If you have a notion about what's driving John Mayer's success, would you please share it with him? "I have no idea what is going on," the singer told Atlanta's Creative Loafing magazine as his major label debut Room for Squares hit stores. "I get up on stage and I play - beyond that I have no idea. That's the bottom line."

Mayer's many fans might disagree. They turn up to his gigs armed with tape recorders, scribbling down set lists, and treating him as both teen idol and sage songwriter. Mayer connects quickly with his listeners: He seems familiar. Older heads may note a voice that recalls the chocolate rasp of Chris Rea's "Fool (If You Think It's Over)." Younger fans often whisper the name "Dave Matthews." Lyric readers smile at Mayer's quirky way of getting to grips with turning 25 without a road map. You just kind of like the guy.

John Mayer grew up in Fairfield, Conn., and he admits his musical upbringing was the usual '80s hair band fare until, that is, a friend passed him a cassette of Texas blues whirlwind Stevie Ray Vaughan. From there he got his mojo working, and by the time he was 15 was rocking gin mills and blues clubs.

At 19, he entered Boston's Berklee College of Music; the move had to do more with his yen to be in a big city than it did a desire for improvement. His fellow students would pile into his apartment after class to hear him play untroubled by the burden of musical theory. Discontented, Mayer and another friend dropped out in 1998. They moved to Atlanta, and began playing as the lo-fi masters.

The pair won an Open-Mic Shootout at Eddie's Attic, but success went to their heads. When the dizziness was over, Mayer was flying solo. Fortunately, Eddie's Attic and Smith's Olde Bar welcomed him back. In 1999, he collected his songs on Inside Wants Out, a largely acoustic affair he once described as "no barcode indie."
Inside Wants Out established him as a sober guy who enjoyed having crushes on girls with "gray sweatpants/ No makeup" ("Comfortable"), suffered a bad case of insomnia ("Quiet"), and had a way with a jazzy lick ("Neon"). He's real sober, in fact. Mayer doesn't drink, smoke, or do drugs. And he claims he's never been to Atlanta's famed strip club, the Clermont Lounge.

When he toured with the Wallflowers, Jakob Dylan surmised his future: "You're young, handsome and you've got good songs - what does the record company even have to do?" After playing a South By Southwest Showcase in 2000, the Aware label got the message, and added him to a roster that includes Five for Fighting and Vertical Horizon.

But a certain degree of reinvention was required. In autumn 2000, Mayer went back into the studio to record Room for Squares. Ben Folds Five producer John Alagia was along for the ride, and he helped give a full band treatment to songs from Inside Wants Out. But after Room was released in the spring of 2001, the label decided there was something missing. So it was back to the mixing desk for additional strings, a new song "3x5," and covers of Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Lenny" and Jimi Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary."

On "Why Georgia" Mayer admits that he's been through his "quarter-life crisis," and he still has trouble sleeping at night. But such worries shouldn't stop his train from rolling forward. He is ready to take his music (plus a nifty live cover of Radiohead's "Kid A") to the people. But don't let him know that you know he's going to be a star. You might spoil everything.