How Mateus Asato changed gears from sideman and Instagram guitarist to fully-fledged artist

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It’s a truth universally acknowledged that social media can make or break you. In Mateus Asato’s case, social media has proven to be a way for him to carve a path to the higher echelons of the music industry, leading to an ever-evolving résumé that includes names like Bruno Mars, Tori Kelly, Jessie J, Joe Satriani, and John Petrucci, as well as a signature guitar with Suhr.

However, back in 2016, Asato’s role as an A-list sideman left him questioning his future. While traveling to South Korea for a guitar clinic – and confronted with real-life human beings who had discovered him through Instagram and were actually invested in his personal career – he realized there was tremendous potential to switch gears from “sideman” to “artist.”

“I had no idea of the impact that these little Instagram videos were having until I actually went to South Korea,” he tells Guitar.com. “There were 500 people there just to see this ‘Mateus Asato guy’. That totally changed the game for me: ‘Wait a minute, I play for an artist… but also there’s a big potential for me to just do my own stuff’.”

Working on his own material has been far from easy, however. Discussions with friend and producer Matt Mainhard made him realize that “it’s not okay to just have a list of songs. We gotta have a theme. We gotta have some sort of concept, or something that will tell you where to go”.

As for what we can expect from his hotly anticipated debut record, Asato sums it up as, “The album is definitely a journey through all the sides of Mateus. The Mateus who’s a sideman, Mateus as the Instagram boy, and then the Mateus that got more mature over the years. Who developed a different vision regarding music, regarding how I see guitar.”

So-called “Instagram guitarists” have been in hot water recently, with the Giacomo Turra controversy putting into question the lengths some go to to achieve virality and reap the benefits that guitar stardom offers.