John Mayer back after 'dumb interviews'

John Mayer expressed regret Tuesday for making racially and sexually charged comments to Playboy and Rolling Stone in 2010. "I did a couple of really dumb interviews and then that kind of woke me up," the singer said on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."

Mayer, 34, told DeGeneres that the backlash from those interviews "sort of rocketed me into adulthood. It was a violent crash into being an adult." Mayer took a self-imposed, two-year hiatus during which he moved to Montana and had two surgeries to remove an enlarged nodule over a vocal cord.

He spent the time away, he said, "just figuring it all out and I'm glad I actually stayed out of the spotlight." He explained, "The plan that originally gets you out of your high school and your hometown . . . that plan was over. I had done it. . . . and I just sort of lost my head for a little while."

Mayer's album, "Born and Raised," drops Tuesday.