MATTEO MANCUSO

The Italian jazz-shredder on social media, his love of the Yamaha Revstar and the advice given to him by Steve Vai

- Andrew Daly

TO SAY THAT Matteo Mancuso has had a big 2024 would be an understatement. His debut record, 2023’s The Journey, has continued to wow just about anyone who hears it, but now he’s being namechecked by the likes of Steve Vai, Joe Bonamassa and Al Di Meola.

Yes, the things Mancuso does are utterly incomprehensible, but he isn’t worried about competing with the greats he’s wowing. “The guitar is such a personal instrument,” Mancuso tells GW. “You can’t compare yourself to other people. I know Steve [Vai] said something like, ‘You can’t duplicate what Matteo does,’ but it’s the same for me — I can’t duplicate what he does. I can’t replicate what Al Di Meola does. I don’t compare myself to these kinds of players because they are giants.”

But Mancuso, who is just 28, is a giant. Few possess his style-meets-skill vibe, and even fewer have been classified as halcyon so quickly. “It adds pressure, that’s for sure,” Mancuso says. “If these kinds of players are talking about you, you feel happy. Steve gave me some good advice: ‘Concentrate on music and not too much on guitar.’ You can open up a lot of new ideas with that mindset.”

You’ve had an incredible year, and you’ve done it without being hyperpresent on social media — at least compared to other players.

Social media impacts the community a lot. The information you can find sometimes influences us in a good way and sometimes in a bad way. If you gain a lot of followers on Instagram or grab somebody’s attention and make people say, “Wow,” that sometimes means shredding it, but it’s probably the best choice. That’s why people on Instagram tend to focus on that. They tend to focus more on Instagram reels rather than actual music. I always say, “Never judge a guitar player by a short reel.” But to make it work, you have to do really short videos with a lot of “Wow.” People tend to concentrate too much on the “Wow.”