“John Mayer, you’ve been sleeping on a good jam”: Tash Sultana publicly invites John Mayer to a guitar duel

Tash Sultana has treated fans and guitar enthusiasts to a smooth blues-inspired guitar jam that could be a potential tease for their upcoming material. However, the guitar jam video also served as a way for the artist to send John Mayer a (very public) guitar duel invitation.

In the video, Sultana can be seen playing a coral red Fender Strat, with a Hot Rails pickup in the bridge and a red tortoiseshell pickguard. “After MONTHS of not even looking at my guitar I finally picked it up again,” Sultana posted. “It felt so good and I played so differently. BUT now it’s time buddy @johnmayer you’ve been sleeping on a good jam. TAG THIS BLOKE, let’s make it happen.”

Sultana has been publicly tagging Mayer and inviting him to a guitar duel for some time now. In previous social media videos, Sultana has also encouraged their fans to tag Mayer and ask him to respond to their request.

In 2020, Sultana revealed that one of the reasons they switched from Teles to Strats was John Mayer’s guitar playing on Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.

“I really like that song of his, because it’s all about the pace. It’s just about being slow and saying enough with taking all of the expression really really slowly. I love everything about achieving the cleanest tone possible. He’s just a fantastic guitarist that I aspire to be like,” Sultana told Premier Guitar.

A year later, in a Guitar World interview, Sultana named John Mayer as one of the guitarists they admire. “I don’t really have any particular guitar players I idolize – I’m more into the sounds than the player. But if I had to pick someone, I really love John Mayer’s approach to soloing. I love the fuck out of Jimi Hendrix, too.”

Thanks to the switch in guitar model allegiance, Tash Sultana has become widely linked with Stratocasters. This association led Fender to release the Tash Sultana signature Stratocaster in 2020, making the guitarist one of the first Australian artists to receive a signature model from Fender.