Martin, Regine, Gary break the biggest taboo in showbiz, talk about their paychecks

It’s a question that almost never gets an answer during press conferences.
 
But a veteran showbiz columnist asked Martin Nievera, Regine Velasquez and Gary V. anyway: “How much is your worth?”

Martin, the Concert King, typically the most outspoken anywhere you find him, answered first.
 
Don’t command the fees they used to
 
No, he didn’t give exact figures. Nobody did. But each one answered the question in ways that were moving, something you never really get to hear from stars of their caliber.

"To be honest with you, money is not what it used to be,” Martin Nievera related. "We don’t have demanding prices anymore. I don’t know about you guys (Regine and Gary), but I have brought myself down so far just to stay in the game.”

Martin has been in the music scene for 33 years, just two years ahead of Gary and six years before Regine made her debut.
 

‘We love what we do’
 
Times have changed, and so has Martin’s views on the business.

"I love to sing. I love to perform... Christmas, birthdays, wedding, a couple of funerals. Name it. You have to be practical in this biz.” he said.
 
"Minus all of that, one thing we have four in common is we love what we do. I know it sounds really corny, but you’ll be surprised the amount of money that we would sing for is because we love what we do so much."

Asia’s Songbird sings for free

Regine herself admitted that she sings "for free a lot of times,” quite a revelation for someone regarded as the best-selling local artist of all time with over 9.5 million albums sold here and across Asia.

But Gary sees the issue of their talent fees in another way.

"I think with (what Regine said), the fact that the four of us (plus Lani Misalucha) are together, people might say, ‘Grabe, mahal! I’m sure it costs a lot.’  It costs to do anything today,” he reasoned.

‘Sana maging priceless’
 
“But we want to give people more than what they paid for. Something beyond sulit. Sana maging priceless 'yung binigay namin sa Manila,” Gary said of their Ultimate concert scheduled at the Mall of Asia on February 13 and 14.

But if there’s someone who should take the lion’s share of the fees, the artists agreed that it should be their concert director Rowell Santiago.

"I think Direk Rowell has the highest [paycheck] to keep us all behaved. That’s the hardest thing to do. Imagine being the director of this show,” Martin explained.

A 4-in-1 Valentine show

Their Valentine show is the first time all four powerhouse artists have been gathered together in a concert. It’s something they conceded couldn’t have happened 20 years ago because of network affiliations, conflicting schedules and the issue of who goes first when it comes to billing.
 
"Maybe back in the day, it used to be who’s got the biggest paycheck? Wala na, 'di na uso ‘yon,” Martin pointed out.

Regine disclosed, “The four of us have been in the business for such a long time, wala nang competition. The four of us are older 'di na kagaya before.”

Evolving, reinventing

"I know what it’s like to grow old in this industry. It’s very hard, competition is great,” Martin confessed.
 
When asked why no one has replaced them yet, Gary humbly said: "Maybe never, but there will only be better ones. And hopefully when they come out they may have learned enough from us for their careers to shine.”

Martin concluded, “As long as there's song to sing, show to do and people to perform for, we’ll have a gig.”

Read more MUSIC stories