Martin Nievera. IF you've spent any time at all in the Philippines, you've just sat straight up in your chair. For the rest of you, just imagine if you were in Manila and the local paper had an interview with Bennifer. With 25 albums and record-breaking attendance numbers for his live concerts, this lounge-style crooner is that big. So why is it that when we called him up the other day, we caught him with his pants down?
What's it like to be back in the Golden Nugget? Do you feel the ghosts of Sinatra and Bennett breathing on your neck?
I wish! I feel them at the soles of my feet, and I'm hoping that what rubbed off on them will rub off on me. It's nice just to be asked back to the Golden Nugget. I've been asked to sing here before but to be asked back is truly the honor.
One of your songs is available as a Nokia cell-phone tone.
That's true. Actually, a lot of my songs.
Really? I've got "Be My Lady" as one.
"Be My Lady," "Say That You Love Me," "You Are My Song," "I'll Be There For You." Those are the ring tones. You see, I worked for a telecommunications company as their endorser. You can even chat. Fans actually text a certain number, and these people compile all the questions and they send it to me. I answer the same number, and it's like you're texting the stars.
Was it pretty exciting when the ring-tone deal first happened?
It was great! In fact, I even use it in my shows back home. I haven't used it yet here, but just to prove to everybody that you know you've made it when you become a ring tone. I actually play it back to them. I may even do that here, before my stint ends.
Some of your albums are Chasing Time, then Chasing Time 2; My Souvenirs and More Souvenirs; Forever and Forever Forever and Return to Forever. I thought it's funny that they're repeating themselves like that.
I did a whole album of remakes, adaptations, which I didn't know was going to become a trend at the time. It sold so well that it led to a part two, called Forever Forever. It sold even better. Then it was, "Let's do a part three and call it Return to Forever."
So it was a matter of, "Hey, it worked. If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Exactly! It really worked, and everybody followed the trend, and it became a big thing to do remakes in the Philippines. And then Souvenirs is a compilation of the best of my past albums, and then More Souvenirs became the best of the best.
You've said in previous interviews that you don't want to discuss your personal life with the press, but your songs are a big hit in the Philippines, at least in part, because they document your romances. How do you reconcile that? How do you keep the private life private, while at the same time recording it?
I think it's better to talk about it through songs, so I write songs for every romance. You're correct. You hit the nail on the head. I've been married once before and had two beautiful children, and most of my more beautiful songs were during that marriage. It's my way of expressing what I've learned through this relationship, that relationship, through this heartache, and I've wanted to share it with the people through my music. And those are usually my biggest hits; the ones that have been written by me for some woman in my life, or from someone else whose music I put lyrics to about some woman in my life. It really works with the chicks, too, let me tell you. They love it. "I wrote you a song." "What, you wrote me a song?" "I couldn't say I love you any other way, so here it is," and it becomes a hit. But, more often than not, no one really knows except that girl.
You mentioned your marriage to Pop Fernandez. There was a period when you weren't touring with her at all, and now you're back touring with her again.
It's funny, because we were a big team before we were even married, selling out venues, even all over America. But when we got married, it was still interesting, but not as interesting as when they wanted us to get married. And when we got married, they wanted us to break up. Then we broke up. Now, they want us to get back together again. Since we're friends, we're talking. We've got two children to raise, anyway. "Let's see what would happen, what would the market do if we told them we would do a show together." And it was just historical. Our biggest closed venue in the Philippines holds 20,000 people. We were the only artists who had two shows in the same day. The show was scheduled for this one weekend. It sold out the day it was announced. So they asked, could we do one the following weekend? We said OK, so the following day it sold out. So we had to think of another time to do a third weekend. There were no more openings so we said, why don't we just do a matinee show and a night show. And we had 40,000 people in one day.
You're such a huge star in the Philippines and comparatively unknown here, is it hard to adjust from one lifestyle to the other?
Coming to Las Vegas, I come here as a nobody; I start all over with a clean slate. It is a little hard and frustrating at times when you don't fill up the room when I'm so accustomed to filling up rooms in the Philippines. But I think it's a humbling experience that one needs to go through, especially as I really see myself doing this for life. I don't think I can keep the pace I was keeping in the Philippines for too long. Here in Las Vegas, being a beginner and an unknown, or the new kid on the block, I've been called many things—so far good stuff, but give me time—it's exciting, it's humbling, and it's something I've always wanted to do.
The last question I have is: What have you got in your pockets right now?
As we speak?
Yeah.
The truth?
Yeah.
I'm not wearing any pants. I'm serious. I'm in bed, I'm about to take a nap. But what was in my pocket before this was a cell phone.
Is it a Nokia?
It's a Nokia! It's the new 6600. You can actually send video. You can send video with audio. You can say, "Hey, Martin, I'm here in Las Vegas and this is what the car I'm going to buy looks like," and I show the car and I send it to you. It's about 10 seconds.
So at one of your concerts, while you're playing your tunes, you can photograph the audience.
That would be great. But that's kind of what I've been doing. As pathetic as it sounds, I've been taking pictures of billboards and taxi cabs. I stop taxis in the middle of the road, and I say, "That's me! That's me! Stop, stop!" They think I'm some private investigator, and I take a picture with my phone and I send it via way of multimedia systems and it gets to the Philippine press in two seconds.