Rick Astley: Generational trauma, gut instincts, and village halls

0:00Hello and welcome to a brand new series of Happy Place with me Fern Cotton. This is the show that reflects on the events that made us who we are now. Today, I'm chatting to Rick Astley. My dream became my life, as it were, and it wasn't the dream I thought it was. It was just kind of like, what the hell is this, you know? I was kind of almost chasing my tail all the time, like trying to find out how do I fit into it? And yet everyone thought I was the person at the front of it. And I was. I even think it's not a very kind word to say control because it feels like people were controlling me. they weren't they were just laying down the path for me do you know what i mean i just walked down it and i think i don't really do that anymore i kind of like i'm i'm sort of putting the bricks in the road for myself to walk down which i really love it's been 36 years since rick first shot to fame and now he's back making music and if you saw his glastonbury set earlier this year you could happily say he's back with more energy than ever and even better suits that glastonbury set was absolute pure joy.

1:05He performed all the classics, of course, and it was really interesting to hear in this chat how he feels about those songs, Never Gonna Give You Up, Together Forever, Now. But he also performed a really euphoric set of songs by the Smiths with the brilliant band Blossoms 2. We talk about that. As you're hearing this conversation, he's basically just doing all the cool stuff that he wants to do now, which is just the best way to live life. There's real beauty in letting go and not having your life completely mapped out for you. Just following your heart and instincts in whatever direction they lead you.

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3:07Always family. So pull up a chair and join us at Fremont Avenue, a world premiere play only at Arena Stage. Performances start October 8th. Tickets at arenastage.org. Bubba Wallace here with Tyler Reddick. You know what's more nerve-wracking than waiting for qualifying results? Waiting for the green flag to drop. Instead of pacing, you rev up with Chumba Casino's weekly new releases. It's like a fresh set of tires for your brain. Play for free at ChumbaCasino.com. Let's Chumba! No purchase necessary. VGW Group Voidware prohibited by law. CT &C's 21 Plus, sponsored by Chumba Casino.

3:47Okay, here you go then. This is the show.

4:13Hey Rick. Hey. How you doing? I'm good actually, I am good. I feel, how do I feel? I feel good and optimistic. We just did a couple of festivals this weekend. And sometimes it can be a bit daunting being 57 years old and seeing lots of kids in the audience and a mastiff in the other. And both of them were absolutely brilliant. So I've had my batteries refilled, I think, this weekend. That's so cool. I mean, you mentioned there, like, obviously you've got all these different generations now into your music. And you truly have. Because when I talk, my kids are off school for the summer at the moment.

4:45And they're down the park right now. But my son was like, can I come back and meet Rick? because they've been singing They're Gonna Give You Up as their end-of-year song in school. Madness. And listen, I don't ever take that for granted and I don't fool myself that I now have a young audience. You know, I've got an old audience, if I've got an audience at all, they're my age. But I know when I go to festivals, that's a whole mixed bag of everything. And I think what's been proved over the last couple of years, and obviously we got to do Glastonbury this year, which is the biggest one, and it's kind of nuts, is you look out and you go, okay, that's just everything and everybody.

5:18that's just everything and everybody um and yeah they might have come to see whoever whatever but festivals do things to people it's really really weird um and i i experienced that a tiny bit of glass and reaper i didn't really get to see many bands to be honest because i was too busy doing my own thing and you know fretting um but um um but it did make me when i when i when i went to see the hives because i really like i love the lives i'm a closet rocker really but you know and I saw Texas, I'm friends with Charlene and I love Texas anyway, just a really great songwriting team and everything and I went to see them and I was kind of just taking notes really because she was amazing with the audience and I kept looking at the audience going, some of these kids are just too young to know every word of this, but they do.

6:05And it reminds me sometimes when I see somebody else doing it more than doing my own set to just go, just lap it up, enjoy it. If they know the words, great, enjoy that. Don't think about it too much. just get involved you know I mean you said you were busy at Glastonbury you were super busy because you did several things we did several things yeah yeah but I was really lucky as well I got to do some pieces with the BBC they like followed me around and you know because I'd been to Glastonbury to drop our daughter off many times but never been in and been to Glastonbury never mind played at it and on the pyramid stage oh my god yeah so so it's pretty bonkers that yeah and when when the first when it first came around it was before uh COVID so it obviously you know nobody played Glastonbury And then I kind of thought, you know what, they're not going to ask again.

6:48So when they did, it was pretty amazing. And I kind of thought, I know what's going to happen. They're going to say, look, we'd love you back, but we're going to have to stick you over here and you're going to have to play on this stage over here, which would be great anyway. But no, they said, no, we still want you back and we still want you on Pyramid. I'm like, yep. Yes, and you're wearing a sick suit. It was an amazing set. And you played with Blossoms. We did, yeah, which is just a whole mad universe in itself. I don't know whether you've met those guys. They're lovely. Really nice guys. I've been on their podcast as well, actually.

