a warm seat and an adjustable bidet.

Playboy: You said you were just exiting the phase of your life when relationships make you feel guilty. What’s the next phase?

Mayer: People are lining up around the block right now to watch me play music tonight. If some kid called me a douche bag on his terrible blog, I don’t really care. I’m letting myself out of my own prison. I’m not going to be a prisoner to a warden I can’t see. From now on I’m just going to pretend that people really dig the shit out of me. I’ve been so afraid of rocking the boat that I’m not sailing anywhere. I’ve been trying to prove to people I’m not a douche bag by not dating, by keeping my name out of Us Weekly. That’s fucked up, man. I’m not dating. I’m not even fucking. So now I’m going to experiment with “fuck you.” In 2010 my goal is to get more mentions in Us Weekly than ever.