Nearly 30 years ago, a gangly year-old Rick Astley, his magnificent pompadour and his lovably geeky dance moves arrived on these shores from his native England armed with such hits as "Together Forever," "It Would Take a Strong Strong Man" and, of course, the tsunami-strength "Never Gonna Give You Up," which reached Number One in 25 countries.

His hair game is still impressive and remarkably unchanged since the Eighties. I'm really lucky in that respect. Astley, 50, is sitting in the restaurant at the Sunset Marquis in West Hollywood the day after a triumphant sold-out show at the Troubadour.

The previous night's smart suit has been replaced with blue shorts, a T-shirt and a jacket. He orders an espresso, announcing that he's still suffering from jet lag after flying from his home outside of London for an August 10th show in New York and then on to Los Angeles.

The two gigs — his first in the U. The first true sign of life occurred in June when 50 , a soulful, often revealing, collection of pop songs written, produced and played entirely by Astley, debuted on top of the British albums chart, landing the singer his first Number One album in the U. As 50 , out in the U. Astley's name most recently surfaced stateside in July after Melania Trump seemingly quoted lyrics from "Never Gonna Give You Up" during her RNC speech, resulting in streams of the song increasing by 19 percent, according to Spotify, as memes of Trump and Astley side by side emerged.

Astley has stayed at the Sunset Marquis since and while he's tucked away out of public view today, celebrity encounters were common during his Eighties heyday.

One day Robert Plant approached him by the pool. It turns out the Led Zeppelin singer wanted a photo with Astley for his nephew. Then there was the time Ozzy Osbourne recognized him in the bar and kindly offered recommendations on top touring musicians before Sharon Osbourne bleated, "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing? Do you really think he wants to work with the long-haired guys that you do?

Though the August concerts were his first U. Affable and softspoken, Astley amiably and candidly spoke to Rolling Stone about why he walked away from his career the first time, making the new album in his home studio, taking a cue from Adele, and, for the first time, scars left from his childhood. At 27, you said, "I'm done" and stopped. I'd been doing the same thing for so many years. Now it doesn't seem like any amount of years, but then it was a quarter of my life.

I was a young guy and I was like, "I don't want to be doing that every single day of my life. I want to hang out with my friends.

I've made a lot of money. I want to spend some of it. I want to do the things I want to do. By then, it sounds like you were exhausted from endless promotional duties, and you'd developed a pretty strong aversion to flying as well, which certainly didn't help matters.

The flying thing was a way of me saying "If I don't fly anymore, I don't have to do all of this anymore. I just thought it was a fear of flying, but I think it [was] about control. I was on my way to New York [in ]. I was on the motorway on my way to Heathrow and I just said "I can't do this.

I'm not getting on that plane because if I get on it, I don't think we're going to make it. At the Troubadour, before you launched into "Never Gonna Give You Up," you noted that you were 'very proud and happy' to sing it. How do you look back on those hits now? I've learned to appreciate my old songs.

I quit for about 15 years, didn't sing any of them ever, and I've learned to realize how lucky I was to have them.

I know that sounds a bit corny. If I see [an artist] and they're being a bit shitty, I'm kind of like, "Just remember, we were the lucky ones. We may have a bit more about us than someone else, and more drive, definitely, but we were all extremely lucky.

You wrote, produced and played all the instruments on Did you feel you had something to prove after British production trio Stock Aitken Waterman produced and wrote your Eighties hits?

No, [but] I think there's a satisfaction in it, definitely. I'm very proud that I played every single thing on it.

There's an emotional resonance in your voice on the album missing from the earlier hits. Mike Stock used to produce the vocals. He knew exactly every syllable he wanted and the way he wanted it, so, basically, you'd just do take after take after take and he'd be giving you pointers along the way.

It's hard to get emotion into that because of the way we recorded it. The album opener, "Keep Singing," starts with the line, "When I was a boy, I saw my daddy crying at the steering wheel and, oh, it made me feel so scared. What made you decide to open up? I hadn't actually said, "I'm making the record, everybody" — as if everybody would listen [ laughs ].

I was just doing what I was doing. I don't know if cathartic is the right word, but it was just a bit like That was one I finished early on and it was like putting my flag in the ground and saying, "OK, I'm actually going to say some things on some of these songs.

