Questlove Supreme: Rick Astley

It was like to be you're now a twenty year veteran, straight up no bro facts, Like twenty years in to still be picking up new fans, that is that's kind of surreal.

and it's been amaze see gigs done there. But we played to about two and a half thousand people instead of two hundred and fifty thousand people because they all brought their car and they had a picnic space and so they all sat in their cars or on the bonnet of their car, the roof of the car, and they were all given a picnic space. So it went

on for about a mile of this this thing. But it was amazing because when the sun went down, everyone was using their car lights to sort of say yeah, yeah, yeah, and it was amazing. So it was a really strange gig. But I could see, especially in the crew and the people who'd been building the stage and you know what I mean, and everything you could see people were really

really emotional. I mean, being on stage is an emotional thing full stop, but being on stage in front of a crowd after that, all that time that was it was amazing, absolutely incredible, and we did a few that summer that were just just amazing. You know. It just made you feel lucky, made you feel i don't know, like a newfound respect for being allowed to do what you do.

like lifelong resident there, you know. And he came into our radar, at least my radar for a lot of us here in the States, you know, of course in the late a and made it absolutely impossible to forget

his music. And I'll say that's an actual achievement. And even to this day, those singles, very strong, very potent singles are dropped and it's instant happiness and joy, you know, and even going has so much to say, I'll be it kind of an unusual achievement, but I will well, I'll ask you, fante, if Michael Jackson owns Halloween and Mariah Carrey owns Christmas, I almost think that our guess today might own April Fool's Day, which is kind of

a weird quote to say. And you know, I'm not even implaning that our guess is a joke or his music is a joke. Far from it. But you know, for clarification purposes, I'll say that, you know, we all live in the the you know this like the twenty twenty fifth year of really the internet sort of in our lives, and I think I would say that the first mean he yes, exactly.

long after we're going from Earth, you know. And in the fact that even his name can imply, you know, not only being a proper nown but you know, to be rick rolled is to is the new Oki dokie falling for the ok having successfully pulled the prank I'll say that in my research, I didn't realize that YouTube themselves when they you know, established in two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, YouTube themselves actually invented what we

call rick rolling. For the two three of you that don't know what rick rowling means, it's the thing where someone shares a serious video with you and then about twelve seconds and your hit with again the irresistible course of never going to give you up. And you know, I will say that probably during the pandemic, I'm giving a shout out to my pal jin Grabel from Philadelphia, who is one of the biggest rig Ghastly fans ever.

I've fallen down a vicious rabbit hole and looking at all anything that you do in concert, she'll instantly send me, so, you know, to see these Springsteen covers are born to run, and your Nirvana covers and you know, the everything from your food fighters to a CDC covers you on drums, all these things you covering, like the Smith songs, Like I'm really genuinely this, you know, I had to have you on the show because I've like discovered a rekindled

fandom for our guests to day that goes way beyond, just like you know the Rickrolling part of his career, but you know there's a long time coming. So welcome to your quest of Supreme. This is Rick Astley. Thank you for joining us.

we hade a bit fun. But the gigs have just been amazing and it's very unusual for me because I haven't done anything like this, certainly in America anyway, where you get a group of artists together and go out and do that. I have done it in Europe a different places, but I've never really been to America and do it. And obviously it's we're just having a ball right now. So I'm on my bus right now heading to Fresno.

my voice or not. I know Luther Vandrossad might me sing. I know Al Green did, Bill Withers did, and those guys unknowingly taught me to sing, you know what I mean. So I kind of I always been Coming to America is an amazing thing. With the MIXTEP tour is something completely different because the New Kids fans are absolutely crazy and I'm truly sure they know by now because we've done a few gigs. But I meet that with a

lot of love. But they're absolutely crazy. So when I kind of google googled the previous mixtape tours and the fans and the everything, I spoke to Donnie Donny Walburg quite a bit about it, and I just so, you know what, let's just do it. We're gonna have a lot of fun. It's not normal in the sense that because it's a mixtape. I go on sing some songs and then I hang around backstage and I watched the guys on I'm at the side of the stage watching different artists, and then I kind of get ready to

go back at stage. You're going to do it again, and I've never done that. It's kind of a it's much more of a show in that respect.

they introduce, and then they introduce an artist. Tell me a headline act in the world. Who does that?

and interact. So I've been I've been doing that for like twenty years, and I'm finally when you said that, I was like, ah, finally someone else is doing it. That's dope. Even up until twenty seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen, there will be occasional towns in which the roots and new Kids on the Block will be in the same hotel and absolutely nothing has changed. Like now, you know, Donnie told me, like, you know, back in the day, it was it was the mother's trying to hook up

the daughters. But now it's like you have daughters taking their mothers to new Kids on the Block shows and they're hanging around the hotel.

I think you know we're talking. You guys were talking about the internet before. That's just changed the way that everybody listens to music obviously and gets their music, but also the way they feel about it. And they don't sometimes have the same thing that I certainly did when I was a kid about Oh, that's for old people. And I don't think older people are afraid to go and say, well, you know what, I want to go and see this artist, even though I'm old enough to

be their mom or dad. I just want to go and see them. And I think that that generational thing has gone away to a great degree. You know, well, I just think the festival thing, if you look at that, it's so plectical these days. Who you can be on before or after or on the next stage. It's just unbelievable.

So when you look at the audience there's a bit of that as well, you know, it's it's it's a random bag of people that just want to wear music, you know, don't really Yeah, so it's I think it's quite a beautiful thing, to be honest.

there and it's an okay town. But it's a small town. And we then, so for us go into either of Manchester or Liverpool was our way of going to a shop might have some actual trendy clothes or you know, more than one record store, do you know what I mean? Where you could go to like four of that, you know. And obviously the first time we really went to stores to go and look at musical instruments, that was in Manchester.