7:19Oh, right. Really good chaps. Well, that's how we cemented our kind of like friendship, I guess. Because we got talking about bands from Manchester and influences from Manchester and that whole thing, because obviously they're from Stockport. Yeah. And obviously that Smith thing is a bit weird. And I know it's probably something we shouldn't do on the one end. Nobody should touch it. But I also think we're not doing it from any sense other than that we just love those tunes and we got into a conversation about and I said well I've got this weird I've had a few alternate headspace universes in my life where I sort of thought I'd really love to just do that and it's not a career move I just want to do it and one of them has always been to sing Smith songs um I was a bit of a Smith freak when I was a kid and one of my older brothers was and he kind of introduced me to them and then and we just kind of shared records over that whole period and everything and I told the guys this and then they got back in touch and said well we'll be the band you know and anyway because they're blossoms and what have you and we've got some lovely people around us we get to do to do it on proper stages rather than doing it in the pub i would do it in the pub i would genuinely do it in the pub it was so good i've got a three-piece rock band with two friends where i play drums we only do it for charity because we'd never get away with it if we didn't i play drums and sing and we just play from like the punk era from when the three of us were kids learning we've met each other later in life if you know we didn't know each of those kids um but we share a love for like kind of like three chord nangy rock and so we go and do that sometimes you know and i've played in richmond by the way just you know i've played in the church played you know in the church down at the bottom of the hill just before yeah we played in the basement of that and i had to stop a fight middle-aged mums and dads in richmond and i had to stop a fight yeah it was in the middle of i think it was in the middle of like something like teenage kicks or a sex pistol song that we were doing and my mum was there as well by the My mum's passed now, but my mum was there because she was down for this long weekend.

9:13And I said, look, when we're doing this, no, I'd love to come. I said, mum, you don't want to come to this, believe me, but she came. And yeah, so I do have a bit of a passion for doing things that have got nothing to do with my regular everyday musical whatever, just because I love it. I love it. It's about the music. Yeah. And that's, I want to get onto that in a minute as there's so much to say. but first of all I want to go back to this Blossoms moment because like you say it's formed for your love of the Smiths and your love of just playing music at the end of the day it's about the music and appreciating a brilliant band like Blossoms how did you view them in their career at the moment they're in their 20s, they're at the peak of their career how do you think it differed to when you were in your 20s going through that craziness, travelling the world there's a lot, I mean there's huge differences straight off they're a band, they're a live band I know they obviously record records, but they play a lot live.

10:05And when I had my break, it wasn't about playing live. It was about sending me around the world to go on TV because TV then was all that mattered. MTV obviously was massive. It was about television. We didn't have the internet, which if you think about that for a second is mind-blowing, but we didn't. It was so lovely. It was so nice. Yeah, maybe, yeah. But in terms of how people found music and listened to music, MTV was a huge thing. You know, I mean, it was super cool and super, you know, everything. So, but going to, you know, wherever in the world to go on a big Saturday night TV show, Friday night TV show was all anybody was concerned about with someone like me because I was singing pop songs that didn't really fit into the kind of rock and roll.

10:49Certainly didn't fit into, festivals weren't a thing particularly at that time, unless you were a serious rock band. So obviously they're a band, they make their own music. It's just very, very different. but also the main thing I think for me is the internet. A band like that, half their focus has to be about how would this come across, not just from streaming because that's just a way of actually listening to the music. It doesn't really matter that it's streamed or you play it on vinyl, whatever. But in terms of the perception of them, it's completely different, I think. And also because I was around at the end of the 80s when I kind of started, 87 first record.

11:22We'd been through a period in the 80s where it was so glamorous, it was unbelievable. but I'm talking about Simon Le Bon hanging off the front of a yacht in the Caribbean do you know what I mean those were the days and don't get me wrong you've also got the Smiths and you've also got other things which sort of counterbalance that but I think the 80s definitely from a video perspective changed the way people perceived music and what they thought about it, I think it did anyway and if you go back to like I know the Beatles and old bands from that legendary of the Stones they had films and footage job than performing but they didn't really per se make videos for every track do you know i mean it wasn't uh the 60s just weren't the same the 70s weren't the same it's when the 80s came in that that really kind of conquered it and um so i think for me it was more about the look of it not that not more important than the music but it was just massively important you know yeah um and that was very much driven by the industry which from my understanding and the interviews that I've heard you do previously, when you decided to quit age 27 in the 90s, it was more to do with the fact that you were kind of sick of that side of it.

12:28Yeah, I didn't feel like a musician. I felt like a salesman, really. And nothing wrong with anybody who's a salesman or a saleswoman. That's a job, you know what I mean? But my dream became my life, as it were. And it wasn't the dream I thought it was. It was just kind of like, what the hell is this, you know? And I was so far removed from making music most of the time. I mean, obviously Stockhead, King Waterman wrote Never Gonna Give You Up Together Forever, and they're the biggest songs I've got. I did write some of the songs on the second album. I actually had a couple of singles, and that came about under weird circumstances, really.

