July 11, 2014

Sneak Peek of Frankie Valli’s Interview in Rock Cellar Magazine! @frankievalli @RockCellarMag

July 11th, 2014

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Rock Cellar Magazine’s Ken Sharp has a fantastic interview with legendary pop icon Frankie Valli, who chats about the success of JERSEY BOYS, his phenomenal career and success for over five decades, and his philosophy of never giving up. Check out a preview below:

Rock Cellar Magazine: What do you attribute the incredible success of Jersey Boys?

Frankie Valli: I think the success of the show was certainly about the fact that most people didn’t know that much about us. We kept our lives very quiet. It was a period of time where we had this feeling if anybody knew that you were ever in trouble you wouldn’t be able to get a record deal and radio wouldn’t play you.

Today you need to get arrested in order to have a success so things have really changed quite a bit. (laughs)

Rock Cellar Magazine: Was there a moment in your career where you realized you had found your voice as a singer?

Frankie Valli: Very early on I was doing Sherry, Big Girls Don’t Cry and Walk Like A Man and I was having a lot of fun doing it and enjoying it. But I wasn’t being Frankie Valli. I wasn’t singing standards. I wasn’t singing what I look at as being really great songs. I didn’t want to do pop music. We made a plan right from the beginning that once The Four Seasons were launched, that I would have a shot doing solo records and it was terrific.

That’s when I had the opportunity to do songs like Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You, My Eyes Adored You and Swearin’ To God. I never really concentrated on my solo career. It was enough that I could whet my appetite and do all of these others things and I was still a part of The Four Seasons. I never had any intention of leaving the group. And even if I left and appeared anywhere, I’d have to do the songs that people knew me for doing. So I’d have to get another group to do them with. When the original Four Seasons all fell apart it was very saddening to me. The time during the Motown period was very rough. I was on the road and taking everything that came along and Bob was producing and writing for Motown and getting a salary from that.

Whatever was left after paying debts we got to keep. But there was a time after all the success that I had I was living on $350 a week. Nobody really knew that we were going through all of this.

Visit RockCellarMagazine.com to read the entire interview with Frankie Valli!

1 Comment »

  1. Thanks for introducing me to Rock Cellar webzine. I had not seen it before. In addition to the good FV interview it has a FV4S quiz. Nice to see Frankie get his due. Rolling Stone: we’re still waiting.

    Comment by Charles Alexander — July 12, 2014 @ 1:17 am

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