Who are the Måneskin: from X-Factor to the victory of Sanremo 2021 History and style of the band of the moment

"I am Damiano, and when I grow up I want to be a rocstar." He wrote it like that, misspelled, without the "k", in an elementary school notebook. On the stage of the Ariston, he played it for real, with all the glam aesthetic given by a series of looks by Etro, kilos of kajal and as much attitude as possible. "Claiming their musical and non-musical personality," as Manuel Agnelli, their coach at the time of X Factor, pointed out via Instagram. And, in the end, against all odds, Damiano David and his Måneskin won the first prize.

Young, handsome, talented, sassy, Damiano David, Victoria De Angelis, Thomas Raggi and Ethan Torchio have the arrogance of their twenties, a rock vocation and seem born to be on a stage. Their story, which began in 2015, is a train that runs fast and stops only to collect successes. They met, first Victoria and Thomas, who attended middle school together, then Damiano and Ethan; they started playing music together and decided to call themselves, in honor of the bassist's origins, Måneskin (the "å" is pronounced with an intermediate sound between "a" and "o"), a Danish word meaning "moonlight". From Roman suburban clubs and live shows in Via del Corso to the stage of X Factor 2017, the jump is short, as is the one to reach the hearts (and hormones) of Italian teenagers. The highlights of their journey at Sky's talent are catchy and hard-hitting: many covers, from Somebody Told Me by The Killers to Temporale by Ghemon; a couple of memorable performances under the guidance of Our Lord of Italian indie-rock Manuel Agnelli; liters of black nail polish and eye-liner; fishnet stockings; leather pants and, above all, Damiano as a pole dancer who, wrapping himself around the pole in shorts and latex boots with stilettos, inflamed the audience, including the shyest and morose 80-year-old woman in front of the TV. At the end of the show, they came in second place, but continued to hurtle straight towards success. 

The future of Måneskin? Following the singles Vent'anni and Zitti e buoni, on March 19, 2021 the band will release Teatro d'ira -Vol.I, their new album which will be the first volume of a new larger project telling the creative evolution of the group during the year.