Jason Mantzoukas

Mantzoukas was born in Lynn, Massachusetts and raised in Nahant, Massachusetts, and is the oldest child of Cynthia (née Mourousas) and William Mantzoukas, second-generation Greek-Americans. He has one younger sister, Melissa. He has described himself as "100 percent Greek".

Mantzoukas began taking drum lessons at age 10 and studied under Steve Barrett for over 8 years. In interviews, he has cited Stewart Copeland, Stephen Perkins from Jane's Addiction, and Jimmy Chamberlin from The Smashing Pumpkins as his biggest influences as a young musician. He participated in jazz and marching bands in high school, as well as playing in a cover band called Slygoul. He continued with jazz drumming in college and played for a bebop group.

Mantzoukas attended Swampscott High School, graduating in 1991. While attending, he was named captain of Swampscott's boys' soccer and track teams and was president of the marching band. He attended Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont, where he majored in religion. He attempted to defend a "terribly written" honors thesis on religious iconography (which he admits to starting a week prior to his defense date) but was not given credit to graduate with honors.

After graduating from college in 1995, Mantzoukas was granted a Watson Fellowship and traveled throughout North Africa and the Middle East studying religious and transcendental music for nearly two years. He has admitted to having a "horrible [grant proposal] but was charming in the room; so [he earned the grant]." At the time he left for Morocco for the Watson Fellowship, he had already had six auditions and callbacks for the Blue Man Group, but he ultimately decided to travel before the audition process was complete. He lived in Morocco for about 7½ months while studying and recording Gnawa music. While abroad, he traveled to Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Jordan, and Syria. During his time abroad, he was arrested numerous times, once in Morocco for having an expired tourist visa and again in Turkey to prevent him from traveling through an active war zone.