The Hereafter 20th Anniversary Extended Play is streaming now!
Take a magical journey and time travel to the mystical land of 2006 to celebrate the release of The Hereafter 20th Anniversary Extended Play! Five tracks unearthed from the FireWire archives + mastered in 2026 by Jonathan Kirchner. Much present day and nostalgic love to Andy and Evan for their beautiful performances on these songs and the album itself. Glory and gratitude to our younger selves and their labors of love! ❤️🎉🏆
20th Anniversary of The Hereafter!
Holy moly here we are barreling through the summer and into the fall and before we know it we’ll be moving the clocks back and getting ready for the holidays. Speaking of TIME…it has been twenty years since The Hereafter album came out! This is a recent revelation that plunged me deep into the external hard drive archives via FireWire adapters and a clutch assist from Justin in the IT department. Suddenly, there I was in Los Angeles driving eighty miles a day to work, rehearsal, and back home to Rose & 3rd Avenue. Intermittently depressed, writing and recording an avalanche of songs, playing every venue in the Southland, burning CDRs of demos, driving everywhere and dreaming big. YOUTH. If you want to hear me monologue about it for probably too long, check out Audiode 94.
Holy moly there are a lot of unreleased recordings from 2005-2006. A somewhat enjoyable revelation was that the best fourteen songs ended up on The Hereafter (it was the CD era so that sucker clocks in at 55 minutes). It probably remains my biggest “hit” album? Two tracks on “Grey’s Anatomy”! Another on “One Tree Hill”! Multiple thousands of compact discs sold! And the streams continue to this day.
I will save you and the world the release of a “deluxe” version of these outtakes (though I will note that my two-year-old has requested “Football & War” approximately five thousand times since first hearing it a couple weeks ago). But I did discover five songs that serve as a beautiful special bonus extended play to celebrate the 20th anniversary of an album and an era that really kicked me out of the nest and into this journey of making music, ready or not. The full EP will be out September 7th to accompany your autumnal musings, corresponding with the precise 20th anniversary of the album release show at the Hotel Cafe (RIP). And today (my birthday!), a single is streaming right now: “Before The Setting Sun”.
Just look at those pictures of me and Andy as the sun set on Los Angeles once upon a time twenty years ago. And listen: I know twenty years is actually nothing in the scope the universe, but it’s 20% of a human life if you’re lucky. Forgive me if I’m feeling a bit nostalgic this summer. Hurray for new (old) music!
And hey Los Angeles: I’m taking my bike down there via the Amtrak train next week to play the Yearning Man house festival on August 22nd! Reply to this e-mail or message me on social media for the details. If you wanna roll to the festival with me and some friends, I think we’re putting a group ride together! :) Please enjoy this enjoyable festival poster:
Also, since I guess I’m writing a long e-mail, I’ll just share that I’m feeling so sad about the suffering that is being inflicted on millions of our neighbors and fellow human beings by the United States government. The violence and cruelty is unforgivable and unacceptable…and yet, what can we do? How to grapple with the horrors we are witnessing?
An essential wellspring of solace for me has been the literary magazine “The Sun”. My friend Robert threw a tattered copy in my suitcase once upon a time before a European tour and eventually, bored and without phone service on a train ride somewhere, I grabbed it and began an ongoing love affair that has only deepened over the years. It arrives in your mailbox in palpable physical form, a monthly orb of light, a celebration of being human and all that comes with our brief and tumultuous time on this planet together. I recommend subscribing. It’s the best $59 you’ll spend in 2026.
I will leave you with a poem from the August issue, “Unheld” by Shreya Mandal, which concludes with an image I cannot get out of my heart or head. Helpless as we may feel (and in fact are?) to affect change in this moment, maybe the best we can do is become aware of the brutality around us, recognize our complicity, and ponder how we can begin to make it better.
Sincerely,
John
“Out Here” video + album streaming everywhere!
The new album is now streaming out here on all the streamers and thanks to the great Nels Andrews there is new video for "Out Here" to celebrate!
New album is one of KQED’s “20 Best Bay Area Albums of 2025”!
The new album (available now on vinyl, CD, and digital download…but not streaming yet) made it on a year end list! Thank you to KQED and Gabe Meline for the shoutout and the kind words. ❤️ Sure feels good to be included with this incredible group of artists down here at the end of the year. 🏆
Writing “Out Here”
“Out Here” is the next single from the new album and is streaming now. Buy the album on vinyl, CD, or digital download.
There are many ways to write a song. Some of my favorites start with a spark of inspiration and an improvised voice memo. These elusive moments are raw, vulnerable, and usually private…but I accidentally captured this one on video. Riding my bike home one night, I came across a piano in the park. I started recording a video of me playing, but I was thinking about our unborn son. It was his due date, but he seemed very cozy and content inside his mama. For the first time, I felt the need to tell him something as his dada: you gotta come out here. And since I was already recording, there was no need to start a voice memo so I just went with it. This is how “Out Here” started and Marvin showed up nine days later.
New album bike ride song snippets: A BRIDGE!
Here is another very exciting bike ride song snippet from the new album! Today, please enjoy this BRIDGE from “Out Here” (track 4). It is the next single from the new album and it will be streaming this Friday. Pre-orders are shipping very soon so buy the album today on vinyl, CD, or digital download
New album bike ride song snippets: A VERSE!
