Mateus Asato

Biography

Mateus Asato is the Brazilian guitarist who turned 15-second Instagram clips into one of the most imitated styles of the 2010s, a mix of neo-soul chords, gospel feel, hybrid picking and slippery double stops that John Mayer called the work of one of the best guitar players around. He was born December 29, 1993, in Campo Grande, Brazil, the grandson of Okinawan immigrants, and he grew up in a musical church family. His mother played piano and guitar at their church, his late grandfather was a fine acoustic player, and Mateus picked up the acoustic guitar at about ten, switching to electric a year later once his mother was convinced he would stick with it.

Church was his training ground. He played his first gig in the worship band at thirteen, and as a teenager he absorbed everything from Paul Gilbert, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Dream Theater to Brad Paisley's hybrid picking and the fingerstyle of Andy McKee, Tommy Emmanuel and John Mayer. At sixteen he won Brazil's Double Vision guitar contest against about 500 players. In 2013, at nineteen, he moved to Los Angeles to study at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, where he was named Outstanding Guitar Player in 2014.

Here is the gem. While he was at MI, Tori Kelly's musical director asked the school's guitar director for players, and Mateus was recommended. His filmed audition was shown to Kelly, who reportedly picked him with one line: "I want the guy with the pink guitar." He toured with her from 2015, then joined Jessie J's band, and later played with Bruno Mars. Meanwhile his Instagram, built on short, polished clips he treated as homework, grew past a million followers and made him the face of a new kind of online guitar hero. Suhr unveiled his Classic S signature model at NAMM in January 2018, offered in an antiqued Shell Pink finish, fittingly enough.

His career has had a few turns. In Brazil he has worked with stars including Tiago Iorc, recording the 2019 revival of Acústico MTV with him, and he signed with Sony Music Japan in 2018 to start work on his own album. In February 2021 he stepped away from social media, saying he felt lost inside the limits of short videos, and he reopened his account in 2022. Suhr has since expanded his line with Classic T models, including a Gold Foil version, and his signature Asabi overdrive came out with Jackson Audio and 1981 Inventions. Ask him his favorite guitarist, though, and the answer is pure joy: Eddie Van Halen.

Legendary Performance

Acústico MTV with Tiago Iorc

May 30, 2019 · São Paulo, Brazil

On May 30, 2019, in a São Paulo studio, MTV Brasil brought back its legendary Acústico MTV series after years away, and it chose singer-songwriter Tiago Iorc to relaunch it. The stage sat in the center of the room with about 250 invited guests gathered around it, and the band was a mix of Brazilian and international players: Jeremy Gustin on drums, Isaías Elpes on bass, Roberto Pollo on piano and Mateus Asato on acoustic guitar.

Acústico MTV is a big deal in Brazil, a series whose past sessions are woven into the country's pop history, and the revival carried real expectations. The set ran through Iorc's album Reconstrução, hits like "Amei Te Ver" and "Coisa Linda," unreleased songs and even a cover of Billie Eilish's "Bellyache," with guests Jorge Drexler and Duda Beat. Asato's job was to make an acoustic band sound full without crowding the songs, and his fingerstyle playing, warm chord voicings and tasteful fills gave the stripped-down arrangements their color.

For Asato, best known to the world for electric neo-soul clips, the session showed another side: the church-trained accompanist who listens first and serves the singer. It also marked his homecoming as a star in his own country, playing on one of Brazilian TV's most respected music stages.

Gear

Suhr Mateus Asato Signature Classic S (2018)

Known for: his Suhr signature, unveiled at NAMM 2018

Mateus Asato is closely tied to Suhr guitars. His signature Classic S, announced at NAMM on January 30, 2018, has an alder body, a roasted maple neck, heavy stainless steel frets, a 9 to 12 inch compound radius, two Suhr ML single coils and a custom bridge humbucker with Suhr's SSCII noise-cancelling system, plus a Gotoh 510 tremolo. It is offered in gloss black and an antiqued Shell Pink.

The single coils give him the glassy, bell-like clean tone his neo-soul chords need, while the bridge humbucker covers rock leads, and the stainless frets make his constant slides and double-stop glides feel effortless. Suhr later added Classic T models to his line, including one with Lollar Gold Foil pickups for a vintage, Gretsch-like flavor, and his neckplates carry his face.

Suhr Badger 35 and Matchless DC30 (Bogner Shiva in the studio)

Known for: touch-sensitive cleans with smooth breakup

Asato is an amp lover who prefers a miked cabinet to impulse responses and wedge monitors to in-ear monitors, because he wants to feel the air move. On stage he has relied on a Suhr Badger 35 and a Matchless DC30, and in the studio he has used a Bogner Shiva 20th Anniversary, with Bogner Duende and Goldfinger amps and a Suhr Bella appearing in his rig over the years. The common thread is a rich, touch-sensitive clean that breaks up smoothly when he digs in.

Strymon BigSky, Eventide H9, Neunaber reverb, Brown Amp The Protein, Asabi signature overdrive

His effects are about space and gentle drive. Ambient reverbs and delays such as a Strymon BigSky, Eventide H9 and TimeFactor, and Neunaber reverbs give his clean chords a lush shimmer, while low-gain overdrives like Brown Amplification's The Protein, Wampler Tumnus and his own Asabi signature drive (made with Jackson Audio and 1981 Inventions) add bite. A Suhr Koji compressor and a volume pedal round out a board built to make chords bloom.

Signature Technique

Hybrid Picking, Sliding Double Stops and Gospel Neo-Soul Voicings

Mateus Asato's style is a blend of neo-soul, gospel and pop, built on hybrid picking. He holds a pick for some notes and uses his middle and ring fingers for others, which lets him pluck chords like a fingerstyle player while still picking fast single-note lines. He even hides the pick in his hand when he switches fully to fingers, a trick he picked up from Carl Verheyen at Musicians Institute.

Double stops are his signature. He slides two-note shapes, often thirds, fourths and sixths, up and down the neck, adding hammer-ons, pull-offs and grace-note slides to create the smooth, vocal lines that defined the neo-soul guitar sound of the 2010s. He mixes those with lush extended chords, chord-melody arrangements and contrapuntal voicings, influenced by gospel keyboard harmony from his church background.

His phrasing is singer-like and patient. He has summed up his approach in three words, let a story be told, and his solos build from simple motifs into faster runs, borrowing alternate picking and legato from shredders like Paul Gilbert and Steve Vai but always landing back on melody. Years in pop bands taught him to play tight, hook-focused rhythm parts that serve the song.

His influence is huge. In the Instagram era he became a template for neo-soul guitar, and countless players learned his slides and double stops from his short videos. Along with players like Tom Misch and Cory Wong, he helped make clean, soulful, technically refined guitar one of the defining sounds of modern guitar culture.