12:59But the truth of it was I was fitting into something pretty much all the time. And even songs that I wrote around that time, I was trying to please Pete Waterman, really. I was trying to think, well, how do I move my elbows enough to get on this record without me just singing on it? and don't get me wrong it's not like I'm not proud of them as a kid writing songs I am proud of them I still sing them live and all the rest of it I don't just mean they're big ones they're stock kicking what man they're never going to give you up and what have you I'm not about a song like she wants to dance with me at home in your arms which I wrote but I did write them within the confines of like being a 22 year old or whatever I was who just had this really big hit record never going to give you up and it's like well I'm not going to go and write death metal I'm not going to go and write something that's really kind of guitar led and this that and the other even though I'd been in bands who basically were it with we weren't death metal but we were very much more a guitar band you know it was weird actually I was kind of almost chasing my tail all the time like trying to find out how do I fit into it and yet everyone thought I was the person at the front of it and I was but when you're with a production team like that not even not even that I even think Whitney Houston probably went through a bit of that because obviously she didn't write I don't think maybe any of her songs I don't know worked with some amazing people and great people and got some bangers there's no doubt about that and it's got a voice from heaven just absolutely incredible but how much she was in not in control because I think that's not it's not a very kind word to say control because it feels like people were controlling me they weren't they were just laying down the path for me do you know what I mean I just walked down it and I think I don't really do that anymore I kind of like I'm I'm sort of putting the bricks in the road for myself to walk down which I really love you know yeah which you get from years of experience and wisdom and understanding the business and your own skill set but back then it is i mean i totally get it because i probably every few months go i'm quitting i can't do this anymore i'm overwhelmed it's all too much i just need some headspace i really have a tendency to sort of freak out in that way and i have actually jumped ship quite a few times with leaving radio one and whatnot when i felt like i can't be in that position anymore but at 27 that is quite extreme to go not i'm taking a break I'm quitting yeah what do you think that reaction was about well I'd got to a point where I've still got a fear of flying I don't like flying I do it because obviously there's no other way really to get to certain places but in Europe I drive everywhere so I've just driven to Hungary to do a gig wow from Hungary I drove to Copenhagen to do one and I'll be doing that for the foreseeable future I think I do fly and I'm flying to Ireland next week actually for a gig but I think I got to a point where I thought I've got a very young daughter and I am basically on the point of taking a pill and drinking to get on a plane and I'm like this is the beginning of books I've read or this is the end of actually books I've been thinking about it and you think that isn't good and and I think I was trying to find a way to just sort of get past it and I wasn't doing very well at doing that and I thought well the fear of flying is one thing and I've still got it but I don't think it was the fear somebody said to me and I did quite a bit of therapy over it as well and I don't know whether it was the therapist or somebody said to me at some point you basically just don't want to go there it's not about the flying and I said no it's about the flying but but I understood it and I kind of started to take that on board and think yeah maybe you just don't want to do this anymore and I don't think I did I mean I kind of you know I wasn't certainly anywhere near having anything like a peak or anything I was kind of on the slippery slope down anyway and I just thought it's really hard it's and don't get me wrong I don't mind things being hard but you've got to love them if they're hard you have to love them to want to do it don't you absolutely you I can't be not in love with it and it hard.

16:37And I'll be crass as well. I'd made money. I'm from a very working class town. I've had a working class upbringing. All my uncles on my dad's side pretty much had little businesses. My dad had a little business. I was always around people, for one, working hard, but also having a thing about money, understanding money a little bit, i.e. there is a tax man. VAT is a thing. And loads of musicians don't know that. And it's the age-old thing, footballs. I'm sure they do now, but footballs didn't know that. You know what I mean? they kind of had a football career bought a pub and lost it all do you know what I mean and that's the age old and I kind of feel that I don't know really I think having made some money I kind of thought okay so I've got a beautiful daughter a beautiful partner who's now my wife and I can actually just kick back and enjoy this I don't have to do this nonsense and I wasn't enjoying it so on the one end I can understand that for a lot of people perhaps it seems like a you know people have even used the word brave decision it's not brave it's just like this is an amazing alternative is to not do it anymore yeah I mean I think um when people use that word it's it's it probably alludes to the fact that you had to overcome some fear because you had to overcome the financial fear I'm from working class background I don't think you ever just feel like oh everything's going to be okay forever you've got that sort of ingrained in you from seeing your parents work hard or whatever but I think also it having been your big dream for years to make it the music industry And then having had that success and not just a little bit of success, global success, flying around the world, you know, number one in 25 countries at one time.

18:07That is a lot to say goodbye to. And to make that decision, I think it might not be brave in your mind, but I think you have to push past that fear. Yeah, it's it's very seductive. I think the music business, it really, really is. And, you know, like you only have to go to L.A. the first time in your life through music, let's say, where you go to a great hotel. and we used to stay at this hotel called the Sunset Marquis, which maybe you've been to yourself. You're grinning, so I know you have. And it's not debauchery. There's a bar in that hotel where I'm like, I've got shudders thinking about it.

18:37But it's not like it's debauchery or it's this, that and the other. It's just one of the things I loved about it and I still don't get over it today. If I walk past somebody that I, I mean, if I don't admire them or respect them or this, respect's not right. I don't disrespect people, but I'm saying if they're not my thing, then I can look and go, oh, there's what's her name or what's his name? I can go, meh. but if I kind of really like them and like their music I get a bit tongue-tied and a bit like I just I still do and I find that weird considering I'm 57 I have met a lot of people who have had that emotion and feeling about because of the music they've made or something they've done and that place is just bonkers because like you two are sat having the breakfast Depeche Mode have just got out the pool Robert plants sunbathing and listening to something and Ozzy Osbourne's ordering drinks in the bar and you're just sort of like great yeah I fit right in here everybody this is great I'm home I'm home um so it was kind of weird you know but but it was exciting and you kind of felt like and like I say um and that isn't necessarily what it's about but it's just stuff like that is really seductive it really is and you get to go on a big American tv show and that's really seductive and you're in Japan it's like oh my god this is amazing of course it's amazing outside of the music if you even if you were just part of the team going there it would be amazing but if you're the dude that has to do the interviews and be in the middle and the spotlight and the everything it messes with your ego to such an extent that it's like it's a bit of a it's a it's a very hard balance i think really hard i think but that's why i think it's so remarkable because the whole thing that industry you know whether it's the industry that i move in or music industry they're all quite similar in terms of they do mess you up if you're not really careful and you don't have good people around you or you're not self-aware or grounded and you know We've all made mistakes and experienced certain ups and downs within it.

