How John Mayers Dad Unintentionally Inspired His Life And Music Career
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John Mayer has made headlines for two things over the years; his skills as a musician and his high-profile relationships with celebrities. Rather than focus on his previous romantic pairings, we are choosing to shine a light on a different relationship, the one he has with his father, Richard Mayer.
John’s father has played an important role in his life, and he gave the world a small glimpse into this in July 2022 when he chose to cancel a concert with the band, Dead & Company, to focus on his father’s health. Taking to social media at the time, he shared that his father had “suffered a medical emergency” and Mayer decided to forgo the show. So, who is Richard Mayer, and how has he impacted his son’s life?
Does John Mayer Share Similarities With His Father?
Richard Mayer is a retired high school principal of Central High School in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and a piano player. This love of music is a connection he shares with his son. John previously shared this information with his friend Andy Cohen (via Pop Culture), explaining, "He would play at the Rotary club, and he would play off the page. He was a written music player and I was an improv, spacey…” Mayer was impressed by his father's ability to read music, something he claims to have not known how to do.
Growing up, the music in their home powerfully impacted John. He shared his memories with People Magazine, saying, "It’s a really big part of my childhood — the smell of dinner cooking and the sound of [Dad playing] an old-time song. My dad has these great, sinewy, veiny hands. I remember watching him playing and going, 'I want those hands.' Now I have them!"
Why Was It Hard For Richard Mayer To Imagine Music As A Career?
Despite being a musician himself, Mayer’s father was initially reluctant for his son to pursue this career path. He told People in 2017, “My experience in music was everybody had a job. We were teachers, plumbers, and on the weekends we’d play. So it boiled down to saying, ‘John, you have to have a Plan B.’ And John said, ‘I don’t have a Plan B. This is it.’
His son’s passion and ambition paid off, but having someone believe in him would have given John the confidence to pursue his dreams.
The interview also allowed John to explain what about his father he admires. “My father is the most upstanding man I’ve ever met,” he said.
This is not the only time John Mayer has commented on how much his father means to him and he addressed this in an interview with Andy Cohen on his radio show. He told Cohen that the pandemic had been difficult on them because they had to go over a year without seeing each other. He added, "I am the luckiest human being that my dad was in an assisted living home in New York City during the pandemic, literally survived.”
Does Spending Time With His Dad Make John Mayer More Normal?
Fame can be a tricky thing to handle, but the time Richard and John Mayer have spent together make John seem normal. This was evident in his light-hearted social media post about Father’s Day. “Went out with my dad and brothers tonight for Father’s Day,” he wrote. “Dad ate a 25-pound lobster and won a hat. He felt bad about the lobster, so we drove him to the ocean, where he threw the hat off a dock. ‘It probably won’t get to that lobster,’ he said, ‘but it’ll get to one of em (sic).’”
John has honored his father in several ways, including establishing The Richard Mayer Scholarship Fund in 2017 to help Bridgeport Public School students, Variety reports. This was in honor of his father's 90th birthday, but John has spoken about how his father's dedication and passion for education have influenced his life; something he has become more aware of as he ages.
“I’m proudly my dad’s son, both in our daring use of metaphor and hair-trigger emotional responses and in wanting to be teachers,” John Mayer said, CT Insider reports. “I have my dad’s desire to be a teacher ingrained in me, and as I become more mature, it’s emergent.”
The special bond shared between father and son gives the world a look into another, softer side of John Mayer.
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