Rick Astley was born in February 1966 in Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside. As a child, he sang in a local church choir before playing drums in local bands as a teenager. When the lead singer of one of those bands, FBI, quit, Astley stepped up to the mic.
He was spotted by record producer Pete Waterman and began an apprenticeship at Waterman’s recording studio. Eventually his time came and after a few minor hit duets, he released his first solo single, Never Gonna Give You Up, in July 1987. The song was a worldwide hit, reaching No 1 in 24 countries, including the United States.
A run of seven UK Top 10 hits followed. Astley retired from the music industry in 1993 at the age of 27, but returned in 2000. Since then – helped by the phenomenon of rickrolling – he’s become a beloved elder statesman of pop.
In his Letter to My Younger Self, Astley looks back at fame, family and the feeling of being embraced by the Glastonbury crowd.
I see my younger self all the time, because I get THAT video thrust in my face from when I was 21. People say that if you become famous at a certain point in your life – if you have that blessing or curse – you remain that age for the rest of your life. There is a sliver of truth to that. But we all think we’re younger, don’t we?
At the age of 16, music was my release. Getting in a band meant I was a bit less invisible, like, that guy with the long red hair who wears his brother’s motorbike jacket to school plays drums in a band and they’re actually pretty good. From then on it felt like we existed.
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My mum had a breakdown. It’s not documented and she didn’t have it diagnosed, that’s just what happened. They had lost a son called David to meningitis before I was born and I don’t think they ever got over that. They never sat anybody, including us, down to talk about it. You didn’t in those days. So we ended up living at my dad’s. I was four or five years old and my mum was living in the same town but wasn’t around in the week. I saw her in the evenings, but she was not part of our house. My parents never, ever spoke again.
Rick Astley in THAT video
I got my first drum kit when I was 14 or 15. It was really crappy, but it was the best thing in my life at that time. My dad always had little businesses – and he threw everything into starting this garden centre. So I got to play drums in this industrial-sized greenhouse in the middle of a field and could make as much noise as I liked. The set-up was weird, though. We also lived there and it was strange to live in an office Portakabin with your dad and older brothers. My sister was in her own house by this point. It was a bizarre upbringing, but there was a sense of freedom because it was four guys doing whatever we wanted. One brother would be ripping the engine out of a car, the other tuning his motorbikes and I’d be smashing the hell out of my drums.
Lots of people end up on a stage because something is driving you to need that attention. For me, it comes from my childhood, because it wasn’t the happiest. It wasn’t horrendous, but my dad was an interesting sort of dude. So interesting I didn’t speak to him for the last 25 years of his life. That’s OK, I dealt with it when I was younger and it was for the best. Because you never knew what you were going to get with him. When I became a parent, I needed to make a choice. I needed more stability, rather than ‘we don’t know what’s coming for the weekend’. I loved him, he loved me, but we were oil and water. And he had a really tough life. So did my mum, god bless them.
My younger self would be confused by my first period of success. Because from being 15 and drumming, then drumming in another guitar band and becoming the singer, doing gigs in Manchester, Warrington and Wigan… well, it would be weird to see me on Top of the Pops that first time. That was a very different sound and look. But then, I also loved a lot of American R&B and soul music, like Luther Vandross and James Ingram. My records were absolute pop records. There’s no doubt. But some of the melodies and the strings on Never Gonna Give You Up are a nod towards that Philadelphia soul sound. I wasn’t black. And I wasn’t trying to be. But they were some of my favourite singers and I stole everything I could from them, simple as that.
Rick Astley with Mike Stock and Pete Waterman at Stringfellows. Image: LANDMARK MEDIA / Alamy
I had a deal. I was there to sing. But I was making tea for everyone. When I first went to Stock, Aitken and Waterman, they were recording the Dead or Alive album that spawned You Spin Me Round (Like a Record). So I made the tea and got the sandwiches on that record! And it was brilliant. Princess had a massive record called Say I’m Your Number One, Mel & Kim were great. But by the time they made a record with me, people were pigeonholing them as just knocking the tunes out. NME and Sounds hated them and everyone who worked with them. The knives were already out. The one who got less tarred and feathered was Kylie. She was given a free pass.
