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Matteo Mancuso is hitting his sophomore stride with his second album titled Route 96.  The guitar virtuoso is hitting the road soon and will be playing The Kent Stage on February 23.   We had a nice chat with Matteo to discuss his new album an tour.  See what transpired below.

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Greg Drugan:  Thanks for spending some time with me today, I wanted to  congratulate you on your new album, Route 96.  I had the chance to listen to it over the past couple of days and it is fantastic. 

 

Matteo Mancuso:  Thank you, thank you so much.

 

GD: Route 96 feels like both a musical journey and a statement of identity, what does the title represent to you personally and artistically?

 

MM: It started really as a joke with my companions, the drummer and the bass player.  I wanted to title it Route 96 because I am from 1996, the year I was born.  Plus there was this inside joke between us because the recording settings for the album, now this is a little bit nerdy but some people will understand it, I recorded everything at 96 kilohertz. It’s basically the sample rate for the audio. The higher the sample rate is, the better it will be.  The standard is 44, but I wanted to record it at 96.  But that’s a joke for the nerds. That’s the main reason. I was in contact with Steve Vai back then and there was an exchange of emails and I asked him what are your recording settings?  He told me that he recorded everything at 96 kilohertz. If Steve does it, I need to do it as well.
 

GD:  This album shows a wide range of moods and styles, like you typically do. When you were writing and recording this album, did you have a specific story or emotional arc in mind?

 

MM:  No, not really.  Every time I start from scratch. I didn’t have anything in mind like that. That’s why it’s so diverse.  I start from zero when I’m composing a song. If I start with classical guitar, it will be more classical oriented. I always start composing with a guitar in my hands. 

 

GD: Your first single, “Isla Feliz,” I really like the interplay between the acoustic guitar from Antoine Boyer and your electric guitar.  How did you end up working with Antoine and how did you choose to take that song in that direction using both acoustic and electric guitars?

 

MM:  I wanted to write the song that was adding both classical gypsy and electric at the same time. It was pretty tough at first because I wanted to figure out a way to do it. I really love gypsy guitar and I wanted to invite a proper gypsy jazz player.  Because I felt it was the right direction for the song. Antione was the perfect example because to me he is an incredible gypsy jazz player but he’s open minded enough to participate to play on this stuff that is not traditional gypsy jazz stuff.  Some incredible high level gypsy jazz players only play Django (Reinhardt) or that kind of stuff and when you put them in another direction or different style, it doesn’t sound like it belongs there. Antione is the completely opposite, he’s such a versatile guy that you can put him anywhere and he will sound incredibly good. “Isla Feliz” is the perfect example.  I wanted to do something that had my favorite guitarists because I’m a big gypsy jazz fan and I love classical as well. But I love electric as well. “Isla Feliz” contains all the sounds I like to hear. 

 

GD: What a great way to kick off the album!  Another great song, and you mentioned Steve Vai earlier, is “Solar Wind”.  Did you both work in the studio together or did you do that file sharing?

 

MM:  We just did file sharing.  Same thing with Antione. Every guest I had was basically working in distance.  In the case with Steve, I was surprised because I asked him to participate on this song. I think one month after I asked him, I already had his solo. Steve is an incredibly busy guy and it was so surprising to me, you don’t take this for granted, when you are talking about big names they are so busy with other stuff.  They are always touring and Steve is always outside playing with whatever project he has at the moment. Surprisingly for me, he really did a lot with my song.  He is such an open book. You can ask him anything and he will answer to you in a really honest way.  Collaboration with him was incredible and awesome because of that. 

 

GD: He’s one of my favorites as well. It’s amazing what technology allows you to do today. Back in the day, you all had to actually be in the studio.  Is that something that works for you or do you  prefer working together in the studio having that interplay with other musicians?

 

MM:  It really depends on the song.  Everything is recorded on click and you can manage to work on distance with other people. If you really want to do something where there's a lot of interplay and is more jazz oriented, I always suggest recording together in the same room will always be the best thing to do. In my case, I didn’t have enough time to organize the sessions together with the other musicians because Antione is also a very busy guy and Steve as well.  The third guy is Valer Steanov who is a keyboard player from Russia and it was basically impossible to bring him to Sicily to record. So I decided to record everything with a click so we can work on distance. I think that’s the best choice if you don’t have a lot of time available. 

 

GD: Is there one track on the album that best represents where you are right now as an artist?

 

MM:  I don’t really know because the album is so diverse. There’s not one track that represents the whole album. “Isla Faliz” is the only track that is Latin influenced. If you hear only that track and you imagine the whole album would be like that, it’s completely the opposite. There’s “Black Centurian” that is more rock, hard rock oriented. I should say the album is melodically more sophisticated compared to the first one.  There are more melodies that I’m proud of compared to the first album. “Isla Feliz” is the perfect example because there are no such clearer melodies like that on the first one. I took a lot of time to work on that direction. Trying to have clear melodies that you can memorize easily.  I think that’s the step that I wanted to take on this album. I don’t like to have everything in one style.  I like to have the classical oriented song, the rock song, the blues one, the more jazz oriented one because I have more fun on the stage if I play different things.
 

