“I cried. I told myself I was gonna quit and go to design school.” John Mayer says his label didn’t hear any hits on his album. Then it sold five million copies

Seven-time Grammy winner John Mayer has sold around 20 million records and is rightfully considered a modern-day guitar hero.

But he’s had his moments of crippling self-doubt.

While hosting a fan Q&A on his Instagram in 2022 (via Guitar.com), Mayer was asked if he had ever considered putting his guitar down for good, and what had inspired him to dig deep and persevere.

Mayer’s answer was short, but powerful.

“One time, I handed in an album and was told It had no hits on it,” he revealed. “I cried. I told myself I was gonna quit and go to design school.”

The record in question was Continuum.

Mayer created the effort following a tour with the recently formed John Mayer Trio, featuring bass player Pino Palladino and drummer Steve Jordan. The road stint saw Mayer stretching out to explore what he could do in the blues rock space. Once the tour was completed, he knew he wanted to continue working with the group on Continuum.

“Hearing the three of us play, I knew there were going to have to be more opportunities made for us to play music together. And it changed the way I wrote music,” he said.

“If you have a different orchestra, a different band, you can compose differently. That really changed the way I compose songs.”

In particular, the album saw Mayer pivot away from the chorus-driven approach of pop rock toward blues and soul music. As he explained, “I wanted to make a record that was going to last.”

John Mayer - Gravity - (From - Where the Light Is - Live in LA [1080p] - YouTube

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Which made the criticism from his record company all that much harder to take. But Mayer says the experience taught him a lesson about believing in himself. After attempting to write new songs to satisfy his label, Mayer decided to stick to his guns and release the album as originally planned.

The results proved him right. Continuum went on to sell over five million copies and peak at number two on the U.S. and Canadian album charts. Now certified four-times Platinum in the U.S., the album features tracks like “Gravity,” which has more than 530 million plays on Spotify alone, and “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room,” which boasts in excess of 680 million Spotify streams.

Had Mayer listened to those early criticisms, Continuum might never have reached listeners in the form that made it a modern classic.