John Mayer, Chris Stapleton Debut New Collaboration Onstage In Nashville

John Mayer surprised his Nashville concert audience on Thursday night (August 8) with an appearance from Chris Stapleton and the impromptu showing saw the pair debut a new collaboration.

“I’d like to invite a friend to the stage,” Mayer, 41, said while introducing Stapleton, 41. “I texted this friend and said, ‘Hey, I’d love to have you sit in.’ I said, ‘Do you want to do one of your songs or one of my songs? And he said, ‘We can do either, or we can just write a song and then go play it… I said, ‘Challenge accepted.’ I got to town yesterday, we met up in the studio, we wrote this song yesterday, and we’re going to play it for you.”

For the new track, which is titled “I Just Remembered That I Didn’t Care,” the pair traded verses over a pop melody, which featured Stapleton on acoustic guitar. In addition to the new track, Stapleton pleased the audience with a rendition of the former’s “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” off 2006’s Continuum.

“I’ve done a lot of cool stuff before, but nothing quite like writing a song with the great @chrisstapleton on a Wednesday and playing it live on an arena stage on a Thursday,” Mayer captioned shots of the two via his Instagram. “It’s called ‘I Just Remembered That I Didn’t Care,’ and it’s available now somewhere on YouTube. (And if that wasn’t enough, he sat in on ‘Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.’) Thanks Chris for the idea to write a song to perform together, and for being such a creative powerhouse. The afterglow is bright.”

The “Evening With John Mayer Tour” is scheduled to touch base in Charlotte this evening, before making its way around the country and ending its North American leg in mid-September.