Alex Carson
John Mayer
John Mayer is a superstar. He was born in October 1977 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and released his first album in 2001. The album was called Room For Squares, and his song, Your Body Is A Wonderland, won him a Grammy for the Best Male Pop Vocal Performance in 2003. He admits that his success came very quickly, and while accepting the award, he said, “This is very, very fast, and I promise to catch up.”
Further Success
After the success of his first album, John’s success continued. A year later, he released Heavier Things, and it reached the top spot on the US Billboard 200 chart. His son, Daughters, earned him his second Grammy Award in 2005. He also won the Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for the second time. Today, he won seven Grammy Awards and has been nominated for 12. His concerts always sell out in America and internationally. In October 2019, he left or a tour in England, filling venues in Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Guitar
John is as great a guitar player as he is a singer. When he saw Back to the Future, and Marty McFly played the guitar, he wanted to learn himself. His father rented a guitar for him when he was 13 years old, and he loved it. He says that Stevie Ray Vaughan was one of his earliest influences. He also says that B.B. King and Lightnin’ Hopkins influenced him.
High School
When John was in high school, he wanted to hone his stage performance, so he played in bars. He played alone, and also with a band called Villanova Junction. John says that he realized that he could write songs when he was 17-years-old. He was hospitalized with cardiac dysrhythmia, and he started writing. It was then that the songwriter in him was born. In 1997, John enrolled at the Berklee College of Music. He attended classes for two semesters, when his college friend, Clay Cook, talked him into quitting school. The two went to Atlanta, Georgia, and they formed the band, LoFi Masters.
LoFi Masters
LoFi Masters starting playing at local coffee houses and in clubs. The band didn’t last because John wanted to play more pop-sounding music, so the two split up. John recorded the EP Inside Wants Out, and Clay co-wrote many of the songs. He helped write, No Such Thing, which became a hit. In 2001, John signed with Aware Records and had a huge following online. During this time, John had many high-profile romances with famous women, including Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jennifer Aniston, Minka Kelly, and Katy Perry. All of his relationships gained a lot of attention from the media.
Changing Values
John often said that he didn’t get into drugs, clubbing, or anything that would take his attention from making music. In 2006, he admitted that his values had changed as he got older, and he admitted to smoking marijuana. He also made appearances at the hottest clubs in New York City and Los Angeles. He acknowledged that he had to quit drinking after suffering from a six-day hangover after attending Drake’s birthday party. During this time, it was reported that John was dating Taylor Swift, even though the two didn’t confirm the relationship. The relationship was said to have ended badly, which led Taylor to write the song, Dear John. In the end, John wasn’t too happy about the song.
His Dark Period
One of the darkest times of John’s career occurred in 2010 when he gave an interview to Playboy Magazine. He was asked if he thought that black women were attracted to him, and he gave a response that compared his manhood to be a white supremacist. He also used the “N-word” during that interview. Later, he took to Twitter to apologize, saying, “It was arrogant of me to think I could intellectualize a word so emotionally charged.” That same night, he gave a tearful apology on stage to a sold-out Nashville crowd. He admits that he lost his way for a while, but making these major blunders helped him to wake up. For a couple of years, he stayed out of the spotlight.
March 2019
John admits that 2010 was a dark period in his life, but he never expected things to get much worse in March 2019. During this time, someone unknown to John and his team began stalking and harassing him. Things started off to just be a nuisance, but soon, John and his group started getting threats from this imbalanced individual on social media. The threats left John feeling nervous and unsettled.
Ryan Jeremy Knight
According to court documents, the person harassing John and his team was Ryan Jeremy Knight. John was able to learn very little about his stalker except for his name, his age, and the fact that he had a criminal record. It was clear by this man’s actions that he wasn’t a superfan, because superfans are stable. Judging by this man’s actions, he was very unstable, making him a stalker. Ryan made violent and anti-Semitic threats to the singer and his group. John’s father, Richard, is Jewish, and John has admitted to relating to the religion. Ryan told John that he put many Jews in the hospital. For John, this was a significant red flag. He also referenced the serial killer, Ted Bundy, and Mark David Chapman, who shot John Lennon.
Restraining Order
After the threats were made, a judge gave John a restraining order, which ordered Ryan to stay at least 100-feet away from John and his home. Not long after, John Mayer has opened up about the terrifying threats he received from an obsessed stalker, and he is just waiting for the restraining order to be made permanent.