20:25But I think if you're not on top of it, it will lead you mentally down a bad path. I think that's why I often sit there and go, do I still want to do this? So I think it's rare that you are able to give it up, but also come back to it in such a grounded way and navigate the bullshit side. But do the bit that you love. I do think that's remarkable. Well, I think things have changed a little bit anyway. way the world obviously changes all the time and really quickly at the moment as well so um but I think when I kind of got back into singing the way I did it was really strange I met um a guy called Simon Moran who's a huge promoter and you know promotes massive gigs up and down the country he's involved in managing bands and all kinds of things really great guy he just happens to be from Warrington which is what it says on my passport as well and we're about the same age and everything and I met him in a pub in the pub in Putney called the Half Moon.

21:22Oh, yeah. I've seen gigs in there. Well, I went to a showcase. It was a Natasha Beddingfield showcase because some of my friends were working on her stuff, one of my best friends, actually. And so I just went along just to see her sing and all the rest of it and I ended up standing next to Simon at one point and after the thing, you know, and she was great, by the way, and after the thing he said, so why aren't you singing anymore? I said, oh, I'm just, you know, I'm over it. It's a long time ago. I don't really. He said, well, you know, you should think about it. You know, if you ever want to go out and sing, I'll sort it out for you kind of thing.

21:53And around this sort of same time, let's say in the same sort of year period, I'd had some different offers to go and sing my old tunes and stuff in different parts of the world and always just said no. And then I got this offer from Japan. And our daughter, who was about 15 at the time, 14, 15, loved anything about Japan, just anything. She's super creative. She's got a master's in art now. She's 31 now and all the rest of it. She's a garden designer now. but anything creative, she loved it. So for her to go to Japan, that was like, her ears pricked up when like some, you know, and my wife had always really wanted to go because I went a bunch of times, but she never went.

22:25So they literally had me in the kitchen up against the kitchen cabinets going like, come on, because all you've got to do is do like three shows and we get to be in Japan for two weeks. Yeah, let's do it. We'll stay for a week, you know. So around the time, and I can't remember exactly the timing of it really, maybe we should get to the bottom of it one day, but Simon had kind of said, look, just go and sing anything. I don't care what it is. I'll put a band together or you can put whatever you want. Just go and sing and see how you feel about it. So I said, well, I don't know whether I really want to go and sing my old songs because there's too much wrapped up in that to me to know whether I'm going to enjoy doing that.

22:58It's too like, do you know what I mean? It's like I haven't sung them for 15 years. It's a bit weird to go and sing Never Gonna Give You Up because it's like, and also I think even more time away from the 80s has just made the 80s a bit more comfortable for everybody, me included. so but at that time let's say 10 to 12 15 years after it was still a bit like yeah but we're into the 90s now right now or the thousands of whatever but i just felt like do i really want to sing that and he said well you don't have to sing anything you want and i just thought well i've always wanted having a crack at loads of people have done it of course they have and done it well i'd love to go and sing some sonata stuff and just like some of the old standards that my dad used to sing around the house all the time so i knew all the words to them i just didn't know the right words i knew my dad's words right so i would sing yeah so i had to relearn them properly and i did it on holiday in sardinia once we used to go there every year with some friends and their kids and everything so i'd be walking around this really long beach with my headphones in singing to frank sonata with my feet in the water kind of thing relearning the right words because my dad used to sing you make me feel so old rather than so young because that was his like take on it anyway um so i went and did that and I absolutely loved it I absolutely loved the joy of just actually singing it wasn't to do with being me again or you know and I say me I am me but you know I mean that person who you know and then when I went to Japan it was all about singing the 80s songs that's all it was it was totally like nostalgia just go and sing them and I kind of loved it and I kind of thought that's really weird how have you just gone and I said well because you're not promoting anything you're not here to sell it you're not even here to say look I'm coming back next year with a new record and I'm this that and you know it's just like I'm here to sing you some songs it's like a giant karaoke let's have a laugh and that's what it was like yeah and I think because our daughter was with us it was a family trip to us we actually saw some friends who lived in that that part of the world as well and came for a week and it was like it was like skiving off it was like sort of just like going doing a mad thing and there was no plan to do it again and I think that's the other thing I think and and talking listening to you talk about stuff sometimes about the way you've described it when you can see it mapped out for you for quite a length of time it's sometimes even though you're loving it and enjoying it you're like it is and and that's I think the beauty of what I've had for the last sort of 10 years or so is I've kind of actually even been making new records again and getting to play those songs live alongside my old songs without everybody going to the bathroom which is amazing and kind of like just but also having in the back of my mind I don't have to do it yeah and I think when I was a kid and when I was like running around with that first couple of years doing it I felt obligated for one I felt I'm signed to RCA records that's Elvis and Bowie how do I not how do I say how do I turn around to them say I don't want to do that TV I don't fancy doing this either I just did it I did everything they sent me a fuzzy fax with a thousand things on it in a hotel somewhere and I just carried on doing them The market's uncertain.

