Fame's downside? Social media conmen. "People with fake accounts posing as me asking for money. There is only one official account, any other account using my name is fake." To date he has performed for King Charles III and Queen Camilla, President Joe Biden, and the Sussexes. But Matteo rates family over celebrity. "Together with music, the thing I love most is to spend quality time with my family and friends," he says. "Sitting around a table with the people I love, with wine and food, talking about life and love." La dolce vita in a nutshell.

Home is a Tuscan farmhouse with tomato vines, olive groves, chickens, pigs, and a dog called Tosca. Here you will find Bocelli tinkering with old cars or making his own pasta. His well-received debut album, 2023's Matteo, featured Chasing Stars, a touching ballad penned by Ed Sheeran and his brother Matt. Ed had famously collaborated with dad Andrea on the 2017 track, Perfect Symphony, but Matteo had been a fan ever since he saw him open for Taylor Swift in 2014. "I knew him from Lego House, but the way he was able to entertain a whole stadium, just him and a guitar. Oh my gosh. That's when I fell in love with him as an artist. It's not just Ed's music, though, he's a wonderful human being." US composer Jon Batiste impresses him too - "I love the way he just follows his soul."

If he was just riding his father's coattails, Matteo's career would have already tanked. Instead, he's acquired 1.7million followers on Instagram and more than 4.6million likes on TikTok. Authenticity is the key, he says. "It's important in life to show yourself the way you really are. Music is about feelings and if you're not authentic, people will sense it. Only by being convinced in yourself are you able to convince an audience. That's the strength of every artist. If you don't really love what you do, you don't survive." Along the way, Matteo has appeared in The Simpsons and made his screen debut with Hackney's own Idris Elba in the 2022 fantasy film, Three Thousand Years Of Longing. Bocelli played Prince Mustafa, and sang Cautionary Tale on the soundtrack, Elba starred as the Djinn.

Matteo released his second album, Falling In Love on Friday. From epic opener To Get To Love You to the warm and melodious closer Caruso via the insidiously catchy For You, the 11 classy tracks are sauteed in timeless romance, languid longing, and pop sensibility. He co-wrote every original song with top-drawer tunesmiths including Toby Gad (Beyonce, John Legend) and Iain Archer (Liam Gallagher, Niall Horan). "The most important thing is to get in the room together with their ideas. I usually come up with different lyrics and musical suggestions, then we develop them. I enjoy that creative process." He sees himself as a simple romantic singing ballads. The moving To Get To Love You, co-written with Grammy-winner Amy Wadge, hits that mark.

Stand-outs include a cover of Mi Historia - "a beautiful song released before I was born; the original was more melancholy; our version is lighter and summery." There is also a rare move up-tempo on Love Like This. Matteo's last world tour ran for eight months, playing to more than 100,000 fans and selling out iconic venues like Sydney Opera House and Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame. Matteo won't eat for at least six hours before a performance. "The show is pretty much all on me, you must give everything," he says, adding with a smile, "I would love to relax a lot, but I don't have time - there's going to be time to rest, now I must push the gas."

After European dates, he hits England for three 90 minute concerts in November; then come the USA, South America, and Australia. "I feel extremely privileged to have the chance to travel the world with my music. It's beautiful. If I can keep going this way for the next ten years, I'll be thrilled. If I ever stop loving music, I'll call you, Garry, and we'll have an interview about it."