So
You know what I mean?
This guy's world-renowned for being on the internet,
doing all types of crazy things, playing all types
of instruments, and just, you know,
as a musician myself
who might've had some lessons early on as a kid
but don't know to play
- a damn thing now, - ( chuckles )
I'm curious to know how you got your start, man.
What musical background? What's going on?
So my mother told me when I was quite young,
no more than five or six,
I just walked over to a piano and just
really wanted to understand it.
I didn't really take any lessons.
I tried, I couldn't really focus.
- Attention span. - That's my problem.
- That's my problem! - ( laughs )
That's all of our problem, right?
My attention is just, uh...
all of our attention spans are increasingly getting shorter and shorter,
but mine, I think, is extra short.
But it just made sense to me.
I walked over to a piano and I just--
everything I could hear, I could emulate.
The beauty about the piano
is that it's a foundation instrument.
You learn rhythm, melody.
Quite easy to transition
into other instruments once you
start with piano, that's kind of how it happened for me.
This is good to know. How long did it take you
to kind of, as you would say, master the piano?
Ah, man, I don't know if I've mastered it yet, but...
The good thing is, the people that know about you on the internet, you incorporate
a lot of comedy into your work,
so what made you start just incorporating
the comedy along with playing all the different
- live instruments? - Through music,
actually, I discovered the world of
- film and video production. - Yep.
You start to notice how all these art forms start comp--
you know better than most
- how... - ( laughs ) Absolutely.
these art forms start complementing each other.
You go from hosting, to music,
to film, to TV.
They're all kind of one artistic bubble.
One thing that might not be as funny,
you do a lot of your sketches on the streets
of Los Angeles, California.
Have you ever had any issues
- taping any sketches or skits on the streets of L.A.? - Oh, yeah.
- Oh, yeah, of course. - Tell me a good story.
- I want to hear one! - ( chuckles )
One of the first, actually,
videos I did for YouTube
was called "Crossing the Border."
But we had all kinds of props,
and cameras, and fake guns and everything.
And of course, within, like, an hour of shooting,
- ( chuckles ) - we had, like, three
cop patrols ride in.
- Wow. - And they came out of their car, you know,
armed with guns, and they're like, "We heard you guys have guns."
And we're just like, "We're just trying to shoot a YouTube video, man."
- Dang. - And then the cop came up to us, and then as soon as
he got a good look at my face, he was like,
- "Oh, man, I follow you!" - Ah!
- After scaring the crap out of us... - ( laughs )
...he was like, "Oh, you mind if we get a picture?"
I was like, "Yeah, right after my heart attack."
Oh, my gosh, man.
So many different levels of fame
and just being-- having followers
in this new age of the internet.
But the good thing is you do all this,
you've been doing it for so long,
you taught yourself.
So many great musicians have taught themselves
and are just, like, phenomenal
when it comes to playing different instruments,
some better than others.
- Mm-hmm. - If there was one person,
dead or alive, any musician in this world,
that you could play with, who would it be?
I'm sure you've had this in your mind.
Charlie Chaplin, only because
he wasn't just a musician, but he was an actor and director,
and a choreographer, editor.
That's an example of a true one-man band.
What do you think about being here at YouTube
and YouTube providing
an opportunity for all the cover artists
to get their name known and get with their favorite artist?
As somebody who was
always trying to find the perfect platform,
it's an amazing opportunity for some really talented people.
There's a lot you can do in front of a camera
- on a screen. - Right.
But then, seeing that in person is a whole other idea.
There's so much music.
And what's beautiful about music is that you start
hearing the same chord progressions
and a lot of the same musical ideas
that were in music 100 years ago, today,
only they've been reinvented
and they've been executed differently.
Over and over, but history repeats itself.
- Totally. - Which brings me
to my next question, man.
The hairstyle.
Is this inspired by anything
of history repeating itself or did you come up with
this hairstyle to be unique
so that people recognize you from a mile away?
"That's Rudy Mancuso!"
- This hairstyle was not strategic, I promise. - ( laughs )
I had long hair for as long as I could remember.
- Oh, I got you. - My dad's a hair stylist.
Oh, whoa, that's dope as hell.
He owns a salon
- in Jersey, yeah. - Hell, yeah.
So one day he just cut my hair
it was weird and I stuck to it.
( laughs ) That was the best story
of any of the questions
that I could possibly ask, man.
What is your goal? Like, where else do you want to go?
Do you want to continue learning more and more instruments
or you feel pretty satisfied where you're at?
Do you want to do production? Do you want to make it crazy
as eventually becoming a director on movies?
Like, what the hell
does Rudy Mancuso want to do from here?
All the things you just said sound good.
( laughs ) You just love anything.
Like you said, the bubble.
I think too many people and artists
are kind of stuck in the realm of what they think
other people want them to do.
- Totally. - So I applaud you, man,
for going outside of your comfort zone
since you were like six years old
and continuing to progress, man. We are one and the same.
- My man. - We have to become good friends after this.
Yeah, 100%.
Why do you like covering artists' songs?
It's very fun for a musician like myself
to take something that's complete
and then break it down and reinvent it.
That's where rap started, sampling.
- Exactly, exactly. - You know what I mean?
And I understand the cover thing 'cause I knew
LL Cool J's "I'm Bad" verse way before I started rapping.
And so, we all have to be inspired from somewhere, so I get that.
It just kind of opens my mind to ideas that I, otherwise,
probably wouldn't have incorporated into my own music.
So what about you? What's your first
- original work? - My first original work,
I was like nine years old, man.
And I, basically,
was talking about having a girlfriend
so I had to lie and rhyme with "ten" because I couldn't think of
anything else that rhymed with "girlfriend."
So my first song was, "I'm cool, I'm bad,
I might be ten,
but I can't survive without my girlfriend."
- Oh, my God. ( chuckles ) - So once I actually turned ten,
then I could sing that song
with the utmost confidence.
So at nine, you wrote a song about
- being ten and having a girlfriend? - Absolutely.
And when I got ten, I could sing it more confidently
and I actually
got what I thought was a girlfriend.
- ( laughs ) There you go. - So it was pretty cool.
Hell, yeah. So, man,
if I wanted to learn how to play drums, which,
don't get it twisted, I can play drums,
but on a drum machine,
not the actual drum set.
It's not that different.
Really?
And that's the good thing about it.
You got to tell me how you start.
Like, what is the...?
Learning how to do one thing here,
one thing there and one thing there,
and then, the second step is doing it all at the same time.
- Absolutely. - And that's where people
sometimes get confused, that's where the practice kicks in.
That's where practice kicks in.
So this is on two and four.
One, two, three, four.
One-- and then this is on, you know,
just a simple four...
- two, three, - Yep.
four. One, two--
and then this is doing something completely different.
Train your brain, man.
- That's dope. - Yeah, so,
it's just learning and practicing.
One thing we have in common is rhythm.
- ( laughs ) - Bam.
All right, so, okay, so, Rudy, so since this is
"Best Cover Ever," man, why don't you play us out, man.
- All right. - Give us something that we can ride to.
All right.
Hey.
- Perfect. ( laughs ) - Good enough?
- Thanks, bro. - Can't get better than that, man.
- Thank you, man, appreciate it. - I learned a lot right here.