At first, Nick Fradiani didn’t think he was going to go on tour with the show, “A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical.”
He had just wrapped up nine months playing the younger version of Neil Diamond (credited as “Neil – Then”) in the Broadway production when the show closed. “I was pretty content with how we left everything,” Fradiani says from a tour stop in Michigan. “When the offer came to do the tour, I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to go back on the road.”
Fradiani has spent many years essentially living on the road. Before winning season 14 of “American Idol” back in 2015, he traveled widely singing and playing guitar in a band called Beach Avenue along with his father, who played keyboards. After the national exposure of “Idol,” he toured even more extensively.
“I was thinking about the Beautiful Noise tour a lot and posted a video of me singing ‘I Am..I Said’ on Facebook,” Fradiani remembers. “It went a little viral and there was like over a hundred thousand comments; it was crazy.
“I saw that there were a lot of people that hadn’t seen the Broadway show and were excited for it to get out on the road. I was like, ‘Man, it would be pretty cool to go share this with the country.”
“A Beautiful Noise” arrives in Richmond next week and Fradiani has been with the tour since it kicked off last September.
The show uses a framing device unlike any other jukebox musical: in an extended therapy session with a psychologist, an older Neil Diamond (“Neil – Now”) works through his sometimes crippling self doubt. He reflects on the highs and lows of his career, so we see the younger version of him emerge in flashback as one of many now-legends who worked at the Brill Building in the 1960s.
Diamond first gained fame writing songs like “I’m A Believer” for The Monkees but he would go on to be a singing-songwriting superstar for decades, ultimately scoring 10 number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100.
It seems like destiny fulfilled for Fradiani to end up starring in “Noise.”
“When I was a kid, I listened to what my father played and, as a musician, he had very eclectic musical tastes,” Fradiani says. “He was a hardcore Beatles fan but he also really loved Neil Diamond. When he brought me to my first concert, it was to see Neil.”
Fradiani would grow up to become what he calls “a rock obsessive,” cultivating a personal sound that was more in the Bruce Springsteen/Tom Petty vein. His powerful voice, mastery of straight-ahead rock and innovative arrangements of classic hits gained him the support he needed to win “American Idol.”
While he never expected to be doing musical theater, he’s found it’s helped fill out his career in a satisfying way.
“If you told me 10 years ago I’d be doing a musical, I would have never believed you,” Fradiani says. “But not everybody ends up being Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood. You learn to maneuver yourself to continue your career. Making a living playing music was always the goal.”
He says he always wants to write songs and perform his own music. “But I can’t predict what is going to happen with my music.”
In the meantime, Fradiani finds satisfaction in making crowds happy.
“I’ve done the show over 700 times so that’s a lot of ‘Sweet Caroline,’” he laughs. “It can be a grind sometimes, but it’s a good problem to have.”
“A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical” will have eight performances at the Altria Theater, 6 North Laurel St. from April 15-20. Tickets and information at https://broadwayinrichmond.com/.