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27:57How do you think that time affected you? Not only because it was unbelievably busy and there was a lot of travel involved and you were being more of a salesperson than a musician, but also the fame side of it. You know, I started in TV when I was 15. And I think it's a really weird paradox of you have to grow up really quickly because you're working primarily with adults, but you're also infantilised because everybody panders to you and tries to look after you. So you kind of don't sit anywhere age-wise. That's how I personally experienced it. Well, bizarrely, I am now the oldest person in the band and crew and I was always the youngest person in the band and crew, but also with the people I travelled with.

28:37And I had a tour manager, well, tour manager, he was almost like my dad to some degree and my best mate as well, who became my manager in the end, a guy called Tops. And he travelled with me all the time. Thankfully, he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't do drugs, he doesn't this. So in lots and lots of ways, we had a riot together. He's probably 15 years older than me, something like that. He's from Liverpool. And we just, we actually, he made it fun a lot of the time, even though I was ready to like, you know, just jack it in, I think way before. He kind of made it bearable, I think.

29:12And so like when we did go to LA for a couple of weeks to do promotion and stuff, not even gigs, just promotion. We sort of turned it into a mini holiday whenever we could. Do you know what I mean? And I think he treated me like a human and he treated me like on a level par in terms of like our humanness. You know what I mean? And I think sometimes it used to freak me out that like people would prioritize me so much that it made me feel like I was made like porcelain or something and almost just not like a person. And I understand it. And on the one hand, I can totally understand that they were trying to just treat me nicely and do all the best things they could for me.

29:50But it did make me feel kind of a bit useless at times. I remember Paul Young, as in Paul Young, Wherever I Lay My Hat and all those amazing songs that he sang. I remember reading something where he said once he walked out of a restaurant. He was so used to people paying the bill. He just walked out of it without paying because everyone does everything for you. And he kind of realized like something's got to change it. you know and so yeah i mean i think being at the center of something like that is pretty amazing but as we've as we've seen over the decades it's also extremely dangerous for people's health and can lead to the ultimate sacrifice which is where people top themselves or they lose themselves completely to drugs and alcohol and god knows what you know that's why i think it's incredibly sensible that at the age of 27 which is extremely young you made that choice It sounds boring though, doesn't it?

30:39It doesn't sound boring at all. I think it's incredibly sensible. I folded my arms, you see, in protectiveness. No, I think it's brilliant because on a societal level, we are told that fame and travel and money and famous people is what we should be aiming for and it's everything. But you, having come from a working class background and experiencing that to the extreme, made a decision that it wasn't the be all and end all. Well, bizarrely, I actually, even though I'm the guy who sang Never Gonna Give You Up and I'm in the video for Together Forever and all those things, right? that is who I am I'm not denying that and I don't ever deny it when we play live I wouldn't I wouldn't dream of not playing those songs I wouldn't dream of it unless we were just playing the new album in full for a bizarre night or whatever because that is part of my and never going to give you it's part of my DNA it's part of who I am it totally is it it's it's given me an amazing life and still does so I don't want to deny it I quite like singing it to be honest I know that sounds weird to people but I do because it's like I just see the kind of mad joy in people's faces of like oh right you know it's weird it's a weird experience but anyway but as a kid all I wanted to do really I was a drummer when I started and I just wanted to be in bands and play and really be good at that and I don't think I really wanted to be like what I sort of became which was kind of a pop star um I never really considered myself a pop star because I looked around me and saw better ones and people doing really well at it you know be really being a pop star and I don't think I really was.

32:07Anyway, that's another story. I think people are good at pretending to be pop stars, but maybe no one actually feels like they are. Maybe. You know what? That's probably a lot closer to the truth, yeah. And I wasn't very good at pretending. I think I just looked like a grumpy northerner on a couch being interviewed, do you know what I mean? Why didn't you smile more? I think everyone's really good at pretending because I felt like it so many times when I've seen other presenters or I don't even know what I do these days, but I'll look to other people and think, God, they've got their shit together and they look like they're really at home here and I never quite feel that.

