John Mayer Launches Sob Rock Records With a New Single, “Tom and Jerry”

John Mayer has a new label and a new song, and the two are related by more than timing. Sob Rock Records, his own imprint, launches in partnership with Mercury Records, and its first release is “Tom and Jerry,” Mayer’s first solo material since the 2021 album that gave the label its name.

The single arrived Thursday night, but not cold. Mayer premiered it on his SiriusXM channel, Life with John Mayer, before it reached streaming services, a sequencing that suits an artist who has spent the past few years treating his own platforms as the primary channel rather than the promotional one.

Produced by Mayer with Blake Slatkin and mixed by Serban Ghenea, the track was recorded at Chaplin Studios. It carries an ’80s softness in its bones, though Mayer’s voice keeps the balladry from settling into pastiche. The label move is the more consequential part. In a statement, Mayer framed the Mercury partnership around speed and ease: “The path from creative vision to execution has never been easier or more rewarding.” Tyler Arnold and his team, he added, have made the arrangement feel like a real collaboration rather than a licensing deal.

Next year he takes up a residency at Sphere in Las Vegas, expanded from six shows to 21 dates between April and June 2027. Each night runs three sets: solo, full band, and a John Mayer Trio reunion with Pino Palladino and Steve Jordan. It is a lot of Mayer, deliberately — and now, with an imprint behind him, an argument that he would rather control the output than space it out.