Can Måneskin’s Damiano David Bring Back the Sexy Male Rock Star?

Pop is a particularly narrative genre, requiring a few wins, a few setbacks, and a lot of matters of the heart. This incoming album is, in brief, the story of a lovesick Italian gentleman. It’s a savvy idea, retro and masculine in a nonthreatening, Continental way. “What I really want to do is to bring that Italian class and elegance,” he says. “Everything feels expensive.”

Album credits include a murderers’ row of blue-chip songwriters and producers: Jason Evigan (whose CV includes cowriting for Justin Bieber and Maroon 5) and Sarah Hudson (Katy Perry, Dua Lipa). “It’s two different movies,” Evigan says of the transition from Måneskin to Damiano da solo. Evigan and Hudson were both recruited to work on some of the music on Rush!; the two are uniquely intimate with both Måneskin’s rock and, now, David’s future. “He’s so fluid,” says Hudson. “We wanted heartfelt love songs, vulnerability from a man,” she says, adding, “and I mean, he’s so beautiful to look at.”

What the two seem to locate in their praise about David is his knack for melodrama—the theatrical quality that just so happens to be right in the center of the Venn diagram between rock and pop. Great melodramatic art is overwhelming; it induces a delicious feeling of surrender to its extremes. It’s how the too-muchness of a guitar solo can sometimes ambush you totally, or why the third-act reunion of a romance film has a tendency to pressure-cook your heart. It’s like, as Evigan says, “if MÃ¥neskin was The Crow, or something,” David’s new work “is like The Notebook meets La Dolce Vita.”

Back at the hotel courtyard, David shifts in his seat. “I really want to show people that I don’t take myself seriously.”

So, I ask. Pop David’s a little cartoonish?

“Mm-hmm,” he says. “Yeah.” But David wants to get the ratio just right. “When I’m onstage, of course it’s me because it’s me, but it’s a version of me and it’s a percentage,” he says. “It’s what I decide to bring that night to people.”

He sits and thinks about this for a moment. “When I’m performing rock,” he says slowly, “I’m very focused on getting something from the audience. With pop, I think it’s more for myself.”

Pants by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. Gloves by Maison Margiela.

Mina Tavakoli is a writer from Virginia.

A version of this story poriginally appeared in the April 2025 issue of GQ with the title “Damiano David Is Reviving the Rock Star”

PRODUCTION CREDITS:
Photographs by Dan Jackson
Styled by Katie Grand
Hair by Lachlan Mackie
Skin by Gianluca Ferraro at Etoile Management
Tailoring by Alison O’Brien
Produced by Macro