John Mayer is launching a new interview series, “How’s Life,” on his Life With John Mayer channel on SiriusXM and he’s kicking it off in style. The debut of the interview series in which Mayer will speak to some of the music industry’s biggest names will feature an in-depth sit-down with Billy Joel premiering at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday (Nov. 28).
Not only does Joel, 75, chop it up with Mayer about some of his career highlights and biggest songs, but he also discusses a never-before-heard tune from his archives.
In a preview clip (see below), Mayer talks to Joel about songwriting, with the Piano Man answering the host’s probing question about where the songwriter goes when he stops writing new songs; in February, Joel released his first new song in 17 years, “Turn the Lights Back On.”
“Where does the writer go… is the writer present when you’re listening to new music, do you listen as a writer?” Mayer asks Joel. “Do you go, ‘oh, you’re gonna put a minor fourth there? Are you really gonna put a minor fourth chord?’ Do you think like a writer still even if you’re not writing?”
“Yeah, he never goes away,” says Joel. “The writer thing is a curse that you take with you throughout life. And when I listen to material, or listen to other people’s songs the writer is always at work. ‘Well, I would have done it this way.’ Or, ‘why did he go to that chord?’ And constantly trying to improve on what you did.”
Joel describes how as a young writer you don’t edit yourself as much, but as you mature you get better at it, until you get so proficient that “you’e gotten good enough so that nothing is good enough.”
Mayer’s most important question — especially for Joel fans who are constantly saying their prayers to the pop gods that the singer will get back to writing radio-friendly songs — was whether Joel ever writes lyrics or lyric ideas on his phone. “I never write down lyrics until I’m actually songwriting,” Joel says. “I start from the music first, always.” The only exception? His very wordy 1989 class “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”
Mayer will be on air all day on Thanksgiving, beginning at 2 p.m. ET, when he will start taking calla and playing music in the lead-up to the Joel chat. Future guests on the show include Shawn Mendes and Maren Morris. Mayer’s year-round SiriusXM channel Life With John Mayer can be found on Ch. 14. or anytime on the SiriusXM app.
Watch a preview of “How’s Life” with Billy Joel below.