32:35Or maybe I do when I've created my own job, but when I'm going to do something for other people, people are good at faking it. But I think that you've just kind of, one of the nails on the head there where you say you've created that job. So if it's coming from you, then it is a huge part of you and you can see and feel the comfortable parts of it. And even though some of it, I'm sure, is still uncomfortable when you do it, you understand why you're doing it because you're driving it because you've got this thing that you want to fulfil. fill and I think that is that's kind of what artists do that's what creative people do isn't it they they have a thing and then they want to see that to the end you know what I mean and see it become something so and I think like I say I mean don't get me wrong I'm really glad I met Stock Ake in Walkman when I did I really am I'm glad they wrote Never Gonna Give You Up there isn't a day go by that I don't think that but I would have loved to have been more involved in some of the early records that I made as an actual musician and what have you but I probably just wasn't up to it at the time yeah I mean it's it's awesome that you can have that sort of level of reflection now and see where it's taken you and that you've learned the lessons to to be totally in control creatively to where you are today so looking back to your childhood you've sort of alluded to having this influence from your siblings they and you lived in between sort of Manchester and Liverpool's you've got this amazing concoction of music going on at the time in that area what led you to think well I'm going to pick up drumsticks why was it the drums that led you I'm not sure because I sang a lot at school and I was in the church choir and my mum and dad divorced when I was about four we lived at my dad's house um all four kids do did my sister's 10 years older so when I was she was 14 15 she left home about 16 I think and my dad wasn't a happy camper at all really um they'd had a son who'd passed away as well this is before I was born and before uh sorry I'll explain this so it's Jane John and in between them they had a son called david and he had died so then they had mike my brother and then myself after david had died and but they never talked about it ever there's one picture of him in the house and i had to struggle to find that it was in a book buried somewhere if you know what i mean in a photo book no one would ever talk about it no so for us he was he was literally a ghost anyway but he was a ghost and it was very very strange and i think it kind of obviously destroyed them they carried on they had two more kids but I think they were done anyway and I think also and I can speak freely about it because my mum's passed away my dad's passed away I think my mum was just just had a breakdown really and just went off and just you know and came back but definitely I think she just kind of lost it a bit and I think my dad was just angry and sad and um dark a lot of the time so I didn't really want to be in the house much anyway if I'm honest so I wanted to be at school singing I wanted to be in the church cry and do another stuff and I've painted that picture as like my dad was also that was the weird thing he would also come home sometimes singing Frank Sinatra or some whatever whistling totally joyful uh with a bag of sweets he picked up from you know the shop on the way home for us or whatever do you know I mean he what he totally was that guy and I remember him showing us a lot of love as well but you just never knew what you were going to get and bizarrely I've picked up a bit of that from him which I hate about myself but at least I know it's there so I try and try and balance that out if I can but I'm sure our daughters had to go through a bit of that as well but I think so do you mean so your moods can just slip yeah but I'm a lot better than he was definitely I mean I think he had no control over it whatsoever like none yeah so I mean I think to be honest I mean in reflection he probably would have been diagnosed with something yeah and I just don't think even the word diagnosis wasn't even a word anybody used you know about anything no but what was amazing because i had two older brothers and an older sister they played a lot of music in the house like a lot so my sister literally drowned me in like from the beatles through prog rock you know early genesis and yes and all of that so and she'd take me to a couple of gigs when i was about 10 i think as a fashion accessory really like it was cool to take your 10 year old brother so i saw like super tramp was the first gig i saw in Manchester and it just blew me away and I just something inside of me just thought that is a great place being on a stage even if it's like in the village hall or at the school or what have you it's quite a nice place to be and I and to this day bizarrely people say to me um are you not nervous when you get away you know when I'm like no I've got the mic it's my stage for an hour or hour long they give you it's mine I'm good here I made all the decisions with the band you know to mean and i think it's kind of it's a safe space actually um and so i think early on something i don't think i could have written that out for you and said that's why i want to do this but just being on a stage and and ironically bizarrely being on a stage but behind a drum kit's even better why is that because you're in it and you're involved but you can hide behind the symbols when it's not going so great or you don't and i used to sing from drums even in the band i was in at school but you're just that bit more protected as well you're not you're not that vulnerable you're not right at the front no one can like you know they can't even touch you no literally do you think i mean it's it sounds like music for maybe you and your siblings was a real like tonic if there was this sort of even if you're unknowingly experiencing that sort of pain in the household because when you grow up whatever your normal is it's just your normal you don't know only different but i guess as a you know 100 at the age you're at now you can look back and reflect and see that music was actually a balm to what was going on at home so that's why i'm imagining when you get on a stage that feels like your safe space yeah maybe maybe even yeah there's probably like an elation in it that i felt well just as well i don't want to paint my dad as a monster he wasn't a monster he was just very upset and very sad and needed help really but for instance if we were playing loud music and we heard he used to have a pickup truck because he had a little garden center thing and um it was a volkswagen pickup truck which makes the same noise as a old volkswagen beetle does so we we heard the noise like 500 yards away before he got to the house so we turned the music off there's no way we were playing music when my dad got right because we didn't know what mood he'd be in and he didn't really like he hated pop music and he hated accountants my brother's a chartered accountant and um um what an actor of rebellion i love it Yeah, yeah.

39:08Well, I don't think, yeah, it just turned out that way, I think. But yeah, funny old thing. I think he hated accountants because he liked having his own little business, but he hated the kind of paperwork for it, if you know what I mean. He just, you know. Yeah, but anyway, I think music definitely was a huge thing in our house. My mum also was an amazing piano player, but she kind of did it when she was really young. And then when she was in her late 40s, maybe even her 50s, she used to go and accompany one of her friends and they'd play a classical and she used to sing operatic things at Do's.

39:42You know what I mean? And then she kind of accepted this thing to go and play in kind of what was like a wine bar sort of thing, but not like a fancy one, but what have you. And at first she said, I can't do that. I'm a middle-aged woman. I can't be doing that. you know but she did it and she kind of loved it and then she basically packed her job in she used to work in a little office and she used to play the piano four or five nights a week and she'd go and play like in a snug in a pub and basically it was just like that her circle of friends would just go to that and they'd just sing songs and my mum would play the piano.