Because you know, you jumped on the train or you got you know, an older brother sister to take you and you went into Manchester. That was our big deal.

a lot of what she used to watch everything. She going to Manchester, Liverpool, and so she had a really great record collection. But a lot of her music was like there was a lot of progressive rock in it, but she'd also have like quite a bit of Bowie which she'd have a lot of American classic soul as well, Marvin Gay, Stevie Wonder obviously, things like that. She loved the Beatles as well, So I broke with a lot

of that. But I wanted the jungle Book because obviously to me, I've been taken to the movies to see the film, and once you've seen a film like that and then you've got the vinyl of it at home, you can you can plan to watch the movie again in your head, can't you. I just loved it, and that's so for me that I probably just sat there waiting for everyone to leave the room and then got my moment to put because we probably had one record player when I was five years old, do you know

what I mean? That was probably it so, But I think in terms of I just went to see Paul McCartney actually a week or so ago in Fort Work in Dallas, and a lot of the Beople's music as for anybody obviously, of course for everybody on the planet, but it was a bit of a game change in some of those records, I think, even as a really young kid, because a lot of their music at certain times has got a lot of childlike quality to it. There is we all, there's all, there's we all live

in a yellow submarine in there. And that's so that as a kid, that brings you in, do you know what I mean? And then all of a sudden you're listening to I don't know the Holestalgic Pepper or what I've been thinking, what is this? But it's when I say childlike I don't mean that in any geogratory obviously. I mean there's a real innocence to some of their stuff, even though it becomes really complicated and intricate and beautiful as well, there's a real simplicity to it at times,

you know. So, so I think the Beatles were quite an easy one to get into as well well.

And I went in saying nine I could have whatever. Went in and it also had like a little record store as part of it, which was a bit bizarre, I guess, but whatever, And you bought a pair of jeans on that day and they allowed you to have a single. So I went in next door and I'm just looking. I had no clue, and I knew my dad was in the car like waiting, and he's like he's not going to be messed around, you know. So I just said, I'll have what other's number one? Please?

And it was luckily it was I Feel Loved by Donna Summer. So I got a great record out of it. Anyway. Yeah, but that but that wasn't my so I was eleven. Now I think that it wasn't necessarily a choice, and it wasn't really my money, if you know what I mean. It sort of came with the pair of jeans. But it was quite It was quite a thing because when I went home, I suddenly kind of realized I own this record. It's not one of my brothers or my sisters.

This is mine, do you know what I mean? Because all I've done really was just pinched their records and just played them. You know, That's all I've done up to that point.

fall like music right now. Just making that noise together is the most what's the word to use, It's the most sort of primeval way of making music because you know, when you take away the organists, and I remember we used to do that. We used to sing just on our own a lot of the time, especially when he was like getting us through different pieces to learn them

and everything. It's just a bunch of people using this to make a noise, and it's quite I'm not saying I used that at all today, but I think it's still it did something to me, even though on dinner for a couple of years, but it definitely made me aware of the fact that a group of people come together harmonize or not and what have you, and make music and that's and there's no even instrument to go through,

do you know what I mean? And I even think from a timing point of view, because I got into playing drums as a little kid and stuff, and we say little kid, I was probably in the teenage years. If you're not in sync and in time as a choir, it's just a mess. And I think that even sort of got me going a bit with you know, got to be on the river, you know, on the beat and everything. You know.

because I find it really hard to do it. And even when I do, you know, when I'm working on something at home and I'm just putting harmonies in and stuff, sometimes have to map them out on a piano and then bang them into my head, you know, I mean literally to be able to get me singing the harmony. So yeah, I don't know.

types of whatever sky groups or whatever. And then of course, you know, I know about the history of Northern soul and generally just you know, the respect that the UK has for soul music in general. And of course you know seventy seven is where disco is also having its moment. What grabbed you? I mean to be eleven at that time, when there's like five options to go to. Yeah, yeah, what grabbed you the most?

It's ridiculous. But anyway, but they go, they go. I know that. I think certainly with my sister, played a lot of Motown at home, and a lot of Northern Soul as well, actually, and they're very, very very similar. And to be honest, I struggled to find out which is which half the time, but whatever, and all of those records and very much about the vocals. I mean, you were mentioned in Motown before about when they used to go out and do tours and stuff like a

review tour and stuff. Any one of those vocalists would, in my opinion anyway, kind of wipe the floor with a lot of people who've had the chance to make records since. To be honest, I think Motown was an absolute golden era for vocalists. Was even though the songwriters and producers of those records were incredible and amazing and they had such a platform to go from as a singer, those voices have stood the test of time forever, and I don't think there's a person with a pulse that

doesn't respond to Motown. And obviously it's the groove, it's the feel, it's everything. It's also because Marvin Gay, Diana Ross, whatever, you know, name any of them, when they sang you didn't question it at all. It was just truly amazing.

away in loads of different ways. Because I was ten, I shouldn't really have been there, perhaps, but I think she used to think I was like fashion accessory to bring a ten year old kid to a gig where everyone's kind of smoking different things and what have you and hanging out and deliver. But it just blew me away. And their music I think is because the other band, and I don't know which was first, was a band

called Camel and that's a progressive rock band. And I've said this before, who have flute solos longer than some of the records I've made, you know what I mean. So it's kind of like, yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, it wasn't about vocalists. It was about the music. It was, you know. And but the super Tramp One I think was amazing for so many different reasons. They were, well still are, but they were such an amazing band

because they had great, like sort of pop songs. Maybe that's not a fair term to call them, but they were very popular. So there were pop songs, but the instrumentation and the way they used to go about it was really quirky, was really different and kind of a bit like nothing else, but to me anyway listening to it. So I came out of well both of those geeks, but I can't remember which one was first. And I

think it was a game changing for me. I kind of thought, I want to do that because when the lights went down, it turned on the smoke machine and then the colored lights come on and it all even back then, you know, going to a gig was like this mystical, mythical experience. It was like something. It was like another world, you know. So yeah, so I think both of those were game changes a big time.

It's a triangle it says give Way. And our bass player Jeff, stole one on the way home from somewhere and stuck it in front of my drums and we said, oh, that's what we're called then, right, Okay, So yeah, that was That was when I was still at high school, as you call it, And there were three bands who did an audition for the music teacher to see who could play at the Valentine's Disco, right, And we were like fifteen going on sixteen at this point. And I

was never one of the cool kids at school. I wasn't really a geek. I wasn't like, you know, a swap or whatever. I just I just got through school, if you know what I mean. I just kept my head down and got through it. The other couple of bands, one of them was all the cool kids, like there was a catching of the football soccer team captain of this day, you know, the good looking guys. They had all the nice guys. But you know what I mean, they were the cool kids, you know, and we weren't.

