Musician John Matos explains, “I’ve had the dream of making an extreme metal version of Africa for a long time and I was so stoked to join forces with Eddie (Suicide Silence) and Mike (JFAC live) to make it happen. It’s heavy, crushing, melodic, shreddy, and still carries all the elements of the original. We’ll be paying homage with a music video that is a fever dream version of the original. I’m looking forward to doing more covers like these and joining forces with more of my favorite musicians!”
About JOHN MATOS
Beginning his career in 2010 with the release of the debut EP A Universal Plague, John Matos has been playing and touring the world as a founding member of the Miami-based death metal band Abiotic. John is known for his work on both 7- and 8-string guitars, having played extended-range guitars for over 15 years. In addition to his career in metal, John is an active content creator, bridging the metal and comedy world, and garnering tens of millions of views across social media. John is putting focus on releasing more solo material, more recently collaborating with musicians on metal versions of some of the most popular songs of all time. A cover of Africa by Toto, the first of these covers, will be released on September 26th, 2023.
John began his guitar journey at the age of 13, leaning heavily into classic rock, learning songs from Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, and all the greats before being introduced to progressive metal and solo shred guitar players. Bands like Dream Theater, Opeth, and Symphony X, along with shredders like Paul Gilbert, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, and Vinnie Moore, helped shape John as a young guitar player to strive for the balance between technique and feel. Moving into heavier and more technical music in his late teenage years, John sought to bridge the gaps between death metal, technical death metal, and deathcore to create a sound that is crushingly heavy, but melodic and catchy.
Influenced by bands like Gojira, Cynic, Between the Buried and Me, and Necrophagist, John combines his metal influences with influences from jazz, flamenco, hip-hop, and more to develop a signature sound in his riff and solo writing. This can be heard across the band’s entire catalog of albums and EPs, the first two of which were released on Metal Blade Records. The band’s most recent full-length effort, Ikigai, was met with critical acclaim in the metal world and saw the band touring with Suffocation and Belphegor to support. The band has had the opportunity to tour across the US, Europe, and Canada with acts like Cattle Decapitation, The Faceless, Within the Ruins, Dying Fetus, Exhumed, Rivers of Nihil, and more.
