Sacramento based singer and musician Mateo Briscoe takes Amy Winehouse as his inspiration, and considers the late artist to be his spirit guide and role model. Likewise, he has his own struggles; with sleep paralysis, overcoming trauma, navigating identity, and a whole range of ticks and eccentricities. But he doesn’t let any of this hold him back, as seen by his new single and video, ‘Insane’.
Mateo Briscoe has been performing since a very early age, when he first started singing ‘You Are My Sunshine’, in time to his uncle’s acoustic guitar. He couldn’t afford guitar lessons himself, but instead, via a school music programme, learned to play clarinet. Eventually his parents gave him his very own acoustic guitar, and from then he took his own written poems and combined them with punk-folk power chords and riffs. Nothing was going to stop him. He busked and performed at gigs all over Sacramento, and found that people were able to identify with his compositions, that depicted feeling strange, or sick, or other things. And that’s not the only thing they were able to relate to. Some suggested his quirks might be down to ADD, or OCD, or other conditions, for which Mateo was grateful.
Mateo says,
“I’d been living with these problems for so long. People’s response to my music brought me some answers.”
The music video for ‘Insane’, directed by Chris Brice and Ronald Spatafore, places Briscoe’s song in an old-time situation. Opening with old fashioned placards, we are given the story of Myrna, a ghost who haunts the Georgetown Hotel and Saloon, in Georgetown California. The band are shown performing the song, while Mateo explores the building as the clip progresses, going up the creepy stairs, and along the way, becoming possessed with a sort of madness. All is well by the end however, and the listener and viewer can relax as they enjoy the music provided by Mateo and his “dual Jesses” – his high school friends and frequent collaborators, Jesse Szabo and Jesse Hanes.
Check out the video below for ‘Insane’, and watch out for Mateo’s concert dates along the West Coast, later this year.
You can find out more about Mateo Briscoe and his music online via his Linktree.
Comments