Acceptable in the 80s: Rick Astley

And as we're sat here thinking about Miki and Lush and enjoying the past, here's a reminder of why nostalgia used to be considered a mental illness: Rick Astley's back, and getting interviewed in the Echo. After all this time, it seems he's still annoyed about being labelled the PWL teaboy:

“It’s all rubbish,” he laughs. “You might as well say I knew his younger brother’s cat’s sister’s mother.

“I was playing the club circuit in Newton-le-Willows as a singer in a soul band. Pete Waterman came to see us, and he said he liked my voice, but not the band. We went on like that for ages; him offering to sign me, me only wanting to be signed as part of the band.

“He was going out with a hairdresser at the time, and I think she was from Warrington. She may have come to see my band, but it wasn’t her Christmas party.

“Then, through knowing Pete, I started work at the PWL recording studio, where I did all kinds of things including, on occasions, making tea for Bananarama - see that’s where that story comes from, make one cup of tea and you’re the teaboy."

Mmm. Must be almost as frustrating as making one decent pop record and being considered a popstar.

Actually, Rick is quite self-effacing, explaining that he gave up pop after realising he'd been off on tour and missed his kid's first steps and apologising in the middle of an anecdote about meeting Burt Bacharach for going on about it. And, though, some act of global balancing, the child who persuade Rick to give up pop was also his reason for returning to it:

Rick made the decision last year to take part in an 80s revival gig in Tokyo.

“My daughter had been asking to go to Japan for a while, and she’d never seen me do a gig, so I agreed.

“It was weird. After so long I was worried it would feel like I was doing someone else’s songs, like karaoke, but I enjoyed it.

“It was quite emotional. It made me realise I was so, so lucky. Most people in the street don’t get an outlet to do things like that, to sing in front of thousands of people.

“So when they asked if I wanted to do this tour, I said yes.

“I’m only doing a week, and part of it’s Liverpool, so my mum can come and see it. My daughter and my girlfriend are going to come up and spend some time with the rest of the family, so for me it’ll be something special."

He insists this comeback is just for the hell of it, and not part of a longer term slog round the cabaret and Pontins circuits. Unless, presumably, his daughter suggests it might be fun to sleep in a cabin by the seaside...