John Mayer Says He ‘Could Put a Record Out Right Now’ — but Shares Why He Won’t (Exclusive)

Don’t hold your breath for new John Mayer music at the moment.

Ahead of upcoming performances in September and October, the 47-year-old Grammy winner is opening up about where he’s at in the process of making new music — and why fans won’t hear it for some time.

“It’s coming out of me,” Mayer tells PEOPLE of new music at the opening night of the new Broadway show Jeff Ross: Take a Banana for the Ride at the Nederlander Theater in New York City on Monday, Aug. 18.

“I don’t know when it’s coming out, but I’ve been going around making music, touring, making music, touring for a lot of years, and I think it would make sense at this stage in my life [to] just take a breather and figure out when I want to do it and how I want to do it,” he explains. “So I’m enjoying just taking it day-by-day and doing the projects I love.”

“I have enough songs that I could put a record out right now,” clarified Mayer. “But if I put a record out right now, I would want to go on the road, and I just want to take a minute and practice this newfound going with the flow.”

The guitarist’s free outlook on life comes from his time performing with Dead & Company, which wrapped a residency at Sphere in Las Vegas last month.

Mayer explains what he’s learned from the psychedelic rock band: “Let it happen — and I have to relearn that all the time.”

“The number of times that they’ve winged it or we’ve winged it, and I said, ‘You can’t wing it.’ No. I realized the irony. This is the [Grateful] Dead, or this is Bob and Mickey and Billy from the Dead, but my thing was always, ‘Oh, you got to stretch it,'” he continues.

“Some of the best shows we’ve ever played were just letting it go and playing,” says Mayer, “and so it’s taught me how to do that.”