Perhaps one of John Mayer's 12 steps as a "recovered ego addict" is to give praise to some of his exes.
The 37-year-old musician was asked about Taylor Swift for MSNBC's 7 Days of Genius special, but in a strictly professional context.
"We have to talk about Taylor Swift professionally!" Mayer told Ronan Farrow as he attempted to broach the subject, pointing out how Taylor is taking on streaming services like Spotify.
"I think that's cool," John said. "I think that's really cool. Artists need the person with the loudest voice to speak for them. I think [she's doing that]. When you go to the Met Ball, that's great. It's a great way to use your voice and go, 'I'm wearing Valentino,' or you could use your voice to give things. Now, some people who are cynical could say, 'You're helping yourself.' But it's trickle down. You're not saying, 'I want this just for me.' I think that's a really cool thing for a musician to do."
Katy Perry's on-again flame continued, "Like two percent of the music industry has 80 percent of all the media about it. You know what I mean? There's like four people who get all the press, and if any of those four people say, 'I want to speak for the other people who would just never make this a story.' The only reason we're talking about Taylor Swift taking Spotify on is because she's Taylor Swift and that's great."
So does Mayer care he may not be in that two percent like Swift?
"Nothing bothers me anymore," he stated. "There are going to be times when I make music as popular or empirically valuable as [Swift's] in terms of making pop music that won't sell as many copies and I'm fine with that. You get to an age, you go look, if I save a baby from a burning building and Kanye [West] saves a baby from a burning building, there's more Google News hits on Kanye. I'm fine with it."
He continued, "All we're talking about is being honest with yourself and what to ask for in this life. I put out a song called 'Paper Doll.' The song never got listened to as a song. It became a news story because of the lyrics."
Mayer's 2013 song "Paper Doll" was seemingly about Swift, who fired shots first at her ex with the track "Dear John."
Referring to "Paper Doll," Farrow told John, "You must have known that that's what it would become."
"I'm not in the business of telling people what the song is about," he answered. "I never said anything about it, but now I just go, 'Look, I can say the name Taylor Swift. She's an artist. I'm an artist. Let's just, everybody stop. Nobody's got an incurable cancer. We're rich people who get to live out our dreams. Let's just stop it.' I'm a musician who's bigger than one song or one record, so it's really about the longevity of all the work that goes together, and I'm just not interested in the things that won't last forever."
So will Mayer's romance with Perry last forever? Guess that one remains to be seen.