But we could play. So we did the audition and we blew the other bands away. I was singing So Lonely by the Police from the drums, which was like the coolest thing in the world because it was like, you know, we were doing police songs and they were doing something that wasn't anywhere near school of that. And we did a couple of other things. We also did a Joy Division song, which again was like just the coolest thing in the world. I think it's you know,

the teachers were not expecting that at all. And so we got the gig and I got five Valentine's Cards that year.

But it was like people just kind of like, you know what I mean, just getting acknowledged in the corridors at school or right in the playground or what I mean. We were just we became different people overnight because we've done this gig, and it was like, yeah, I don't know, really, it was very It was very interesting I think in terms of your ego and just just the absolute joy of walking off stage going wow, we just we just

did that. That just happened. People actually listened to dance and you know, so, yeah, it's pretty amazing.

they go to our school. But yeah, they after that performance, things were never the same again.

was last week. It's just about a hit record. But I mean, that is pretty crazy to be at school with boys to men and them singing the way they do. If they were singing like that back then, that must have been wild.

employ lots of people or anything. I think he employed one or two other people, and then we kind of worked on stuff. And where we were from was kind of hit very very badly in the mid and late eighties in terms of the way that the world changed. You know, we don't we don't manufacture so much in the UK anymore, like like Americas to that degree, you know, and we don't do a lot, you know, coal mines and all the all the old things.

with my life. I don't know what that meant, and I think the truth of it was I kind of felt that music was a way of possibly doing that, and I did love music, don't get me wrong, I did. You know, I got a drunk it when I was fifteen, and I was never ever off it, just ever. I used to play in my dad's greenhouse, which he used to have this fairly big glasshouse, you know, where the

plants were and all the rest of it. And he allowed myself to have a drunket there and my two friends to come and play there as well, which is we made an awful racket, even though we were you know, we thought we were great. But so that was pretty lucky. But I also think my mum and dad divorced when I was really really young, and I didn't the happiest of home lives, if you know what I mean. It

wasn't It wasn't tough. It wasn't horrible in what a lot of people have been tough, but it definitely left the hole, there's no doubt about it. My mom and dad they both passed away now they never spoke to each other. Ever. If my mom rang the house, my dad would just kind of like he just put the phone receiver down and walk away. And that's how we knew it was my mom. And I was brought I was brought up by my dad. I lived with my dad, because it's a long story, but I saw my mom

all the time. But I think I also felt somehow, even at that age, and I'm not saying I actually knew this, but I think I felt it somewhere that music and getting out of that was going to take me away from that, do you know what I mean? It was going to give me a different life where

I could sort of start again. And I think sometimes if you if you brought up in a fairly unhappy house, which I was, you just want to kind of like turn the key on the door and walk into another space and just leave it where it is, do you know what I mean. I'm not saying you can't ever go back there and just say, just just start again. And I did. I did feel that music was going to be the escape to do that, you know, to be coming getting a successful bound and just start again, you know.

So I joined this other group and they were like they were called FBI because of it goes back to a group called the Shadows, who were the backing band for Cliff Richard. Do you know who Cliff Richard is? He's an English Cliff. Yeah, it goes through. So he was like the English Elvis if you like, you know what I mean? He was like the you know, and and they had a song called FBI. I think I think that's where it comes from. And the guy who was the lead guitarist in this in this band that

I joined called FBI, was a Shadows freak. He absolutely loved them, and so that his dad. I think he got it from his dad. Really, so they were doing covers like that. They were doing a lot of early early Beatle songs, which are fantastic and great, don't get me wrong, but I would have loved to have been playing some of the later Beatles songs, but we weren't. We were playing the really really early ones, which is still great, like I say, and for a young band

to learn to learn them anyway. And I got in that band as the drummer, and I sort of became the singer because I wanted us to kind of try and write some of our own material. And I borrowed a guitar from one of the guys and he showed me the three chords, and so I turned up at rehearsal a few weeks later and said, I've written some songs. Should we thrash them out? And I sort of became the singer because of that, really, because they're all looking

at me, going, well, who's going to sing that? You know? And they said, well, you are so so that that's it. So we got a drummer and then from that point, I think I just sort of became the singer by default, really, And at that point I thought, if we're going to make this happen. I'm gonna have to push and drive this. And I think when you started doing your own songs, you think that's a different thing. That's not just earning living on a Friday and a Saturday and having a

regular job. Do you know what I mean? Like doing your job and then earning a bit of extra money. That's how do we how do we become how do we become known? How do we get people to hear these songs? And that that at that point is like, well, that's what I'm going to do.

And I think back then a lot of records had a lot of for instance, the guy called Edwin Collins who was in a bank called Orange Juice, right, and he had this point, yeah, yeah, And there was a lot of them. There was I'm trying to think by now and I can't because I'm on the spot to think of them. But what I'm trying to say that there were a lot of voices that were deeper and it was kind of cool to be that. It was

edgy and it was cool. But then when I listened to, for instance, if I listened to like Bill Withers, Bill Withers is obviously the greatest. He's written some of the greatest. One of the things I absolutely loved and still love about Bill Withers is that he's written some of the biggest songs in the world that five year old kids to eighty five year old grandma's now everybody knows. They've

been in movies and everything. But he could probably be sat next to you eating a bowl of pasta in a nice restaurant somewhere, and I think ninety ninety of the people in the room wouldn't be able to recognize him. And I think that was for me, was like an amazing thing about him. Really, But that again that's another another universe to walk into. But I think but he had all the soul in the world, his lyrics, the actual music itself and the way he played and everything.

But his voice obviously was incredibly soulful. But he didn't really do tricks with his voice. He didn't. He didn't do lots of trills and lots of this, that and the other, which a lot of people do associate with soul and R and B and everything. He didn't do that. He was for me, he was like a folk singer. Just theres a lot of soul in it, a lot

of soul, and so I think somebody like him. And even though Luther could obviously do anything of his voice, and I remember seeing him live and walking out of the room and just sort of going, well, just forget it then, because that's that's that's it. There it is.

You know, so I.

