Frankly speaking, it’s easier to be Sinatra than be yourself, a tribute singer tells Steve Pratt.

ALL Stephen Triffitt wanted was some TV exposure so he could put Stars in Their Eyes on his poster and “get a bit more beer money”. What resulted from his appearance on the show was a life as Frank Sinatra.

Not just tonight but every night, he is Sinatra in shows and concerts in this country and the US. His latest production, Sinatra Live At The Sands, offers a glimpse of him in one of his most famous performances – singing at the Sands Hotel, Las Vegas, with the backing of the Count Basie Orchestra. He enjoys the role, loves the music and doing a show with a 17-piece big band.

For 48-year-old Triffitt, the production also offers a chance to be himself. And that is more difficult that being Frank Sinatra. “Because I’ve been playing Frank for so long, to walk on stage and talk as me is the hardest thing,” he says of the show’s opening half in which he is himself.

He’s celebrating a decade of being Frank. “Stars In Their Eyes launched me on a different career to the one I envisaged,” he says. “We all have dreams – we’d like to appear at the Palladium and do this, that and the other. I never thought anything like that would happen.”

When he went on the TV show, he was married and a house-husband.

Now he’s no longer married, the children have grown up and he’s considered the finest Sinatra performer around.

“Singing was really just something to do in the evenings, working in local pubs and clubs. I tried five times to get on Stars In Their Eyes.

The fifth time I was successful and it just went from there.”

He was first aware of hearing Sinatra when he was 13. His father was in the RAF stationed in Malta and Triffitt was listening to British Forces radio in his bedroom when a Sinatra song was played. It struck a chord. “I bought my first Sinatra album when other kids were listening to punk music,” he recalls.

“When you’re singing along you tend to emulate the person you’re singing along with. A lot stuck quite unconsciously when I was singing in the Frank Sinatra way.”

In the US, he’s worked with band members who backed Sinatra. But what he realised was that as a British guy, if he was going to carry on and make a living out of it, he was going to have to work a little harder.

So he began listening more to Sinatra’s singing, studying his performances on video and DVD.

He’s appeared in The Rat Pack stage show, along with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr soundalikes.

“I’ve seen a lot of tribute Sinatras and the mistake they make is try to put every foot stamp, head and shoulder movement into every song he sang. Stephanie Powers came to see me at the Palladium pretty much at the beginning of me doing this. I met her afterwards and she said, ‘the voice is great and you have the mannerisms but you’re doing too much.

Just step back a little bit’.

“I don’t put anything on in my voice to sing in the same tone as Frank. But you need an arrogance and swagger.”

“There are a lot of tribute artists, wannabe Franks, some good, some bad. Anyone can slap a tuxedo on, it’s making it look totally natural,”

he says. “I still class it as a hobby and it beats working for a living. It’s the general public wherever I go who believe I am better than others or the best. My problem now is keeping up that standard.”

■ Sinatra Live At The Sands concert: February 11, York Grand Opera House. For tickets call 0844-847-2322 or visit grandoperahouseyork.org.uk