John Mayer Has a Neurological Condition Similar to Billie Eilish’s: ‘I Have Relative Synesthesia’
Billie Eilish has spoken about having synesthesia, and John Mayer revealed he has a similar neurological condition. Here’s what we know about synesthesia, what Eilish and Mayer said about it, and other artists who have the condition.
Billie Eilish said her synesthesia inspires her music videos and live performances
Singer Billie Eilish has frequently spoken about having synesthesia and how it helps her create art. According to Healthline, “synesthesia is a neurological condition in which information meant to stimulate one of your senses stimulates several of your senses. People who have synesthesia are called synesthetes.” Research from 2006 shows that about 2-4% of the population have the condition.
“Every person I know has their own color and shape and number in my head, but it’s normal to me,” Eilish told Rolling Stone in 2019, adding that she sees her music as shapes and colors, as well. She described her song “Bad Guy” as “yellow, but also red, and the number seven. It’s not hot, but warm, like an oven. And it smells like cookies.”
In a 2021 interview on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Eilish said that her synesthesia inspires a lot of her work. “Like all my videos for the most part have to do with synesthesia, all of my artwork, everything I do live, all the colors for each song, it’s because those are the colors for those songs specifically.” She revealed her brother Finneas, who is also a musician, and her father share the condition, but her mother does not.
Several other artists, including John Mayer, have described having traits similar to synesthesia.
John Mayer has a neurological condition similar to Billie Eilish’s synesthesia
In a 2017 interview for the Bobby Bones Show, John Mayer revealed that he has a neurological condition similar to synesthesia.
“I don’t have synesthesia,” Mayer clarified. “I have, probably, some interpretive form of synesthesia. Synesthesia, by the way, is, some people have a clinical – I don’t know I’d call it a disorder, it’s a gift of sorts – whereby words and sounds actually are interpreted as colors in their brain. I have it, but not visually, I’m pretty close to it. I have relative synesthesia.”
The “Gravity” singer shared that instead of colors, he sees his music as “shapes, colors, geometry.” “The way that I do it is, tons and tons and tons of streams of possibilities, of shapes, what’s where, where does it go, and I’ve done it for so long now, that a lot of that data has sort of dissolved, and it’s all feeling now,” he said. “I just know where it is. It’s very Jedi now.”
Several other artists have the neurological condition, including Lorde, Kanye West, and Pharrell Williams
Many artists have synesthesia (or a condition similar to it) besides John Mayer and Billie Eilish. Kanye West, Lorde, and Pharrell Williams have all described how synesthesia informs their work.
“I have a condition called synesthesia where I see sounds,” West revealed on The Ellen DeGeneres Show (via NY Daily News). “Everything I sonically make is a painting. I see it. I see the importance and the value of everyone being able to experience a more beautiful life.”
Williams is so attuned to his synesthesia that his band N.E.R.D even named one of their albums Seeing Sounds. “There are seven basic colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. And those also correspond with musical notes,” Williams told Psychology Today. “White, believe it or not, which gives you an octave is the blending of all the colors.”
And Lorde has said that synesthesia is a driving force behind all her work. “If a song’s colors are too oppressive or ugly, sometimes I won’t want to work on it,” she told Teen Vogue. “When we first started ‘Tennis Court’ we just had that pad playing the chords, and it was the worst textured tan color, like really dated, and it made me feel sick, and then we figured out that pre-chorus and I started the lyric, and the song changed to all these incredible greens overnight!”
