Today we’d like to introduce you to Nick Vallese.
Hi Nick, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I have lived the lives of ten men and a boy, but that’s not what’s important right now. What’s most pressing is that I’ve been sent forward in time to save show business. “Forward in time?” you say, feverishly. “Don’t you mean back in time?” To this, I say— you sound crazy right now. There is obviously no show business in the future. Just a series of the same filtered faces with the same Turkish veneers, desperately posting sponsored content in the hopes they’ll be rewarded with double the weekly water ration. The past – again, for the folks at home keeping track, where I’ve been sent from – is when entertainment meant something. When those who participated in it bled for it, revered it, swore to protect it. When the audiences knew they were receiving something crafted with care, with intentionality, with love. Devotion to the medium. This is the flag I have been placed here, in the year 2026, to wave. Having been here a little while now, I have to say, you need it now more than ever. Frankly, I don’t know how you people can stand it. Luke Bryan, 50 years old, on stage in blue jeans and a baseball cap. Where I come from, if a star took the stage in that ensemble, Don Rickles would be on him like a hungry lion on a wounded gladiator. “Dress for the job you want”, they say. Well, I say, send that guy to work at Jiffy Lube and leave the stage for someone who cares enough to get dressed. Here’s a couple bucks, go buy yourself something nice. You see what I’m saying?
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Oh, sure, it’s been great. The second I got to town, everybody said, “oh, this guy is like a Barbie doll, a Marx Brother, and an early 20th century circus strongman got thrown into a blender. Everything about this makes perfect sense. Let’s give him a job.”
It’s been about as easy as getting an iPad kid to sit through a Cassavetes picture. Somehow, I forged a career. People respond to it. They might not always know what they’re responding to, or why, but they respond. I make them giggle, I make them blush, I make them scream. And that’s just the frat boys, so you can imagine the rest. If you put your soul into something, and you mean what you do, it’ll resonate. For better or for worse, I’ve approached my career with the tact of a bad little boy who pulls on his crush’s pigtails to flirt with her. It got me this far.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am the sole founder, frontman, and kamikaze pilot at the helm of a full-time touring act called Nick Vallese & the Misfit Toys. I have used this act to sell smiles for a living for 8 years. The Toys and I are what one would traditionally call a Top 40 Revue, but injected with a concoction made up of arena rock-style arrangements, classic showbiz sensibilities, and whatever I happen to think is funny, awesome, stupid, highbrow, lowbrow, or any combination thereof. This injection was originally intended for beef cattle and not made for human consumption, but I started selling, and people started buying.
It is a no request show. All predetermined, rehearsed, and structured. Heavy metal crust with a gooey pop center. You want a cheeseburger? Go to a burger shack. There’s one on every corner. You want a truly unique experience, curated and hand-crafted by a man who has devoted his life to the study of cuisine? Come eat at my place. I’ll give you the chef’s table.
I am neither imitated nor duplicated. The size of the manuscript you’d have to study isn’t worth the time.
What’s next?
I have only one goal: to have a tan rivaled only by that of George Hamilton. I don’t care how many men, women, and children have to die for me to achieve this. I will get what I want.
In the meantime, I’ll settle for colleges, theaters, festivals. You can come hang out in my dressing room any time. Walk backstage until the people around you start to look like the cast of a Fellini picture, then keep going until you hear “Say Liza” playing loud enough to turn the sun into a red giant. That’d be me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.nickvallese.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nickvallesemisfittoys/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nvxmt/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nickvallesemisfittoys
