RRS AUDIO: John Mayer Rejects 'RRS' Interview Request on uStream

John Mayer’s interview trials and tribulations of late have been well-documented: his pillow talk about Jessica Simpson in Rolling Stone, his thoughts on dating women of color in Playboy. Since the latter foot-in-mouth comments, Mayer took a hiatus from doing traditional media interviews – but still tweets and interacts directly with fans.

Last Wednesday morning, around 3 a.m., Mayer tweeted out a link to an impromptu uStream chat, where he fielded random, unfiltered questions from people across the world. I figured if I ever had a chance to interview Mayer, I might as well put in my request now, because I knew it wasn’t happening by submitting a request to Columbia Records.

After about four tries, the text “JOHN I WANT TO INTERVIEW YOU IN SCRANTON!” caught his eyes.
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Download the full segment, with audio of John's denial


Thanks to tryjm.com for the audio of the uStream chat.
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“Uh, you want to interview me in Scranton?” Mayer said, reading back the words from the chat, which were scrolling continuously as if they were a broken slot machine. “Um, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m not exactly the king of interviews. Taking a short break from that.”

Mayer took about a five second break from responding, then continued, ‘Sure went all in on that,” and let out a quick chuckle. I would assume with that comment he was referring to the two articles referenced at the beginning of this story.

For the record, I went ahead anyways and submitted a request to Columbia Records, and received a polite no in return, explaining that Mayer will not be doing any media during his tour with Train, which kicks off Friday in Charlotte.

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EXCLUSIVE: Train Confirms Tour With Mayer, Talks Possible Orianthi Collab

In an interview that aired Monday on “The Ralphie Radio Show” – the band Train confirmed that they’ll hit the road this summer with John Mayer.

“I think we might be back (in Northeast PA), with John,” confirmed lead singer Pat Monahan. “I think we’re gonna do a handful of dates with him in this part of the country. We’re really excited about that.”

The tour revelation is just another chapter in the on-going saga of the San Francisco trio’s comeback. After a three year hiatus – Train released Save Me San Francisco last year. “C.S.I. New York” featured the band along with the single, “Hey, Soul Sister.” Radio picked up on it soon after – and now the Train is traveling the country again, selling out theaters, with plans yonder.

“Radio really did everything for us,” Monahan said. “C.S.I. kinda took it to a different place.”
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Download the inteview




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But the group is embracing both traditional media and social networking sites, such as Twitter. Train revealed that all three members update the official Twitter page, while guitarist Jimmy Stafford noted that such things are now a necessity.

“It’s a different world now,” Stafford said. “People buy their music on-line, and it’s a whole new way for us to stay in touch with our fans.”

The comeback brings a group of fresh fans from a new generation or music lovers and artists, alike. Recently in an interview with MTV News, Orianthi counted herself as one of those Train supporters.

“That’s really cool – you know what I think is happening is we’re all kind of fans of each other these days,” remarked Monahan. “We want each other to do well. Orianthi is an amazing talent, and were psyched for her too. So yunno instead of, ‘Hey man, she’s taking up my space on the CD case,’ it’s like, ‘Let’s do something together!’”

So who knows, maybe a Train/Orianthi collaboration is right around the corner? But, surely Train doesn’t have to worry about Orianthi taking their space on a compact disc case… now iPod space – that could be a different story.

EXCLUSIVE: The Ting Tings Talk Touring, Moaning w/ Katy Perry

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After The Ting Tings finished performing for 97 BHT listeners, Katie and Jules spoke with Ralphie inside the 97 BHT on-air studio about touring the states, Katy Perry, moaning with celebrities, and more...

Check out video of The Ting Tings performance here.
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Ever wonder what musicians say to each other when they meet? The Ting Tings’ Katie White shares a little insight:

“All bands like moaning. We love to moan,” said White. “We saw Katy Perry the other day, and she moaned – and we had a good moan together.”

Perry seems to be quite the confidant to her cohorts – the songstress and Rihanna have been known to hang out. White says the two talked about “just girl stuff really,” like their hair and skin.

“She’s funny really, she makes me laugh,” said White. “If she wants to do a cartwheel on stage, she does a cartwheel on stage.”

Of course, any type of acrobatics on a stage with Katie and Jules would be near impossible, let alone dangerous, given the amount of equipment the two uses to duplicate the vast array of sounds in their music.

“No, you’d have a guitar up your ass,” Katie joked – with Jules tongue-in-cheek challenging, “I bet Katy Perry couldn’t do that.”

The Ting Tings just wrapped up an American promo tour – and will run the Europe festival scene before returning to the States in the fall in support of Pink.

“I don’t know how many U.K.’s you can get in just a California,” said the other half of the group, Jules DeMartino. “You can do a two week tour in the U.K. or even a three week tour and that’s it, you’ve covered pretty much every corner.”

White also noted that in addition to the physical aspects, the media landscape is also vastly differently in the U.S., specifically involving radio airplay.

“If you get BBC Radio 1 and 2, you’re done really,” explained White. “It really is a shame in a way as well because if they don’t like your music, it’s really hard because they’re aren’t many other stations to get played on.”

BBC Radio’s reach is vast according to White, “literally every household.” Lucky for the pop-rock duo, BBC Radio loved their music, and the rest is history.

“We’ve got a map that we carry around with us, and we circle every town or city or state we go to,” DeMartino said.

White continued, “We never know where we are but we always know where we’ve been.”

And it won’t be too hard to figure out where The Ting Tings are going. First Europe – then the States with Pink – and then to Berlin – where Katie and Jules will write, record, and throw house parties in search of new tunes for the band’s second LP.