I wish I could have enjoyed my 15 minutes of fame more. But it felt like jumping on to a moving train. The speed of it all. Going from completely unknown to having a number one record almost overnight felt so weird. And then it kept happening everywhere. Each country I went to, I already had a number one record. You’d arrive and people would think they knew you. I’d been on a couple of holidays to Spain or whatever but I hadn’t seen the world. So it swamped me a little bit. I look back at myself sitting on Wogan’s couch or whatever and I want to sit next to my younger self, give him a shake, remind him to enjoy it. If I could whisper one thing to my younger self, I’d say don’t take it all too seriously. You’re making pop music, you’re in your early 20s, just get on with it.
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The music industry is littered with casualties. The lifestyle is so seductive. Who doesn’t want to go to a great bar in Berlin when you’re 21? And I did. Of course I’d have some fun. But I had a guy called Tops [Henderson], who travelled with me and became my manager – we’re still good friends today – and he was a really solid person who has never had a drink in his life. If you’re travelling in that world where there’s a free bar every night and it can suddenly be 4am and you’ve got to be in Holland the next morning – when you’re with someone who doesn’t drink it’s a game changer.
Sometimes love is worth the effort. My wife and I met when she worked at a record label in Copenhagen. We didn’t get together until 18 months later, but I didn’t ever forget her for a single day. When I saw her again, something in me went, ‘if you don’t do something about this, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life.’ It was a really strong, powerful feeling. I’m sure lots of people have done that and it hasn’t worked out, but it certainly did with me.
For a 27 year old, I was freaking loaded. I was not enjoying my music career any more. I wasn’t having the finest moment, we were just hanging on in there, and I was going to New York to do TV. But I’d had enough. I didn’t like flying and didn’t want to be taking pills and drinking just to get on planes every other day. We were on our way to the airport and I said to Tops, I think I’m done. And he just said, all right, let’s go home then.
We had a daughter by then, and I knew if I wasn’t careful I could screw that up. I could screw her up. But I could also screw us up. So it felt like an easy decision. I wanted to be a different dad to my dad, let’s put it that way. Once you’ve got a child it shows up how fucking ridiculous the music thing is. But to be crass about it, I’d made some money. I like saying that not to be like, ‘oh, me and my money’, but because it’s easy to walk away if you don’t have to worry about money. When I think back, I don’t know whether I was saying I was retiring forever. But it’s hard to be a pop star. You can’t take five years out and go straight back into it. Artists can do it. Bands do it. But pop stars? There’s probably less than 10 who’ve done that. Ironically, Kylie’s one of them.
Being British, we love an underdog. And we like a comeback. I think part of why I’ve been allowed back in a little bit is that people know I knocked it on the head before they threw me out. I wasn’t at the peak of my powers but it was my decision to stop when I was 27. So if I was looking at a guy that had his moment in the ’80s and then, bizarrely, had fallen out of bed and had a new moment, then ended up on stage with Foo Fighters and all that? I’d think that was nice. I’m very uncynical about things like that.
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Why not? That’s my thinking these days. Why not do a concert of Smiths songs? I know it’s sacrilege to a lot of people, and that’s OK, but there’s part of me going, fuck it. That goes for a lot of things. So I like playing covers. It’s how I started. And my band are freaking amazing. I love it – it’s like being a fan again. I did a tour 20 years ago of songs my mum and dad loved, Sinatra, that kind of thing. The second day of rehearsing, with the string section there, I spent the whole time crying. It’s that thing about music that triggers childhood memories. In this last 10 years of doing new music again, I’ve gone back into my childhood.
Glastonbury 2023. Image: Peter Neill
If I could relive one day from my life in music, it would have to be that day at Glastonbury in 2023. The two sets that were completely at odds with each other. It was just amazing. So the dude who sings Together Forever and Never Gonna Give You Up has just gone on in a coral pink suit and played some new songs in a set that’s gone down well to lots of people on the Pyramid Stage? Then a few hours later, he’s gone into a tent with over 10,000 people with Blossoms, who are young enough to be his sons – but don’t treat me like their dad or uncle – and sang all the material of The Smiths? This band we absolutely love? You couldn’t make that shit up. It was astonishing. And the crowd was incredible. It was an amalgamation of so many completely nuts things. Just being around Blossoms puts some juice in my battery – it’s not an age thing, it’s their perspective on life and love of music. We share a passion for getting in a room, picking up our instruments and making a racket. I should know better, right? But I’m too old to care.