GD:  You toured the United States for the first time last year.  What was that experience like to travel the country?

 

MM:  It was great!  I felt amazing. I was surprised by how big the USA is. If you travel four hours in the US, you are sometimes in the same state. If you travel four hours in Europe, you traverse half of it. It’s surprising how big it is and I realized big it is compared to Europe. Sometimes it’s not that easy to tour in the USA because of the travel distances compared to Europe. Especially Arizona, I was surprised by the landscape because you can’t see something like that in Europe. There are no deserts like that. You need to go to Africa in order to see something similar, but it’s not quite like that. Compared to Europe, America is developed horizontally rather than vertically. In Italy, the cities are developed vertically because we don’t have much space.  Meanwhile in America everything is so far from each other.  Everything is too far from each other! I really felt this.  In Italy, the streets are very narrow. I’m not used to having so much space and it’s so much easier to drive because of that. You have tons of space to park everywhere. Jokes aside, it was a wonderful thing. We had a lot of fun, mainly because we didn’t take many planes.  Everything was with a van and it felt like an adventure.  It didn’t feel like work. I felt like I’m going on an adventure with my teammates. It was great!
 

GD:  I'm glad you enjoyed the experience. You’ve gone from being a viral sensation on the internet to a globally touring artist. How has that transition changed your mindset as a composer and like you said, a bandleader having your teammates with you? 

 

MM:  The one thing that’s changed is that I always wanted to do that rather than only being an internet sensation. I didn’t want to be a content creator or an artist that only exists on social media. So the live part was so important to me. For a period of time, I just stopped making videos on YouTube in my room and started looking for people to play for real.  That’s how the trio videos started. The first viral video was a version of “The Chicken” that I did with my trio back in 2017.  I realized that people are more interested in seeing me play with other people rather than just me playing in my bedroom or to backing tracks.  That was the first transition. Then I realized the thing I like most is playing live and interacting with other musicians at the same time.  That’ why I always preferred electric guitar to classical guitar. With classical guitar, you very much play along with your score because it’s not an orchestra instrument. Electric guitar, you play a lot with drummers, you play a lot with other bass players or guitar players. It’s much more an instrument where you can interact with other people. I don’t consider myself a content creator.  I only upload my music when I have something available and I only use social media to promote my music. 
 

GD: You are headed out on the road soon.  Are you bringing the same musicians that you brought with you last year?

 

MM:  Yeah, Gianluka Pellerito on drums and Ricardo Olivia on bass.  

 

GD:  Those guys are fantastic.  I really like that you let those guys express themselves as well, extended solos and whatnot.  I saw you at The Kent Stage last year and it was one of the best shows of the year.  I think everyone was floored and blown away with all three of your talents. 

 

MM:  Thank you! Thank you so much.
 

GD:   You are coming back to The Kent Stage next month.  What can fans expect from your show?
 

MM:  Well, we have tons of new tunes available. The show will be centered around the second solo album. So there will be a lot of spoilers because the album will come out in April.  I think it will be April 24th. Probably 80% of the setlist is centered around the second album.  I already know there will be people taking videos and will be uploaded on YouTube. You can’t avoid that.  I’m not necessarily a fan of spoiling things before the album comes out but you can’t do anything about it. I’m ok with videos and photos and whatever.  I prefer not to have people upload the whole show. You can record one song or maybe one solo, that’s totally fine.  Even more. But the whole show, you need to come and see me.  If you have everything available on YouTube, people will not come to the show because they have already seen the whole thing on YouTube. 

 

GD:  How long is this tour?  How long are you coming to America this time?

 

MM:  It’s about one month. One month and a half.  The first show will be at the NAMM show in Los Angels on January 23 and the last show will be in Chicago on February 27 or 28th. Then in March I will go back home. 

 

GD:  Very good.  You got me thinking.  The way singles are released now, at least back in the day it was you released a single then you would release the whole album.  Today it seems like more artists are releasing, single, single, single then the album. What would you prefer to do?

 

MM:  What we are doing is we are releasing three singles, then we are releasing the whole album. The thing we did with the first album was we released two singles first and then the full album and then another single after some months to have a final push. I think we will do something similar with the second album. I know some people prefer to release more singles than the full album after a year or so.  I was lucky enough to have enough material to release the full album before and I honestly prefer to do it like that. 

 

GD:  Matteo, I wish you the best on the new album and tour.  I’m looking forward to seeing you again at The Kent Stage.  I’m going to get the word out on your new album and we will pack the place for you. 

 

MM:  Thank you!  Thank you so much! Ciao!

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Be on the lookout for Matteo Mancuso's new album Route 96 which will be released at the end of April.  You can get a sneak peek at some of those new tunes when he hits The Kent Stage on February 23.  Trust me, this album is great and his show is going to be fantastic!

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If you would like to see the complete Zoom call.  Click below! 

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