You know, But we used to go we would go, I say, we're a group of friends, some of which most of which were in the second band I was in. We would go to a little night when we'd go to different clubs around us actually in different towns and

into Manchester and stuff. But in our little town of Newton, Leuillow's we have a little cricket club and it's been there forever and they used to have Monday nights and Friday nights and the Monday nights were under eighteen and the Friday were over eighteen, so there was alcohol and

all the rest of it. But they also used to have occasionally on a Friday night, they had a guy called keV Edwards who was a DJ in the town I'm from, and he would only he would only play records that I'm not saying all of them were imported, but he always used to have records before anybody else, so he would play and we all used to go and we dress up. We wore jackets at times. This is in the this is in the sort of eighty five eighty six, right, we would go and wear jackets

and ties. Well I'm saying, yeah, eighty five eighty six for sure, cheap ones. You know, we've just bought these jackets the ties with god knows where, do you know what I mean. But we'd all go and we're dancing lines and all the girls, especially you, dance moves and different routines, and a certain song would come on and for instance, let's say, I'm not sure when Never too Much came out exactly, but let's say that that song came on. Some of the girls had actually even have a routine for it.

wouldn't even drink alcohol. We'd just go out and drink an orangey sort of coca and what have you, because we wanted to go and dance to music and that was a big thing for us. It really really was.

But anyway, one of the guys who came up to see us actually saw us in what we used to call a battle of the bands, where you would you would have you know, over over maybe a couple of nights or even a couple of months, on different nights, banks would come together from an area and we'd all be competing for a prize basically, but also it was like little audiences you can get together and it's a judge as in one of those, and he requested that he really would like to see us against In other words,

we did a showcase for him with a couple of other bands, and it sort of turns out that we kind of did that really because he liked my voice, heard something in my voice that he thought that there was some potential in it and he could do something with it. So he asked me to come down to London, and I did with the two guys who were kind of managing us at that point, and I didn't really exactly grasp who he was or what he was, but he had red leather pants and he had a Jaguar.

That was enough for me. That was enough red leather pants and a Jaguar, I mean, come on, Yeah. So I went down to London to meet him and he kind of explained that, look, he wasn't interested in signing the band. He didn't really want to work with bands. He wanted to work with vocalists because he was part of this trio that were and they weren't really famous at that point. They hadn't really had any really big hits at that point. They were just on the cusp

of it. They were right on the edge of it. But I didn't know that, but I kind of thought, well, I signed a little deal with their production company after about six months of chatting a couple of times about it, because I didn't really want to leave my friends, which they were they were, you know, my closest friends, and arrested it. But in the end, I thought, look, I drive the vand I write the songs. Sometimes I have to get people out of bed, so I'm just going to give this a try. And I did.

or two and then see what we could do. But anyway, I signed the deal with them after after a little while, and then and then amazingly I had a number one record with an artist called Princess number one, so.

a sort of an ear turn. It was like, what is that?

must have been thinking. But they they were looking at meeting, we'll sign this kid, and I think they'd signed somebody else as well, but we're not going to get to work on them because all of a sudden we're like beginning to be a little bit hot as producer writers, and people are asking for us to do things. So we can't start doing our own projects because people are throwing money out us and we need to pay the bills. So in a nutshell, people kind of sat me down.

I said, look, we're gonna, you know, we are going to make a record, but we've got to get on with this thing right now. Do you want to come and live in London and you become like an assistant, hang out of the studios, get to see how we do things. Because I was greenish Glass, I was pretty nervous. I don't have to live like twice in my life before then anyway, you know, And so I got to

live and I ended up living it. It's flat for the first weeks of it and everything, and I just used to go into the so I would he'd be driving his Porsche, because he had a Porsche as well at this point, so he must have been doing something right.

He'd be driving this Porsch and he'd be on his massive eighties phone having his conversations, and I'm sat next to him, his nineteen year old kid, going, I have no idea about the languages using because it was all about record deals and A and R people, which I didn't even know what an A and R man was at that point. All this different stuff and I'm just

trying to soak it up and learn, you know. So I ended up being at their building i'd say for nine months, maybe even a year, and I made tea, coffee, got the sandwiches like all the other kids did in the building, you know, all the tapeops as it used to be. And then Banana Arma came in the building and they made some great records for them, and it just kept going. So they made all this and then there was this sister's duo called melon Kin who they had a massive success with as well.

of it, I don't think they did. If you listen to that same my Number one record, you listen to Spin Me Around, you listen to Melon Kin, they have very three, very different sounding records, different artists, different everything, and I think they wanted to emulate like a motown, But unfortunately for me, I think they didn't then go out and try and find Diana Ross, Marvin Gay, Stevie Wonder.

They thought they were good enough to get anyone to sing their songs and still have that thing, you know what I mean?

is the way this is going to work. Really them doing it themselves. They did do eventually, but I think they just thought, we just need to get him signed to a major record label and give it a really big push and all the rest of it. I think they were seeing what was happening with some of those records and thinking, right now, at the end of the eighties, you need to be with a major label. That's the

way to do that, you know what I mean. So so we went to see a guy called Peter Robinson who was the head of A and R at RCA in the UK. Lovely guy. I've just just met him again recently a few times, actually, lovely guy. And he said, well, this is all great to Pete Waterman, but I need to hear Rick sing in front of me. I need to see him sing songs here, sing these just sing

some songs from me. I can't sign the guy just because you know he's going to be your next artist and you say he's great and all the rest of it.

