“I could finally quieten down this noise in my head... the best in the room is sitting over there – and it doesn’t have to maybe be me”: John Mayer says that when Jeff Beck was in the room, he felt he could finally relax about his guitar playing

John Mayer has discussed the strange sense of relaxation he experienced whenever he was in the same room as Jeff Beck – with the virtuoso describing the feeling of a weight being lifted when he found himself in the orbit of the late electric guitar icon.

Mayer made the comments in an appearance on a recent episode of the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast [below], following an anecdote from O’Brien about his own experience watching Mayer perform.

“I’ve struggled throughout my life to play the guitar,” says O’Brien. “And one of my go-to songs was Bob Dylan’s Buckets of Rain.. and I almost started to think ‘I think I play this one pretty well…’

“And then there was a benefit… [and you come out and] and you play Buckets of Rain – and I went home and I destroyed my guitars and then I fed my hands into a wood chipper!”

O’Brien describes the sensation of watching Mayer’s performance as chastening.

“It made such a mockery of the one song I thought I could really play with feeling,” laughs O’Brien. “I was like, ‘Oh… I’m not even Salieri looking at Mozart here. I’m a chamber pot looking at Salieri, who’s looking at Mozart.’”

Ultimately, though, O’Brien says it helped him enjoy his playing... eventually. “I just understood that… there's no amount of time left where this ape is going to learn that!” says O’Brien. “In a way, it relaxed me.”

For his part, Mayer says he experienced a similar feeling when he crossed paths with Jeff Beck in 2018 – and he wasn’t even watching him play.

“I have a story about the time I was relaxed the way you just explained it,” responds Mayer, who recounts a time he ran into Beck at West Hollywood restaurant and celebrity haunt Craig’s.

“Jeff Beck was in the room – and I was relaxed! It’s so funny to hear you say that because it was like, ‘Oh, [for once] I don’t have to think about how I play the guitar, because the best is in the room. And it’s not me!’

“I was comforted. I could finally quieten down this noise in my head I didn’t know was there. The best in the room is sitting over there – and it doesn’t have to maybe be me.”

It’s an intriguing conversation between the two – one that knowingly pokes fun at their respective egos, but also touches on the pressures of the mindset of ‘constant improvement’ that both makes – and dogs – the world’s top performers.

For more humorous ramblings through the mindsets and fragile egos of us guitar players, check out the full the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast.

And for a rundown on the overwhelmingly positive effects of taking to the fretboard, take a look at 7 ways playing guitar can benefit your mental health.