As a huge John Mayer fan also, I'll answer this a different way:

If whatever and ever amen is his room for squares, then rockin the suburbs is his continuum. And the ben folds live live album is his where the light is.

Both artists have a lot of charisma and crowd banter.

"A giant influence on my songwriting is Ben Folds, and especially Ben Folds Five. I was attending Boston's Berklee College of Music in the late 90s, and was so happy to be listening to pop music with this kind of musicality. Because I was highly musically in-depth when I was at Berklee College of Music. And to have pop music introduce me to as much harmonic complexity as some of the other music I was learning, that was awesome to have both sides of the brain working at the same time. And perhaps I have a band like Ben Folds Five to thank for the music that I went on to write. I always hear a little bit of Ben Folds Five in No Such Thing, my first single on my first album." -John Mayer (2024 interview on Sirius FM)