September 19, 2010

Australian Jersey Boys’ Reflections on Playing The Four Seasons

September 19th, 2010

Jersey Boys Melbourne
JERSEY BOYS Australia’s Four Seasons: Stephen Mahy (Bob Gaudio), Scott Johnson (Tommy DeVito), Glaston Toft (Nick Massi), and Bobby Fox (Frankie Valli)

Garrett Bithell of SX News has a fun interview with the Australian actors who play The Four Seasons–Bobby Fox (Frankie Valli), Scott Johnson (Tommy DeVito), Stephen Mahy (Bob Gaudio), and Glaston Toft (Nick Massi). Here’s a preview:

In stark contrast to their spritely doo-wop songs, The Four Seasons were actually the brooding, gritty antithesis of squeaky-clean, media-darling contemporaries like The Beatles and The Beach Boys. They moved in a tough world, the world of Bruce Springsteen, of The Sopranos, of the young Sinatra. A world ruled by the mafia.

“They lived that life before it was fashionable, before we started making TV series about it,” Fox, who plays falsetto-strong frontman Valli, says. “If they were doing it these days they’d be Justin Bieber! Frankie Bieber!

“It was never an easy road for them ? best friends betraying them, Tommy getting into a lot of debt with the mafia through his gambling, family members dying.”

Certainly, The Four Seasons were never fashion-magazine pretty boys, they were working stiffs with unsavoury connections. It’s perhaps no surprise then that the media rarely touched them, and their record company did little by way of promotion, which goes a long way to explain their lack of public profile today.

“Things were really different back in the 60s and 70s,” Stephen Mahy, who plays Gaudio, asserts. “If you weren’t publicized in magazines, people didn’t know who you were. They’d listen to the songs on the radio and think it sounds like a girl singing!”

Indeed, Valli is famous for his unusually strong falsetto register, which is an incredible challenge for Fox to recreate each night. “It’s tough,” the charming Irish joker admits. “It’s constant maintenance ? a lot of warm up, a lot of cool down, technique, water, not too much booze or coffee. You’ve got to keep yourself happy and let go every now and then, but everything in moderation.”

Read the entire interview on SXNews.

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