that's not what we do. We're making records. So Pete said, right, you know those demos you've got rich and I've done these little demos in a four track studio back in the hometown where from I went up north, went home, got the vocals taken off, brought them down on a cassette, played the cassette for Pete Waterman, Peter Robinson from RTA, a couple of other people, one of my kind of managers at the time, and I sang on an s M fifty eight microphone, which to everybody listening, he doesn't

know is the bog standard. That's what you're using it? Yeah, yeah, there you go, no reverb. And it just came out of the shitty speaker that I'd found in the basement because I was one of the tapops making tea and getting the biscuits right. So how you where your here was? And I sang in the reception to four of my songs that I'd done right. I played everything, demo and everything. So as soon as I've finished the songs, Peter Robinson

from RCA says, who wrote these songs? And Pete Waterman at this point has got no intention of me ever writing a song, said, oh, he's a great songwriter as well, so because obviously he knew within a second that that that was the that was his way that he was going to get a major deal the artist that they signed and owned and you know whatever. So I ended up. I ended up from that point getting like I got

four songs on the first album. I didn't get a single on the first album, but I got four songs, and I got like a few more on the next record and stuff like that. But I was sort of all of a sudden, I was getting to do my demos. I think it already was, actually, but I was getting to do like, really was getting to do my demos on like an SSL board with an engineer who last week had been making a number one record with Dead

or Alive or whatever. And I'm doing my demos like that because that's just the way it was, you know. And I used to do them at the weekend or through the night. And so I can't remember what we were talking about to girls because I was getting excited again remembering all that. But anyway, it was like a mad It was a mad one of those moments where it's like I'm just going to sing their songs and

that's cool. We'll just see where it goes to. Okay, now my songs are involved, and they were naive songs. Don't get me wrong. They really really were. But you know, yeah, I don't know. I was really lucky, I think, to be at the stockaching Waterman moment where it exploded and they became this huge thing. And even though it hung around for almost a year making tea and getting the sandwiches and tidying up the room, you know, me doing all that stuff, I also got to do a lot

of stuff. Like I used to go to the pub every night with the guys and I was allowed to sit on their table while they talked about, you know, how to produce this, and they talk about, well have you heard this new record that kicked on the way that that was this or this baseline is amazing or what I mean. And it was it was like a like doing an internship. But I just didn't realize I was doing it.

remember it. I had just made a fresh pot of coffee. Mike Stock comes down. They just put a fair like computer. I don't know whether you guys ever worked with a fairlight back in the day, yes, And I was like completely blown away by this. I was like, what what world are we living in? You know? And so Ian set to work, and Mike Stott came down. He put the chords in and he kind of sang in the melody, the rough melody, you know, and Ian was making some

notes and all the rest of it. So I just kept seeing going the coffee and biscuits and sandwiches or whatever he wanted. And I sat there, having just heard my first single, and then kind of watched it get

put together. And then obviously we went upstairs and took it into the big room and all the rest of it, and you know, and that song went through so many transitions because the bassline and the drums were very, very different than when they began, and I've got to give credit to the Stock and Wantant guys for that, but I've got to give more credit to Colonel Abrahams, to be honest, because they pinched the bassline from tracks exactly.

And I think I was kind of one of the only artists who was actually part of their setup, if you know what I mean. A lot of the other artists came in and yeend some of them actually wrote with Stock Andky Mortmon or just came into the vocals or whatever it was. But I'd literally been round to the you know, the greasy spoon cafe to get their lunches for the last six months, you know what I mean, and got the coffee and all the rest of it.

And I even remember there was one session where a guy had come in to do a sax solo on a song. It was actually they were doing a cover of Ain't Proud to beg by the Temptations because people wanted me to sing some songs like that just to test my voice out and see whatever. So this guy came in to do a solo on it, and he said, he said, who's singing that? It's a great voice, that who's singing, and Matt Aikin, one of the producers, said, don't say too much because he's just walking in now

with your coffee. It was like, it was so upside down that I'm making coffee for the guy who's doing the saxophone solo on my god dumb record. But it was also it was also pretty amazing because I kind of felt a bit more part of it, and I felt a bit more. I'm not saying that I earned the right to be there, but I think I at least I understood a bit more than perhaps sometimes when a young kid gets plucked from obscurity, just say right, sing this right, off you go. This is the suit

you're gonna wear, Now, off you go. Do you know what I mean? I just felt like I kind of yeah.

live forever in in you know, past pop culture. But it's also over shaddling the fact that you also had like eight other you know, top ten hits as well.

And you've got to give everything, everything you've got, time wise, effort wise, everything, all your energy everything to it. And I was a bit sick of it, and I just didn't want to do it anymore. Blah blah, all those reasons. I was super lucky I got to do it for the time I did, so I didn't sing never going to give You Up altogether forever or anything else for about fifteen years. The only time I have or maybe more, actually, the only time I ever did it was at friend's weddings.

That's the only time I ever did it right. And now I do it at friends kids weddings, which is which is even greater to be honest, that really that gets me right there that they want me to do that, So that's cool. But I didn't sing those songs. I didn't sing never going to give You Up, you know, night after night or dirt. And I've sort of lived

a very simple, very comfortable. Thank Evans, and I do thank Evans and I'm grateful for that, but a very obscure life, if you know what I mean in terms of like, you know, I haven't been famous for all those years. In terms of that, I mean, I know there's been a bit of fame comeback because of Rick Rowland and you know whatever. And so I approached singing never going to give you up, completely differently I think than perhaps artists who've done it for thirty three years.

I when I came back to it. He's sort of happen in two ways. A promoter who is massive in the UK and is involved in managing me as well. I bumped into him at a showcase in a tiny little pub in London because friends of mine had written the tracks and everything, and he said, look, why don't you sing? Why don't you? And I said, now I'm done, really, you know, well why don't you just go out and do it again? I said, well, you know, i'm't done it for years And he said, well what if I

anyway he got in touch with it. What if I put a little tour together? You can sing anything you want. And just been in front of a feonder people, nothing big. You don't even have to sing your old songs if you don't want, just walk out there and sing and see if you want to do it again. I'm like, who is this guy? What you know? And it turns out this guy is an amazing guy and he promotes like things from like Coldplayer Dell right the way down to brand new bands right. He just loves it, lives it,

breathes it. So I'm like, what a crazy offer that if? It's just unbelievable. And around the same time, I also had an offer to go to Japan, and I'd always turned down all the offers to sing all my old songs, and I just thought so anyway, So I did this little tour and I sang Frank Sinatra, Backer rap anything I wanted to that I remember as a kid, my mum and dad used to play and my dad had a really great voice actually, and he used to sing.

