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Rick Astley in THAT video<\/p>\nMy mum had a breakdown. It\u2019s not documented and she didn\u2019t have it diagnosed, that\u2019s just what happened. They had lost a son called David to meningitis before I was born and I\u00a0don\u2019t think they ever got over that. They never sat anybody, including us, down to talk about it. You didn\u2019t in those days. So we ended up living at my dad\u2019s. I was four or five years old and my mum was living in the same town but wasn\u2019t around in the week. I saw her in the evenings, but she was not part of our house. My parents never, ever spoke again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rick Astley in THAT video<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 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\u00a0and it was strange to live in\u00a0an office Portakabin with your\u00a0dad 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\u2019d be smashing the hell out of my drums.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u2019t the happiest. It wasn\u2019t horrendous, but my dad was an interesting sort of dude. So interesting I didn\u2019t speak to him for the last 25 years of his life. That\u2019s 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 \u2018we don\u2019t know what\u2019s coming for the weekend\u2019. 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u2026 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\u00a0records were absolute pop records. There\u2019s 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\u2019t black. And I wasn\u2019t trying to be. But they were some of my favourite singers and I stole everything I could from them, simple as that. \u00a0<\/p>\n
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Rick Astley with Mike Stock and Pete Waterman at Stringfellows. Image: LANDMARK MEDIA \/ Alamy<\/p>\n
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\u2019m 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\u00a0Sounds 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u2019d arrive and people would think they knew you. I\u2019d been on a couple of holidays to Spain or whatever but I hadn\u2019t seen the world. So it swamped me a little bit. I look back at myself sitting on Wogan\u2019s 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\u2019d say don\u2019t take it all too seriously. You\u2019re making pop music, you\u2019re in your early 20s, just get on with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The music industry is littered with casualties. The lifestyle is so seductive. Who doesn\u2019t want to go to a great bar\u00a0in Berlin when you\u2019re 21? And I did. Of course I\u2019d have some fun. But I had a guy called Tops [Henderson], who travelled with me and became my manager \u2013 we\u2019re still good friends today \u2013 and he was a really solid person who has never had a drink in his life. If you\u2019re travelling in that world where there\u2019s a free bar every night and it can suddenly be 4am and you\u2019ve got to be in Holland the next morning \u2013 when you\u2019re with someone who doesn\u2019t drink it\u2019s a game changer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Read more:<\/p>\n
Sometimes love is worth the effort. My wife and I met when she worked at a record label in Copenhagen. We didn\u2019t get together until 18 months later, but I didn\u2019t ever forget her for a single day. When I saw her again, something in me went, \u2018if you don\u2019t do something about this, you\u2019re going to regret it for the rest of your life.\u2019 It was a really strong, powerful feeling. I\u2019m sure lots of people have done that and it hasn\u2019t worked out, but it certainly did with me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For a 27 year old, I was freaking loaded. I was not enjoying my music career any more. I wasn\u2019t having the finest moment, we were just hanging on in there, and I was going to New York to do TV. But I\u2019d had enough. I didn\u2019t like flying and didn\u2019t 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\u2019m done. And he just said, all right, let\u2019s go home then. \u00a0<\/p>\n
We had a daughter by then, and I knew if I wasn\u2019t 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\u2019s put it that way. Once you\u2019ve got a child it shows up how fucking ridiculous the music thing is. But to be crass about it, I\u2019d made some money. I like saying that not to be like, \u2018oh, me and my money\u2019, but because it\u2019s easy to walk away if you don\u2019t have to worry about money. When I think back, I don\u2019t know whether I was saying I was retiring forever. But it\u2019s hard to be a pop star. You can\u2019t take five years out and go straight back into it. Artists can do it. Bands do it. But pop stars? There\u2019s probably less than 10 who\u2019ve done that. Ironically, Kylie\u2019s one of them.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Being British, we love an underdog. And we like a comeback. I think part of why I\u2019ve been allowed back in a little bit is that people know I knocked it on the head before they threw me out. I wasn\u2019t 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 \u201980s 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\u2019d think that was nice. I\u2019m very uncynical about things like that.<\/p>\n Advertising helps fund Big Issue\u2019s mission to end poverty<\/p>\n Why not? That\u2019s my thinking these days. Why not do a concert of Smiths songs<\/a>? I know it\u2019s sacrilege to a lot of people, and that\u2019s OK, but there\u2019s part of me going, fuck it. That goes for a lot of things. So I like playing covers. It\u2019s how I started. And my band are freaking amazing. I love it \u2013 it\u2019s 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\u2019s that thing about music that triggers childhood memories. In this last 10 years of doing new music again, I\u2019ve gone back into my childhood.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s gone down well to lots of people on the Pyramid Stage? Then a few hours later, he\u2019s gone into a tent with over 10,000 people with Blossoms, who are young enough to be his sons \u2013 but don\u2019t treat me like their dad or uncle \u2013 and sang all the material of The Smiths? This band we absolutely love? You couldn\u2019t 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 \u2013 it\u2019s not an age thing, it\u2019s 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\u2019m too old to care.<\/p>\n Rick Astley\u2019s The Reflection Tour<\/a> plays across the UK and Ireland this April <\/p>\n Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this?\u00a0Get in touch and tell us more<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Change a vendor\u2019s life.<\/p>\n Buy from your local Big Issue vendor every week \u2013 and always take the magazine. It\u2019s how vendors earn with dignity and move forward.<\/p>\n Advertising helps fund Big Issue\u2019s mission to end poverty<\/p>\n You can also support online: Thank you for standing with Big Issue vendors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My mum had a breakdown. It\u2019s not documented and she didn\u2019t have it diagnosed, that\u2019s just what happened.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,40074,85,1037,46,157732,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-387697","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-from-the-magazine","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-interview","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-letter-to-my-younger-self","14":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/35-birthday-subs_FINAL_v3_800x250.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1712-Rick_Astley_Drop_in_04.jpg\")
Glastonbury 2023. Image: Peter Neill<\/p>\n
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