Rick Astley reveals: I still get a tingle from singing

May 13 2008 by Emma Pinch, Liverpool Daily Post

His face used to adorn many a teenage girl’s bedroom, but these days – as Emma Pinch discovers – Rick Astley prefers to live life anonymously

IT’S a sunny day and a 42-year-old bloke is taking a leisurely stroll down a south west London high street, toying with the idea of popping into Waterstones.

He doesn’t attract a single backward glance.

And that’s surprising because, not too long ago, Rick Astley’s smiley face, with its shock of stiff auburn hair, was splashed almost weekly across the centrefold of Smash Hits, as instantly recognisable as bubble-permed Stock Aitken and Waterman stablemate Kylie Minogue.

But, even after 15 years out of the limelight, anonymous is just perfect for Astley.

He, of the rounded Newton-le-Willows vowels and surprisingly basso voice, stepped off the fame band wagon aged just 27 and into the shadows of well-heeled obscurity.

He’s out and about near his home in Kingston when we speak, which he shares with his film producer wife Lene and his 16-year-old daughter, Emilie, and submitting with good grace to a round of interviews to drum up sales for the 80s nostalgia fest, the Here and Now tour.

But he can’t emphasise enough how much it’s not a comeback, and audibly shudders at the idea of any return to fame.

“Here’s what I mean,” he says, lowering his voice. “I’m walking up and down the Putney Shopping Exchange right now just by Putney Bridge and no-one’s looking at me, no-one’s thinking ‘there’s Rick Astley’. No-one ever does.

“I come here every now and again to meet my manager because the record company’s over the road, and we have lunch or I potter around and very rarely anyone recognises me.

“And I’m quite happy with that.”

“Weird” is the word that crops up most often when he’s talking about his bete noire, fame.

He is very candid about his experiences, and scrupulously monitors what he says for any signs of arrogance.

When he quit in the early 90s, he’d sold a total of 40m records and had 13 top 30 singles.

“I had just had enough of it and our daughter was born by then. And it was very easy to say, I don’t want to do this any more.

“It was that same old pop star rubbish, moaning about travel and about this and that. Who wants to hear it, I’m sick of hearing it and I’m one of the ones who did it,” he grimaces.

“It’s not what you dreamt it was as a kid, when you had your tennis racquet in front of the mirror. You thought it was about the music, about the singing and getting in front of people. No, it’s not,” he says with feeling.

“It’s about miming on TV, usually after a juggler and before the camel who can do the trick or what have you.

“Every country you go to has their funny bonkers Saturday evening show, and you’re the guest and you come off and think, ‘What the hell was that?’