He used to sing the wrong words, but he used to sing Franks and around the house all the time. So I went and did that with a little, you know, little brass section, a very small brass section. Three guys, two or three guys I think actually, and just you know, just a really stand up based all the rest of it,

tiny little venues we played. Ronnie Scott still was to come and do it there because we were doing that kind of thing, went up and down the country, and I absolutely loved it, and something in my mind went like a light bulb just went Okay, so you can go out and sing. But it doesn't have to be your bo and end all, it's not every part of your life. You can do it when you want to do it. And I accepted this offer to go to Japan, mainly because our daughter, who was fifteen at the time,

and my wife really wanted to go. So we went and we went on a really lovely trip and I sang those songs never Going to Give You Up Together Forever, and a bunch of others, and again the same light bulb went on of lif So you go out, you sing them, you walk off stage, you put a different jacket on, and you go out for dinner. And that's it, right. It's not like you go out there there's three hundred

screaming fans, there's people taking a picture. You've got to do interviews all day the next day, and by the way, you'll be on a plane at four o'clock going to another territory to do it all again the next You know what I mean. It's you can pick and choose. You can have a life in music that isn't. I'm not saying I can ever attain the success they out in the ages about possibly do that, but I can enjoy it a lot more. And that's kind of what I do and what I've done ever since.

get to make many more. I thought I'd love to get a couple of my favorite drummers on it. So we did some stuff with Jeff Picaell came and played drums. We didn't actually use those sessions in the end because it turned into something else. Vinni Calliuti came and played drums on that song. Yeah, yeah, and I'm sat there in the room going, I don't know what's going on. And I got to play their drum kits as well. By the way, and obviously we had some great musicians.

Andre Crouch. It is choir that sang that sang on the record, and obviously I'm sure to this day, but I think around any of that time through the nineties and onwards, if you wanted a choir, there were a couple of choirs to ask, and he was probably at the top of it, and so some of those experiences were amazing. But anyway, so that record came out, we had the top ten in America with that song, and the top ten in the UK and lots of different countries.

So I thought, this is crazy. I've left stocking in waterman, I've made a record with Vinnie Calliouti on it and a choir, and yet we still had a top ten and I had long hair as well. I just grew my hair for a bit of it, laughing, and I thought, that's it. We've turned that page. I can go and make records. Cut a long story short. Up to that point, I think I had like and this sounds like sour grapes, it's not. I was just shocked by it. I just didn't understand what was going on. The next couple of

singles released didn't really do anything. We didn't get them anywhere near the charts, and the weird thing was they were more like pop songs than the first one. And it transpires that basically the head of RCA in the UK was moved out, a new person came along, kind of got rid of everybody and started again, and that was in that transition of in the middle of that record. So to be honest, we still I'm not saying this, I'm not believe me, I'm not bragging. I'm just trying

to give you the facts. Right, We still sold over a million albums with one single. It just didn't go boom, if you know what I mean. And we didn't and we didn't get any more singles at all in any chart anyway, it just didn't happen. And so it made me realize, and a few people who know what they're talking about it said, look, that just happens everyone. And again, you can be in the middle of a record and

if your record company just disintegrates, it doesn't matter. Goodly record is and even though you've had a hit with it, and if the album's can of out then it's doing well and it's could even be Top ten in a couple of weeks, it's just gonna die of death because there's nothing making it happen. And what it sort of made me realize was that unless your record company really wants this to happen, unless they're really on board, you know what I mean, you've got no chance. Really, And

I've never experienced that before. And obviously I was still a kid, really, I was young, you know. So anyway, so that record kind of ended, so we start to make how we gonna Are we gonna make another one? Are we not? Or we? What have you? So I'd written a song for a song. I can say this because it's years after how so it's cool. So Madonna was going to be in a movie called Body of Evidence with Willem Defoe.

involved in how you record it. We don't not produce it, but we've got to be there, but we need it done right away because we're really close and we've just got to get this thing done. So we went great. I was meg excited that, but there's something that back on my mind's going why isn't Madonna singing this song? Why isn't she singing her own song? Why isn't she what's going on here? But they said no, she doesn't

want to sing any of the songs. They don't want any They just she wants to act and that's it. So I'm like, great, that'll do for me. Madonna's gonna be part of you know, this massive thing, and I'm going to get a song in it, and let's go. So we do the song. Everyone said, we love it, it's great, it's perfect, We send it off. It's all great. So my record label, which is still our CABMG at the time, said right, we needed to make an album because this film's coming out in a few months, and

so have you got any songs? So well, I've got a lot of songs because I've been writing. I've been you know it, said right, just getting this. So I went back in the studio with the guy who had made the last album, with a guy called Gary Stevenson who's still a good friend today, and we just got stuck into making an album. So we did. So a Body of Evidence is coming out and they've decided they're not going to have any songs in Body of Evidence. They're not going to do this with a lead song

because it doesn't really that's going to confuse people and whatever. Right, maybe we did have a song in the end. Yeah, maybe they did have a song in the end. I can't remember, but but they certainly didn't have ours. I don't think they had any I think they just had the theme music. They didn't want to confuse Madonna's career with like this music, So what is it anyway? What ever? And maybe that's just the way I'm remembering it. So at this point, when I go into the record label,

I've made an album. At this point, most people when I walk in the building, I'm kind of looking at the window, hoping not to make eye contact because now they don't know what to do. Now they don't know what to do. It's like, is this record any good? Is it the right record? Should we be doing this? I'd like to keep my career. So I'm just gonna look out the window when he walks in the building. And at this point, I'm like, you know what, I

think I'm just gonna walk away. I think I'm just going to say, look, I'm gonna while no one's watching, and they obviously weren't, I'm just gonna walk I'm going to walk out the side door. And I spoke to a manager who spoke to my lawyer. I was doing promotion for that record that I had this song Hopelessly, which was going to be there whatever, and I think we were getting a bit of roots, getting a bit of headway in in America, actually funny enough, And I

was I was going to the airport. I was going to Heathrow to get on a plane to go to New York to be on a TV show for get which One to sing this song hopelessly, And it was sort of getting played a little bit, but it wasn't getting the full do you know what I mean? And something in me said, I've got a daughter at home who is like, you know, one year older, thinks she was something like that. I've just done loads of promotion

in Europe and it all felt pointless. I don't know whether you guys have been there, but it just felt absolutely it felt like, you know, it almost felt embarrassing, like sort of like we should just not be doing this. Really, they don't want to do it. I'm not sure I want to do it anymore. So I'm going to Heathrow. And I turned around to my manager, who is still one of my closest people in my life, and you know,

he's a bit of a surrogate father. And I said, I think I'm done, and he's like, what do you mean. I'm like, I just don't want to go and I don't want to go and I don't want.