40:11It's in your bones. Sort of I've had it I'd covered When I Fall in Love on my first album which is you know a classic beautiful song and I kind of murdered it but anyway still like singing it but I got my mum on stage with me at the race course up in Haydott Park, which is very close to where I'm from. And she got up on stage and played it a couple of times. When I went up there, yeah. What a beautiful moment. And what was your relationship like with her? Because, I mean, it's still strangely unusual for people to live with the dad if mum and dad have divorced. But back then, I'm imagining it was extremely unusual.

40:41It was. I mean, it was unusual for parents to divorce. I think there was only a couple of kids in our school who had divorced parents. I think looking back, I didn't know this at the time, But I think looking back, I think mum went through a bit of a breakdown and just couldn't deal with anything. I'm saying that. I mean, I don't know that. I was a really young child. And I think they had a very, very, very strange, like they never spoke again ever. Really? Yeah. And the only time I've ever seen my dad in the same building is when he gave my sister away at the wedding. That's the only time I've ever seen them in a building together since I was four.

41:15Wow. So they weren't like on speaking terms or anything. so it was a bit weird and I used to spend the weekends with my mum and I used to spend five days a week at my dad's place and go to school the school literally was 40 yards away from where we lived I could have jumped over our back garden wall into school actually but I never did because I had to go through the front gate so I just think there were a lot of things my dad got a housekeeper which sounds ever so poosh but it wasn't a lovely lady called Mrs Hill who was there first thing in the morning and was there when I came home from school because I was five you know know i mean and he had a little business to run so yeah i did see my mum a lot um and i was very close to my mum i think when i was very young and then like most people you kind of drift a little bit in your teens because who wants to be with your parents and you're a teenager um how old are your kids sorry what i'm just saying now they're eight and ten i'm not the teens yet i'm not there yet okay um but that happens they come back thankfully they do come back um i'm preparing for it yeah they come back um so yeah it wasn't it i mean listen of course it's all relative people have a lot worse stories than mine of course they do but it's relative and it's how it affects you and what how you deal with that and what you want to make of your life and bizarrely my brothers and my sister were all in over 30 year relationships with our partners and i kind of think is that is stop.

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44:08What is that? Yeah, it could be a reaction to it. Yeah, or it's just, I don't know. I don't want to read too much into that, but I just kind of think maybe we all just said, you know what, we're just not going down that road. I know you said that, you know, people have worse off situations. We can all certainly say that about lots of things in our lives, but I think it's actually so helpful to hear, you know, now that you're an adult that you can look back at that time in in ways but you're an adult and you can look back and go okay this was my child of you can look at it objectively yeah and and you can still navigate life just fine so I think not only for people that have had parents that have divorced but also for people who are going through a divorce with kids that worry is huge how it's going to impact the children and also try to navigate it peacefully yeah and you know your parents didn't necessarily do that not talking they didn't but I don't have any blame for them I mean I think and again I think losing a child in the way that he did to meningitis and what have you and it was just obviously I wasn't there but I'm saying I can only I can't even imagine that and I can't imagine what that does and and I think so I have no blame for them for just not keeping it together and managing to get through it or anything of course I don't and I don't have any blame for my dad being a miserable git and it was extremely dark and And he wasn't violent to us.

45:29He hit me twice and once I really deserved it. Once I didn't. And, you know, he was angry and violent, but not to us. So he smashed a lot of stuff in front of us. He couldn't control his temper. But like I say, today, somebody would diagnose him and say, you need some real help, my friend. And in those days, you just didn't get that. Didn't exist. So I think we are in better times in terms of people being more open and talking about stuff. And it's super, super important. The weird thing is it's taken us hundreds if not thousands of years to get to a point where people will sit down and talk about stuff that we've all just put under a carpet.

46:11It's really strange. It's wild. I don't know whether maybe people did many, many, many decades ago and maybe the Victorian era became this time when everyone went, nope, we don't talk about anything. we've got a stiff upper lip we just get on with it and and also maybe we're in a weird time where wow this is deep here we go um maybe we're in a time where we haven't had like you know we haven't had a world war for a long time we haven't had that global conflict of this that and the other or i know we've got some terrible things going on right now and i'm aware of that obviously but i'm saying i just think we are in um we're in very different times and i think i think we have other things that are very daunting and like very with us all the time you know social media and all those different things of that that I'm not I'm a fan of in a way that the connectivity and it makes me laugh every time I see a kitten video and all of those things and I see some great stuff on there but I'm also a little bit not paranoid but I'm a little bit worried about it I think especially with younger kids you know our daughter's 31 she's of that generation but she wasn't smothered in it she had a phone I don't know when she got the first phone to be honest and I don't know when we allowed her just to go on the internet herself but she's she's sort of one foot in both worlds you know what I mean of like I'm scared of it I'm scared of it I've got young kids and I think with AI and yeah just the level of surveillance and everything yeah it is scary and I think you know you're right we we've perhaps got less to deal with in terms of like if you look back to some of our grandparents if your grandparents were you know born in the uk who went through the war which mine certainly did and my nan who had you know not good mental health and i've talked about it on this podcast before was absolutely traumad from being evacuated and all that stuff so you know that won't be in everyone's lineage but i can certainly relate to that but i think you know we are trying to i guess unpick that generation or our parents generation yeah who didn't talk it's like a waterfall and it never stops it just keeps running and running and running and hopefully it kind of filters and and slows down a bit but we do get it from our parents who go from their parents of their parents and it just keeps going so yeah i sometimes wonder like are our kids gonna go oh you guys talked way too much we're gonna pull it in a bit like you went the other way exactly just put it under the carpet and let's move on exactly yeah maybe so maybe so you've got a you've got an incredibly busy rest of your year because you've got the album out in October, you're going on tour again.

