As a journalist, the toughest factor about having an awesome dialog with somebody is becoming all of it in to the article you write afterwards. That’s why along with our Guitar.com Cowl interview, we’re additionally going to drag out bonus further snippets that we didn’t have the area so that you can get pleasure from. 

For Mateus, the web’s favorite guitar participant, the apparent selection was to dig into the world of guitar social media – one thing that has formed him, for good and for in poor health…

“Actually, man, I want Instagram was Bitcoin!,” Mateus Asato exclaims, “As a result of think about if I’d invested in Bitcoin across the time I began on Instagram.” Asato’s relationship with social media is a fancy one. On the one hand it has propelled him to a uncommon stage of guitar status, however he’s keenly conscious of the darker facet of it too. And when he began out sharing on the platform in 2013, there was no agenda.

“I see the way in which how issues at the moment are with social media, the place every part is simply so deliberately attempting to seize your consideration,” he explains. “Fortunately, again within the day, it wasn’t like that. The phrase viral was not in my vocabulary!”

As an alternative, his impetus to share his enjoying with the world was much more about the actual, human connections he already had.

“I used it as a journal,” he notes. “As a result of I used to be in Los Angeles [Mateus was studying at Musician’s Institute at the time], and my household was in Brazil, and most of my followers and pals have been in Brazil. The easiest way to maintain them up to date about my life and my guitar progress was simply to put up someplace. So I used that as a means of exhibiting what I discovered immediately or this week, and it grew to become one thing that grew to become a format and a components – as a result of consistency is the important thing. But it surely was all very natural.”

Alongside the way in which he was a key participant within the improvement of what we will now broadly categorise because the ‘Instagram guitar participant’. It’s a time period that has a slight pejorative undertone right here in 2025, however again then it simply described what Mateus was doing – crafting spellbindingly spectacular items of guitar enjoying that existed not as items of songs, however deliberately created vignettes that match into the 90-second restrict of the platform because it was.

“I used to be very proud of how my relationship with social media began, as a result of it didn’t an agenda, or a technique,” he displays now. “And images was all the time a factor for me, y’know? I used that as a passion, and I beloved making movies, so these issues helped contribute to what I used to be doing.”

Quickly Mateus was the poster baby for this new wave of younger, technically jaw-dropping social media guitar gamers – and his following grew exponentially as he set himself aside as a participant of uncommon style and really feel, in addition to precision.

Already, although, he was beginning to really feel the draw back of the eye. “There was one journal that branded me because the ‘Kardashian of guitar,’” he sighs, wearily.

Photograph: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

Saturation Level

Social media had given Mateus a profession – he had bought his first full-time sideman gig with Tori Kelly partly on the power of the movies he’d placed on Instagram – however by the tail finish of the 2010s, he was already beginning to really feel the push of one thing darker.

“Ten years in the past, I don’t keep in mind listening to the phrase ‘algorithm’ that always,” he explains. “Every little thing now could be ‘the algorithm is telling me to do that’. There’s a technique, and other people telling you what you want to do to make a ‘good video’ – and that affected me a little bit bit.

“I believed I created a monster. I’m dropping the the explanation why I make music. I’m simply doing it for Instagram. That’s not the explanation why I make music.”

Then in 2020 he did the one factor no one would have anticipated: he give up. Instagram’s favorite guitarist deactivated his account for over a yr, the additional strain of the pandemic tipping his burnout with music over the sting.

“I grabbed all my guitars off the wall, put them of their circumstances, and I used to be like, I don’t wish to have any contact with any devices,” Mateus admits. “And I went 90 days with out touching any devices, so I needed to simply go do different issues.”

Breaking from the factor he’d made his id gave him an opportunity to reconnect together with his ardour for images, and likewise loads of time to observe soccer…

“My crew in Brazil, Palmeiras, was killing it!” he enthuses. “That they had an awesome season. It was such an awesome second to compensate for that battle of being a guitar participant on Instagram!”

Photograph: Rachel Billings for Guitar.com

Wholesome Stability

Mateus was gone from Instagram for over a yr, finally returning with a extra thought of perspective to the platform – the time without work clearly gave him some much-needed perspective.

“That is just about an habit,” he says, holding up his iPhone. “For me, the degrees of dopamine from posting a video and seeing folks react to it… it can activate my mind. I simply wish to verify the notifications.”

“And it undoubtedly performs along with your mind, seeing guys like John Mayer, Shawn Mendes or Matty Healy, Bruno Mars coming to you and writing feedback. Even Lewis Hamilton got here on my Instagram! And Kelly Slater!

“And I’m not saying, Oh man, these guys messed me up. It’s not that. It’s simply the facility of social media… we’re not prepared for these issues. I come from this small city in Brazil, and now these heroes are literally speaking to me as a result of they watch my stuff! No one is ready to obtain that.”

“So I felt like I used to be a rat within the maze, I used to be being experimented on with this complete factor. So having that break was essential to deliver me again to a extra pure means of doing issues, as a result of you’ll be able to’t combat it any extra – that is how it’s!”

However his break has given him stability and a concentrate on creating one thing that’s greater than only a 90-second piece for social media. It’s enabled him to lastly full his much-anticipated debut album, and shift his priorities in the direction of making one thing extra satisfying for him creatively.

“It was vital for me to only rethink issues – it was an awesome season for me to regulate,” he insists. “I’m being extra selective. You realize, the older I get, the extra I wish to launch totally realised artwork, as an alternative of a type of quick meals. So I’m altering my web food regimen. I feel that’s what occurred. I used to be consuming an excessive amount of quick meals, however in an web guitar sense – I had to return to the veggies!”

Josh is the Commissioning Editor of Guitar.com. He is chargeable for planning a lot of the opinions and options you see on the positioning – and writing a good chunk of them, too. Josh has been on workers at Guitar.com since 2019, having beforehand labored at Guitar Journal, Guitarist and Complete Guitar. He has an never-ending fascination with offsets of all sizes and styles, and rearranging his pedalboard for no actual sensible purpose.