John Mayer Reveals His Non-Celebrity Side in 'Who Says' Video

By Dan Reilly Posted Oct 19th 2009 03:30PM

When it came time to film video for 'Who Says,' John Mayer's first single off his forthcoming album 'Battle Studies,' the singer/guitarist decided to give fans a realistic glimpse into his life out of the spotlight. "It's sort of a country-ish song and I had the idea juxtapose it over something really metropolitan," Mayer tells PopEater of the NYC-filmed clip. "I want people to watch the video and feel like they hung out with me for a night, which is to say tired and exhausted," he adds, laughing.

The video, directed by Anthony Mandler, features scenes inspired by Mayer's exploits with his friends. Watch 'Who Says' after the jump!

"I wanted it to be a smattering of places that my friends and I actually go to," he says. "I didn't want it to be threatening in the sense that people would see images of places I hang out and say to themselves 'Oh, I could never get in there.' I made it very clear that I didn't want to be having this sort of celebrity lifestyle in the video. Anybody can go to dinner, find a place to go dance and raise a little bit of hell in the city."

Mayer has certainly experienced his share of phony environments when it comes to photo shoots and videos. "I didn't want to be on the side of a road with a pair of boots that a stylist gave," he says. "Sometimes [a director] will say, 'We thought you could be driving down the PCH in this real funky Cadillac.' I'm like, 'Unless I killed a man and stole his car, I would never be driving a Cadillac down the PCH.'"

As for the meaning behind the tune, which includes the lines "Who says I can't be free? / From all of the things that I used to be/Re-write my history," Mayer says it isn't about the pressures of being famous.

"There's a lot of finger pointing, a lot of whispering, whether you're a guitar player or whether you work in an office building," he says. "There's just a lot of crosstalk and 'Who Says' is sort of pushing back against all that. It's a little ditty and it's somewhere between cute and really, really earnest. I think, over time, the sweetness of it comes out."

'Battle Studies' will be released Nov. 17.

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