And I just went home and we had a bit of a hug, and he drove home and he called my lawyer and he called BMG, and to be fair to them, they said, yeah, we're okay with it. If he wants to quit, we don't want to do it anymore. And that was it.

I don't think I think I was always chasing my tail and always kind of like I almost felt like I was always running after a bus. That was just always like leaving the depo before I got you know what I mean. And so I didn't I didn't grow up as a human. I've become a dad, but I don't really felt I didn't feel like a grown up, you know what I mean. So, and anyway, I'm gonna

sorry very long answers. So that to the next part of the equation, is this that first album did really really well I wrote four songs on my own on it. The next album did pretty well. It did about half what the second one did, and I wrote five or six of them. So and even even the cry for help song it was on my album called Free. You know, we did a million something with that record. I wrote a lot of those tunes and co produced it and

blah blah. So in other words, I made quite a lot of money because we sold a lot of you know, that first album sold over eight million, I think, you know what I mean. So we sold a lot of records back then, because if you had a hit couple of songs pop song, that very often meant he sold a lot of records. And so I just kind of was comfortable with that. But I've never I've never owned a fleet of ferraris. I've never driven a roll's voice into a swimming pool.

him was going to come with a bag almost. I mean, as a kid, I thought I thought he was going to knock on the door and give me the money, you know, But I always knew that was there. And so I think every bit of money that I earned. I think also because I was so busy for like, certainly the first three four years, well I only did it for four or five years. The first three years

of it, I was so busy. I didn't buy anything, I think, in buy a house until quite a few you know what I mean, Because I was always traveling. I was always yeah. So and also I think that whole kind of like MTV cribs, look at my house lifestyle. Unless you were one of the absolute greats helping John the who the what have you?

one of the last awards. So i was stood on this podium waiting to get the award with the audience looking at me but not the TV audience, and I've got this camera on me and to me, I'm thinking the cameras on. So I'm just stood there waiting for someone to stand up and go and the signal of the Year goes to Rick Hastley for right there. So I'm just stood there and the albuholes lo looking at me, and I'm like, but it didn't happen. No one came on the podium and no one gave me the award,

and it just somebody just went. Ladies and gentlemen who and they just steamed into like, so I just stood there, going what is going on? And I'm literally still in this round podium, just in the middle somewhere, and I'm going like do and the camera's still looking and I'm going, what do I do? Don't walk do I shuffle away? Do I walk away? Do I look at the hoom? And E don't know what to do? And I just kind of like just sideways, just just kind of walked

out of the picture. Anyway, I wasn't even upset because I was too in the sort of nonsense of it all to be upset. I was like, I don't know what's going on someone's life to do. So I woke up. But believe me, backstage it all kicked off. My god, there was some like who has you know? There really was, and my manager was really angry. I mean he was like fuming, do you know what I mean? And the stockcakeing watman guys were going ape shit, you know what

I mean? It was really it was a big deal because they'd actually written and produced the song that had done you know what I mean, the business that year and blah blah. So anyway, a couple of days later, a crate of. I think it was Crystal Champagne arrived at my manager's office from help John to me saying that I'm really really sorry, what an awful thing to happen. That's absolutely terrible. All the best, keep on making music,

don't let it get you down. Do it a really nice letter, and I was just thinking, like, this is just how amazing is that, you know what I mean to sort of, But obviously as time has gone on, I've obviously understood he's had his moments in life. I'm sure where he's been let down and he's been do you know what I mean? And I think he's always he's always done that thing, reaching out to younger artists, sort of saying, look, if you ever want any advice,

if you ever want to you know. So he invited myself out, and my wife and I went to dinner with him and a few friends, and he was just chatting about stuff really and just being a nice dude, you know what I mean, and just kind of saying, look, if you ever want to talk, if you ever get

you know. And I also think, because obviously he especially in the latter you know, years, I think he's also been very helpful to people who've been going to major problems, you know, with drugs and drinking all the rest of it and all kinds of things, you know. I think that's what his life is about really now, is about more giving back than it's taken, if you know what I mean. But anyway, that's another world to gain too.

So but on that dinner that night, he said, look, if you ever want me to come and play, you know, if you want to come and play on a record of just just get in touch, you know. And I'm like, and I'm listening to him say the words, but I'm not really computing it. Sure Enough, sure enough he did. He came and played, and he just rolled up. He just rocked up and just played piano and a couple of songs on that record that I did when I left.

I think he's just always been great. He I made a record a few years ago when I turned fifty. I made a record in my garage at home, just sort of just to kind of say to myself what I could do. I didn't even have a record deal at the time. And he we went to see him in Vegas. And I'm saying this because I want to. I want to. I'm proud of myself, but I also

want to say how great he is in it. In that same sentence, we went to see him just because we've seen him a bunch of times and I wanted to see the show that he does in Vegas that he was doing the Red He's just sat there and he knows him in the audience kind of thing, and he sat there and he just says to the audience, is, by the way, nas, jentleman, there's a young man in the audience tonight. Not when I was younger. There's a

guy in the audience tonight. He said, if you're going to buy a record, if you're going to buy a record in the next few weeks or next months by rick as record by Rick Aster's record is full fifty. It's an absolutely fantastic And I'm like, what is going on? You know, It's like wow. And he's always he's always done things like that. I mean, for loads of artists to think, and you know, he's always he's still keen on working with the artists and doing due and all

the rest of it. And so I just think he's one of those people that I know some people around him. I'm really good friends with David Johnson is MD and his guitar player for for all the years that he's been going. Really so I've been to loads of his gigs and you know, been around some of the stories and some backgrounds on the Lion King, some of those songs and stuff like because I was just there and he just so much that get in there to sing, you know, and stuff, and I just think he's one

of those people who's still in love with music. He's still back in the days of CDs and what have you. He would go into stores. I'm sure you've heard this story. It's legend, go in there and come out with two great big bags of CDs because he's still wanted to be like, what's going on? I should know what's going on, and I want to hear that thing, you know what is it?

because just great. But I think it's never really I'm not saying I'm not a fan, and I'm not I don't appreciate Zeppelin, but it's I'm if I ever go well, and I do love a lot of rock music. I still play drums in a midlife crisis, punk rock covers band and what have you. And we go from like uh more ac DC to be honest and then yeah, right okay and more sort of punky rock sort of things. I just the thing is how I started is how most people start. You start by covering other people's songs

and there's a real joy in doing it. There's a real.