48:39Yeah, yeah. When things start to get busy again, and you could get a big fax through saying, here's what you're doing for the rest of the year. Do you feel overwhelmed? If so, how do you navigate that peacefully? Not in the same way at all, because if I'm going to be blunt about it, I have some success with the last couple of records in this country. Some? Your last album went to number one? And it's been amazing. It's been absolutely amazing. so don't i'm unbelievably yeah grateful for it i really am but back in the day that kind of happened everywhere and so i don't go everywhere i go to a lot of places to do gigs but that's more about yeah a bit of nostalgia and a bit of this that and the other and i think festivals think well we can put uncle rick on as well can't we at three o 'clock you know so um so i do travel a lot you know i've been to south america a bunch of times which i never used to go to been all over asia australia loads of places america but with in terms of promoting a record it's pretty much about doing it in the UK.

49:33So it's nowhere near as daunting. And I don't do that many interviews. And obviously, podcasts have become a thing now. And you must be aware of it when you talk to people. It's very different. It's not the same. I know it is sort of an interview, but it's sort of a chat, really. And I also think it's kind of, it's just a very different comfort level. I think interviews sometimes you can be so guarded because well this paper are going to interview and that interview is coming to do it that journalist what have you you know oh right I better be on my you know I mean I've got to get ready for that you know what I mean and I think with podcasts I'm very much more we're just gonna have a chat yeah it's so much nicer yeah well yeah it's so much nicer if you've got to fly yeah for this tour or for any promotion what do you do to get prepped for that fear um i'm not so bad with it i mean my wife not might not agree with you but um i'm not i to be honest i drink alcohol not to the point of like where i'm like comatosed but i'll have a couple of cocktails in in the bar of the airport or the what have you and i just think it'll be all right yeah and then i kind of do it and sometimes if i'm going to the states or something then i very often take something to sleep because i've seen all the movies anyway and I don't want to be on a plane for 12 hours anyway.

50:54Do you know what I mean? I'm kind of like, well, I'll just do that. So I try and sleep for as much as I can. And the weird thing is sometimes I get on a flight and I'm absolutely fine. And other times I'm very much not fine. And so my thing is I just try and kind of keep the amount that I do down so that I'm not faced with that thing of like it being like, you know. I mean, back in the day, it was just ludicrous. It was ludicrous. I sometimes would fly, aren't I rock and roll or rock and pop? I would sometimes fly in the morning and fly at night and after doing three or four years of that or five years even I don't know whatever you just think this just doesn't you know and I don't know I think the flying thing like I say was a symptom of me not wanting to do it anymore really so and I have tried lots of things I've been hypnotized a bunch of times I try and I don't know about meditate exactly but I try and focus on certain things and all the rest of it um I'm not afraid of having a few drinks because i don't seem to have a problem with alcohol i can stop drinking if i want to not very often but i can i can do it i like a drink you see i don't mean like i like to get hammered i love wine i love beer i can't think of a nicer thing than calling one of my friends i've got a friend simon who lives literally around the corner saying should we just have a quick one in the pub yeah i love it it's like and because it's about it don't get me wrong the times in my life i have had more than two glasses on my own i can't even count them yeah but if someone else is there i'll share a bottle of wine with someone no problem as long as it's a good bottle of wine by the way i'm not drinking your rubbish no more i'm not northern oik but i'm still drinking your instagram you're not actually using your vocal booth at home you created in your studio to sing it and you've used it to store wine i know i know and um that doesn't make any sense i know but well it does because actually it's in a garage no heat gets to it and no sunlight gets to the outside of it.

52:45It never gets warm, but it never gets really cold. And I just realised, a friend of mine who knows about wine was sort of going, that's where you want to put your wine, mate. So I'm like, okay, that's where it's going. That's where it is. So the vocals don't ever get done in there. Occasionally I go in there and pretend I'm going to do them in there, but I don't really. Love a glass of wine instead. Yeah, exactly. Well, look, wishing you all the love and luck with your album and your tour. It's been a bloody joy to talk to you today. Thank you, Rick. I do, my love. Thank you.

53:13oh blimmin' heck what a lovely bloke rick is i just loved that chat what a bloody good eggy is thank you so much for popping over to mine for a chat rick i really appreciated it rick's new album are we there yet is out on october the 13th so make sure you set yourself a reminder for that one and his uk tour kicks off in november and also have you listened to the billy porter episode from a couple of weeks ago. Oh, he was just another brilliant person to talk to. He also had some really cool insights into how the music industry's changed in the last 30 years. So if you've missed it, definitely go back and give it a go.

53:50I am back next week, of course, but in the meantime, come and say hi on Instagram. We're at Happy Place Official. Until then, a huge thanks again to Rick, to the producer, Anushka Tate at Rethink Audio, and as always, the biggest thanks to you beauties.

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