I'm going to be 50 next year. I want to mark that for myself. My youth was not exactly the happiest time in my life, that's for sure. My mum and dad got divorced when I was probably four or five. They'd had a son who had died before I was born. There's my sister, two brothers and myself, and he would have been [in the middle]. I haven't spoken in interviews about this a lot — at all, really — but growing up, there was definitely an element of "There's something very wrong in this family. And then the fact that we were raised by my dad, but in the same very small town where my mom lived because she went to live with my gran.

I saw my mum every day, sometimes twice a day. My dad was really, really pissed off a lot of the time.

How Much Money Has Rick Astley Made From Rickrolling? | Mental Floss

He was great as well, he was really loving, but there was just times when he'd completely lose it and, as a small child, you've got no reference to deal with any of that. With titles like "Angels on My Side" and "Pray With Me" on 50 , fans might wonder if you've found religion since they last heard from you. I haven't, no, but I do have more faith in human beings as I'm getting older. I don't have faith in our leaders, but I have a faith in people, whether it's my immediate friends and family or [when] you hear that people go out of their way.

I genuinely have felt [faith] at gigs. It's a bit like a congregation and I might be on the stage and I know that they've come to see me, [but] I do generally feel that it's a two-way street.

No, it's not, it's probably a two-way street [ laughs ]. I've felt waves of emotion. I think a lot of it is to do with age as well. Is the album title a nod to Adele's method of naming albums after her age? I quite like that and I thought it would be quite funny. Truth to be told, I was not expecting [to have] the Number One album in the U. It's like if you're not a man by then, you get in trouble.

It does feel like one chapter starts, one finishes. You know your time here on earth is likely more than halfway done.

Also our daughter's She might not have kids, but some of my friends are granddads and I'm thinking, "That's where we're headed. We want to have a little restaurant in Italy on the beach and I'm going to croon at night and drink really good red wine and she's going to be the maitre d'.

I want to get [my memories] in order now and the only way you get them is by doing them, so that's kind of what I viewed the record as.

It's sort of a birthday present, but also a milestone. Rickrolling, the practice of surprising someone with the "Never Gonna Give You Up" video clip, started around How do you feel about it? I have no problem with it.

Rick Astley Net Worth | Celebrity Net Worth

It's done me a lot of good, probably. The thing is it's not personal to me, even though I know it is me and it's my name in the title of Rickrolling. It's that video that I'm in, it's that song that's mine, but it could have been anybody. It helped introduce you to a new generation. And reminded another generation [about me]. So I don't see it as negative. If someone had messed around with it and cut it all up and made me look stupid — I mean I look pretty stupid anyway in that video — if it was nasty, then I'd be probably a bit pissed off, but it's not.

It's like, "We're choosing that video because it's a full-on Eighties, cheesy video.

What do you remember about making the video for "Never Gonna Give You Up? No one sat me down and said, "We're thinking of you wearing this. I hadn't even made any money. It wasn't like I was [shopping] in the coolest shops in London.

Do you still have the long white raincoat from the "Never Gonna Give You Up" video? Somebody stole it off me in Northern Ireland. We [played] a radio broadcast outside and it got swamped. There were a couple of policemen, but it all went just a bit mad. Everyone was grabbing hold of me and before I knew it, it just went off of me. What would the year-old you tell the year-old you?

I'll look after you. I wasn't ripped off; I did really well financially. I think there was definitely from my childhood a part of me that was [still] unhappy. You just have to worked that out for yourself. I'm not even saying consciously that I said, "I'll do music and I'll get thousands of people telling me how great I am and that will make me feel better.

Now you seem so relaxed, happy and confident on stage. I do like doing that. Age has made me think I have to stop giving a shit what anybody else thinks and do exactly what I want to do, so one day I'm going to do a gig in Manchester where I'm going to sing [all] Smiths songs because I absolutely love the Smiths.

Rick Astley Highest-Paid Singer in the World - Mediamass

I'll probably get lynched for it, but I just want to do it. Sign up for our newsletter to receive breaking news directly in your inbox. Rick Astley on Benefits of Rickrolling, Taking Cues From Adele.

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