In 2021, the band — made up of vocalist Damiano David, bassist Victoria De Angelis, guitarist Thomas Raggi and drummer Ethan Torchio — won Europe’s biggest song competition, Eurovision, and has been unstoppable ever since.
They’ve scored three number one hits just this year on the Billboard rock charts: Their viral cover of Frankie Valli’s “Beggin’,” “I Wanna be Your Slave” and “Supermodel.”
They were also recently nominated for two MTV Video Music Awards, including Best New Artist. They’ve dropped by the “Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” and headlined “Saturday Night Live.”
Just over a year ago, the four rockers were little-known musicians playing in the streets of Rome and fighting other street performers for a spot on the corner that would attract the most people. Now, attracting a crowd is as simple as announcing their next concert.
Earlier this month, they played to a sold-out crowd of 70,000 at Rome’s iconic Circus Maximus and have been invited to perform at some of the largest music festivals in the US, including Coachella and Lollapalooza, where they will appear for the first time this Sunday.
This fall, they will embark on their first world tour, which will take them all over the United States, Europe and Latin America with tickets selling fast and dates extending into 2023.
CNN correspondent Maria Santana caught up with Maneskin in New York before they were set to perform for a smaller, more intimate crowd at the city’s “House of X” as part of Sirius XM’s Small Stage Series, and talked to them about their meteoric rise to fame, their humble beginnings, the next stops on their world tour, covering the “King of Rock n Roll,” Elvis Presley, and why they are standing up for the people of Ukraine.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
The first thing I need to ask is how do you pronounce your band’s name?
All: Moan-Ah-Skin!
Santana: I always hear Man-Eh-Skin.
Victoria De Angelis: Yeah, everything is fine.
Santana: So, Moan-A-Skin?
Thomas Raggi: Moan-A-Skin is perfect.
And what does Maneskin mean?
De Angelis: It means moonlight. I picked it when we first started playing because we needed to join this musical competition, and we didn’t have a name yet, so they just told me just say random words in Danish, and we chose one.
Looking back at this last year, I’m sure it’s been absolutely crazy for you, from where you were a year ago to now?
Damiano David: Yeah, it’s been a crazy journey, but of course we are really happy about everything that we did, and every time we look back, all the steps, we are super happy and proud.
What has been the most surprising, maybe the most exciting thing, that has happened to you this past year?
Raggi: I think that we’ve had lots of incredible moments during this last year. Maybe a song with Iggy Pop is one of these, of course, and playing with The Stones. I mean a lot, it’s been a lot.
Now you’re filling stadiums with 70,000 people, selling out tickets for 80,000, and you’ve said it was really hard for you guys to even find a place to play in Italy. What was that like when you started?
De Angelis: It was very difficult because in Rome there’s no real rock scene, so there’s no like clubs wanting bands to play their stuff, and also people are not very used to going to gigs of upcoming artists.
They just go to the famous ones that they already know, so it was really hard and that’s why we started playing as buskers on the streets. We were always fighting with the other street artists about having the best spot, and we never won, but … (laughter).
And then you do Eurovision, how did it change your life?
David: I think that was our first actual window outside of Italy. Since that moment we were only basing our projects for Italy and on Italy and that was the chance to break out in Europe, then from Europe to the US, and we hope to grow more and more.
What was it like to win for Italy? It had been like 30 years since Italy had won Eurovision, and then you win with rock n’ roll, a genre…
Read More: Maneskin on feeling free, finding fame and embarking on their first world tour