And I just got to play it. But the other reason I kind of like to do that is because if we can't all just shuffle into it and just play it and make it work, we shouldn't be doing it unless it just sort of happens instantly. So we we've done loads of cover and I just I love doing it. I still absolutely love it, and I think, to be honest, there's an element about doing other people's songs that there's a there's a tension relief because it's like you're just doing a cover. Do you know what

I mean? It's not it's not like you're trying to represent for the audience something they've paid to come and watch. They've sort of gone right. I bought that first album thirty odd years ago. I wanted to do never going to give you up. I wanted to sound like the record. I wanted to you know what I mean. I feel like old them that, you know what I mean? And that's not in a negative I want to give them that. But I think when you do covers, you can just

sort of say it don't really matter. I don't mean that with any disrespect to the artists at all. I just mean it's just having fun, you know. I think all artists like covering other people's songs. It's just, you know, it's just it's just fun. Yeah.

and he literally RiPP wrote me in an email. So this is years ago, obviously, and I'm like, so I just emailed him back and went, okay, whatever, whatever send And then so he did it again, and I'm like I replied an answer to him saying, what are you doing? You know what I mean, We've known each other years, right, like, what are you actually doing?

and everything. So I get on the phone to him, right Andrew, what the hell are you doing?

bubble on the Internet that people were, you know. So, to be honest, I give credit to my daughter for mostly putting me right about it. I'd been nominated for an MTV award in whenever, it was fifteen years ago, something to do with best Live Act or Best Act or best something, which all they were doing they were jumping on the rip roll thing and they were having a bit of fun. They were having a bit of fun,

possibly at my expense, and that's whatever. But it was going to be in Liverpool, and I knew that Sir Paul McCartney was going to be getting a Lifetime Achievement or from Bono in Liverpool, right right, And I'm like, am I going to go to that?

whatever she was. He said, you do realize it's got nothing to do with you. And I went and I was actually, I was stunned. Actually, I'm right. What do you mean, It's got nothing to it? Actually says Rick Roll. I'm the Rick in the Rick role. It's the video. I'm in the video. He said, yeah, it's got nothing to do with you. And it was like really wise words from a young a young woman, young girl, because

she was absolutely right. It's it's got everything to do with me and nothing to do with me same time. And it's probably the best bit of advice I ever had about it, all of it, and that is to say, it's over there and it's doing whatever it is, and it's a thing, and it's one of you, and it can be fun and you can even enjoy the fun and get involved in it sometimes, but it isn't. It's a thing and it's a whatever. Just it's there. Whatever it is. And that's because she was of the generation

to understand the Internet way more than I was. So, you know, even though I had explained by one of my best friends who is my age, her explanation of it in a real way was kind of a lot more useful to me.

And the way they use music, I think is such a blessing because kids know those songs, even the ones from the seventies, eighties, whatever, They know those songs. Like we were talking at the very beginning, all three of us talking at the beginning about how we listened to music, how we've come across and stuff. So I thought that was a really cool thing to do when the guys who made the video game are really great. So I'm

more than happy to be invited to do that. But there's just times when I just look at it and I go now, I just don't feel that it's just. And I also think it's a really difficult thing to navigate. I think, how far to just do something for money. But don't get me wrong, my wife and I my wife manages me, and we have a criteria of things that need answering. The first one it usually comes up

is where is it? Because if somebody says it's in Santiago and Chile, then we're almost on the plane, right And I don't love flying, but we're almost on the plane because we have great promoters down there, We've got some great wine down there. We love it down there. And if someone says to you, you know someone like that, or you know anywhere in South America, that's like what you know. Japan has been to quite a few times one way or other different places. There's lots of places

in the world. Coming back to America and getting to go to towns and cities in such a way like this with the guys and everything. It's been such a trait really not something I can do on my own in any way, shape or form, so you know. But but the truth of it is, it's like where is it. It's also kind of yes, there's money involved, usually as cost there is, But what we also look at is we sometimes say, well, you know what, we'll do that

because that basically means we can do this. Well, We're not going to make any money, but I just really want to do it. By the time we've flown the band and the crew there, it's probably going to cost me money, but I really want to do it. I really want to do it, and that pays for it. And I'm not afraid or embarrassed to talk about that, because at the end of the day, music is a business and it has to kind of balance out at some point, and you pick and choose and you do

the ones you know. So so I think I've just always used my head in terms of thinking about the rip roll thing and never going to give you up the same look, I don't want to bleed it dry because I don't but sometimes there's opportunities that come along

and sometimes they just happen. Sometimes they just happen in front of me, and it's like I'm getting on the stage and I'm singing that song right now because it's it's just been it's just happening on this It's tricky, and like you said, there's a lot of artists who want to run a million miles from their biggest, oldest song, and I kind of go the other way. I sort of embrace it, and it's it's it's like an old jacket and it's kept me warm for thirty odd years,

do you know what I mean? So I just I have that kind of like comfortable love for it.

opposite and run away from it. But you know, it's really inspiring to see someone in a healthy way just embrace and embrace their their work and really enjoy it and not be serious, but not take themselves that seriously because you know, I've run across many an artist that does nothing but try to sabotage a good thing, and.

and sing that song the best I possibly can. And I want anybody who remembers it and has some love for it to have that emotion with me and vice versa, and share it a bit and say, yeah, I was there, I bought the T shirt. I remember, you know, because that because I go to whether it's Sir Paul McCartney in fort Worth the other week, or whether it's somebody who's nowhere near his level of you know, greatness or whatever, whether it's somebody just starting out or what have you.

If I've got a connection with them because I, you know, loved that record, then i want to feel that in the room. And if I feel their up and doing it, just painting my numbers up there going looking at the Watchgod or be off the stage at ten minutes. I'm like, I'd rather walk out. I don't want to know, do you know what I mean? It's we've still got to

respect it. I think, however old the song is, and even if it's become an internet meme, you still have to respect what the true emotion of it when when somebody heard it the first time.

Quest Love Supreme. All right, y'all. Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.