I'm going to start sharing very exciting bike ride song snippets from the new album! Today, please enjoy this VERSE from “Layin Low” (track 6) and pre-order the album on vinyl, CD, or digital download!
Let’s take one more look at the numbers.
Happy Friday everyone. Just want to circle back before the weekend and highlight some key takeaways from the all hands Q4 meeting with our CEO regarding pre-sales for the new album. Thanks so much for signing on to the Zoom and we really appreciate all the feedforward so far. We’re pivoting to a focus on the music next week so let’s take one more quick deep dive into the numbers. Have a great weekend.
Internal Zoom Meeting Leaked!
One month of pre-sales = over 100 pre-orders! This week I’m going to share some clips from our top secret internal Zoom meeting with our elusive CEO about the campaign. Hopefully this will be a fun glimpse under the hood of the music business in 2025. Pre-order on vinyl, CD, or digital download now or consider participating in Operation Break Even!
Single version of “I Am John Mayer” streaming now!
“I Am John Mayer (Single Version)” is streaming now! Try before you buy, then pre-order the album! The single version is only the first half of the song — we’re not giving it all away to our tech overlords until maybe Christmas, maybe never. So listening to the single version is like stopping Forrest Gump after he meets Jenny in our nation’s capital. You would miss the shrimp boat thing, the “I was running” thing, and the whole Lieutenant Dan redemption arc! Get a link to stream/download the whole song immediately when you pre-order the album on vinyl, CD, or digital download now. ❤️🏆
I Am John Mayer: NEW ALBUM Pre-Order!
Hello! I am very excited to share that the album I have been working on since January is finished and available for pre-order now: Vinyl, Compact Disc, and Digital Download!
This one is particularly personal and special. It is called I Am John Mayer so it's sorta self-titled. It’s also the first one since North Star in 2018 that will materialize in physical media form: the vinyl and compact discs are being made right now! All pre-orders will receive a link to the making of documentary and the first single, “I Am John Mayer." A single version of this song will be streaming on Spotify/Apple/etc in a couple weeks, but it's just the first half. Our tech overlords may eventually have the whole song and possibly the whole album, but let's just keep it between us for now.
The most recent Audiode (85) is a collection of phone conversations with some of my favorite recording artist friends about their relationships to their own recordings. I found it quite enlightening and enjoyable to hear other people talk about that process as I get ready to part with this one. To be really honest with you, this moment right here is very vulnerable. I’ve been working on making this all year. I made it with a band of musicians who are also some of my best friends in a fancy studio. I stepped far outside of my comfort zone to work with a new team of engineers. I have spent so much time and treasure to finish it…and now it’s going to be heard or ignored and heard later or listened to and dismissed or enjoyed and everything in between.
Also, I have to acknowledge that in light of current events, this all feels quite ridiculous. But writing songs and recording them and singing them is how I am most authentically myself during this particular existence so it is what it is. My friend Robert said it best in that Audiode so I’ll quote him here:
“At the time you are that person and you know that’s the best you can do and later on you think jeez…all right, well I’m called to do this, I have to do it to be me, this is what I want to do, and if that’s the way I sound, well, I’m gonna have to roll with that. That’s the option available.”
Sincerely,
John
Central Coast Travelogue
Central Coast Travelogue! VLOG?!? Very fun and good and pretty and productive and successful mini tour. Wrote two new songs too! One co-write with Charlie Wolf (The Small Calamities) and one about being a dada on the mid-career road. ❤️🏆
Doing Stuff Without A Car: Taking Three Buses To A Gig.
"Johnny Elliott" takes a total of six buses (three there and three back) to a gig. Thank you to SFMTA and SamTrans for the rides!
Doing Stuff Without A Car: Going To The Mall.
Exciting episode: an altercation with suburban mall security, a single version of The War On Cars song streaming now, and our first sponsor! Vote for Suzanimal for the High Sierra Music Festival band contest by May 9th! ♥️🏆
May 3rd at The Chapel
Beautiful space in San Francisco opening for local legend Sean Hayes. Really looking forward to this one. A bunch of new songs and maybe an old one? Tickets.
Boy, I’ll tell you. I’ve been on a little “digital detox” from social media since April 1 and whoa. Signing back in to the Meta platforms to promote this show does not feel good. It is a form of mind control. I’ve been slowly pulling away from those spaces for awhile, deleted my personal Facebook page in 2015, and I’m going to take this experience as a clear indication to continue in that direction.
Ways to stay connected? This website and weblog is always going to be here. I do like YouTube despite the obvious mind control and nefarious dealings over there. And signing up on my e-mail list is the best way to stay connected and has been since the Bush administration. Go here and scroll down.
Oh and Substack now I guess too? But probably not? Time will tell.
Coming home from a gig.
The exciting conclusion of recent Dollar Car Rental odyssey includes fascinating revelation of paradigm shift that occurs outside of a car + a delicious detour to Flourcraft Bakery! ♥️🏆 (please note: you return Dollar Car Rental cars to Hertz at this location because all bets are off and chaos reigns).