John Mayer apologizes for insensitive remarks in Playboy

During a performance Wednesday night in Nashville, a contrite John Mayer again apologized for the insensitive remarks he made in the already-infamous Playboy magazine interview.

The singer had used a racial slur and ribaldly discussed his relationship with Jessica Simpson.

While playing "Gravity" at the Sommet Center, Mayer stopped and apologized to his bandmates, some of whom are black, Us magazine reports.

"In the quest to be clever," he said, "I completely forgot about the people that I love and that love me."

He went on to say he had entered a world of "selfishness and greediness and arrogance."

He said that he thought if he could just be "speedy and witty and pull together as many fast words and phrases as I could, that I would be clever enough to buy myself another day without anybody pinning me down and saying, 'You're a creep.'

"I should have just given that up and played the guitar," he continued. "I didn't. So I decided I would try to be as clever as possible all the time, and I did that at the expense of people that I love and that feels absolutely terrible."

His voice then cracked as he told the crowd: "So maybe I need to take a break from trying to be clever and spend a little time looking at what they see - because they've done an unbelievable thing by standing on this stage and standing by my side playing tonight.

"It's just not worth being clever," he added. "I quit the media game. I'm out. I'm done. I just want to play my guitar."

After a lengthy pause, he began playing guitar solo.

Mayer is scheduled to perform Feb. 25 and 26 at Madison Square Garden.