“I couldn’t help overplaying”: John Mayer on nerves during first Dead & Company tours
John Mayer has opened up about his early days playing with Dead & Company, including the healthy dose of nerves he felt sharing a stage with his idol, Grateful Dead legend Bob Weir.
Despite being a Grateful Dead fanatic long before he joined Dead & Co. in 2015,, stepping into the band’s sprawling, improvisational world – and doing it next to one of its founding members – was a different challenge altogether.
READ MORE: “I have so much more connection with my guitar now than I think I ever had”: John Mayer on playing with Dead & Company
Speaking to Rolling Stone about those first tours, Mayer admits he struggled to resist filling every gap in the music.
“As much as I want to lean back at the very beginning when I’m playing, I couldn’t help overplaying in some of those first few tours. You just do,” he says. “Even if I knew not to overplay, I’m still going to overplay. It’s going to be wordy. I have to adjust my way into the 10-ring on the target.”
Part of that, he explains, simply came down to nerves.
“You could tell yourself not to get nervous, you know exactly why you shouldn’t be nervous, and your hands are going to shake,” says Mayer, describing it as a “natural, physiological moment you have to break through to get comfortable through experience.”
The musician also reflects on his relationship with Weir, who passed away earlier this year, and how their onstage chemistry evolved over time. As the tours went on, the two guitarists gradually developed an almost unspoken understanding onstage – the kind that comes from playing night after night together.
“It changed over the years, because we both got to know each other and trust each other,” Mayer explains. “How did I read his signals? I just knew the way his head moved – we all do – and had an understanding of what his instincts were night after night.”
Eventually, their musical back-and-forth became second nature.
“It got to the point where, in those last few tours, he knew when I would step forward and really hit the gas. And because I’d figured it out by then, I knew when to step back, look at Bobby and say, ‘It’s yours again.’”
That comfort didn’t come immediately, though. Mayer admits that during the early shows he often found himself wondering whether Weir approved of what he was doing onstage.
“I’d think: ‘I hope he’s happy. He might not be. Oh, he just went and turned his guitar amp up. Does that mean he thinks I’m too loud? Is someone going to come into my [dressing] room and say, ‘Hey, can you turn your guitar down?’ Then one day, you walk up onstage and there’s plexiglass between the amps and you go, ‘I have a feeling I’m a little too loud.’”
Looking back, Mayer says those early tours were about earning his place – both with fans and with Weir himself.
“The first couple of tours were proving to the audience that I had a right to be there. And the rest of the tours were proving to Bobby that I meant well for everything I was trying to do.”
“I think whatever conversations Bob had on the bus about me in the very beginning changed over the years,” he adds.
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