Rick Astley has no regrets about retiring at age 27 after gaining global fame in the ’80s with his hit song “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
“I kind of feel that if I hadn’t of done it then I would have self-imploded,” the English-born singer tells Page Six, admitting his heart was “not in it” anymore and it was time to move on.
“The problem with pop music is,” he muses, “when you’re in the real pop end of it like I was, it’s every single minute and hour of everyday or nothing.
“And there is no in-between because everyone else does everything so you have to do everything.”
The 56-year-old adds, that there were always fresh faces coming through the door willing to do things that he wasn’t.
“I was when I started, but I wasn’t in the end so I just thought, I don’t love it enough.”
In 1987, Astley released the single “Never Gonna Give You Up” from his debut album. The song reached No. 1 in 25 countries. Other hits followed like “Together Forever” and the album’s namesake track, “Whenever You Need Somebody,” but by 1994, Astley had had enough. He spent the next few years raising his daughter, Emilie, with wife Lene Bausager.
Around 2007, Astley became the subject of a viral internet meme known as rickrolling. Users click on a seemingly unrelated link only to be led to Astley’s ubiquitous song, “Never Gonna Give You Up,” and in doing so have officially been “Rickrolled.”
Astley is zen about the whole viral phenomenon that has shown no signs of abating.
“Obviously some people are sick to death of the whole Rickrolling thing and anything else to do with it or me, but I think I just have to have a little distance from it,” he explains. “Our daughter actually put me straight on that. Fifteen years she said ‘look just remember it’s kind of got nothing to do with you.'”
He continues, “And I was a bit like, ‘What do you mean?,’ and I couldn’t get what she was talking about and all she was trying to relay to me was that it’s just a thing on the internet. Next week it will be something else, and OK, it has hung around and it’s found its little spot on the internet, but she was absolutely right, once it goes on the internet it doesn’t belong to you anymore.”
Astley is currently on tour, supporting New Kids on the Block, along with Salt-N-Pepa and En Vogue.
“What’s amazing is that The New Kids on the Block go on first so by the time I actually go up there, the crowd’s in full swing, so it’s a lot of fun,” he says. “It’s just been a really nice thing to do for the summer.”
“I said to the guys [New Kids on the Block], one of the main reasons for saying yes to it was I just wanted to go out and have fun after COVID and just not feel the pressure of what everyone’s been under….After what the world’s been through the past couple of years, I think that the priority is just to have a good time,” he says.
The tour will be at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo on Sunday, July 17.