Yesterday, John Mayer shared a new video on Instagram‘s new TV platform, IGTV, in which he details the making of his recently released new song, “New Light”. The 8-minute clip sees Mayer speak directly to the camera, talking viewers through the various components of the breezy new track, which he produced with hitmaking hip-hop and R&B producer, No I.D.
As Mayer explains to the camera to start the video, “I’m on an off day on the Dead & Company tour and thought that I would take over Electric Lady Studios for the afternoon and take you through the making of my single, ‘New Light’.”
The initial inspiration for the track was a sample that No I.D. played him, which he liked because it was “woozy and wavy and weird” in addition to being harmonically open enough that he could write around it. From there, he developed a four-chord progression to begin forming the song’s structure (Am, D, G, C). With that main loop in the can, No I.D. added a simple four-on-the-floor drum track using a classic LinnDrum drum machine to give what Mayer calls the “open-handed Prince clap.” Continues John, “Once I had that, I knew I had something. So I’d go back to my hotel room and just jam out and sing…”
Melodically, the “you’re gonna see me in a new light” line came first, followed its “if you give me just one night” set-up. With that main chorus stanza finished. Next, they recorded an overhead live drum track played by Aaron Sterling to interact with the beats from the LinnDrum, in addition to some flourished played by frequent collaborator Pino Palladino on keys.
The next step was to add his guitar, which is not as much of a focal point in “New Light” as it is in many of his other tunes—”There’s not a lot of really defined guitar chords on this song, which for me is such a breath of fresh air. … It’s really fun when everything is doing a little lifting to just play a little guitar on it,” he explains. He goes on to show off how some simple, single guitar notes help push the song forward rhythmically.
Next, he moves on to the song’s bridge, which contains a guitar part he recorded on Prince’s guitar. Speaking about that fun fact, Mayer explains:
It was an incredible day, because we were working on this part of the song—which was definitely Prince-tastic—and the guitar magically came across the table in the studio from a friend…It just appeared, for an hour. We didn’t know it was coming…It was one of the strangest, most beautiful, serendipitous moments.
Prince’s guitar showed up. So we sort of got into the spirit of the way Prince would’ve done it. So we plugged it into an API, put a little compressor on it—so that little bit of the song is direct input, I’m not even plugged into an amp on it.
He goes on to explain some of the many minor sonic variations that give the song texture, including how he used some autotune on his layered backing vocals to vary to the vocal timbre between parts. Finally, he plays the song in full, gradually adding the various elements in the order they were added as the song was made to reveal the finished track.
Watch John Mayer’s full “making of” segment below and hear him de- and re-construct it in real time via his IGTV video below, uploaded to YouTube by Guitar Music Pro:
John Mayer explains the making of “New Light” – Electric Lady Studios
[Video: Guitar Music Pro]
Mayer also recently released a comically low-budget music video for the song. You can watch it in all its cheesy glory here.