John Mayer has had his hands full with what felt like a hundred projects over the past few years — with putting out new music not among them. It takes a stretch of the memory to even recall that he announced a parting of ways with Sony Music back in 2022, with no followup revelation about where, if anywhere, he planned to go next . Now, after hinting at the beginning of this year that new studio recordings were afoot, he’s finally publicly kicking the recording artist part of his career back into gear.
Mayer and associates announced Thursday that he has started up his own label, Sob Rock Records — which shares the name of the last album he put out for Sony, 2021’s “Sob Rock” — to be operated in partnership with Universal Music’s Mercury Records. No album has yet been announced, but his first single in five years, “Tom and Jerry,” is arriving under his new shingle Friday.
“Working with Tyler Arnold and the talented team at Mercury Records has already proven to be a great partnership,” Mayer said in a statement. “The path from creative vision to execution has never been easier or more rewarding. I feel very inspired, and I’m excited for what’s to come.”
“John Mayer is one of the greatest artists of all time,” said Arnold, Mercury’s chairman-CEO,
and I couldn’t be prouder to welcome him to Mercury Records. We’re excited to be part of his next chapter and to partner with his label, Sob Rock Records, to help bring his creative vision to life.”
The new single arrives at DSPs at the usual midnight hour as Thursday turns into Friday, but listeners to the artist’s SiriusXM channel, Life With John Mayer, will get a preview throughout the day Thursday. The song was produced by Blake Slatkin with Mayer and mixed by Serban Genhea.
It almost goes without saying that the credits acknowledge the song was recorded at Chaplin Studios. One of Mayer’s biggest endeavors in the past couple of years was joining forces with the film director McG to purchase the Hollywood lot that started as Charlie Chaplin’s studio and eventually became the home of A&M, then Henson Studios. Mayer and McG shared their experience with taking the reins of the studio with Variety at the top of 2026; read about that here.
The singer-songwriter-guitarist indicated then that 2026 would mark a turn back toward his solo recording career after several years of focusing on his role as co-frontman of Dead & Company, including being the primary designer of both of that group’s residencies at Sphere in 2024 and 2025.
Mayer was already known to be coming back as a live performing artist in a big way with a run of shows booked for Sphere in Las Vegas next year. He currently has concerts at the venue booked for April 8 through June 12, all of them in a configuration that will see him doing separate sets with his full band, with the John Mayer Trio and as a solo performer.