The one lesson I’ve learned from life
Rick Astley, 52, had a worldwide chart-topping hit, Never Gonna Give you Up, aged 21, in 1987. He retired at 27, but hit it big again with 2016’s album, 50. He and his Danish wife, lene, live in south-West london and have a daughter, emilie, 26.
SUCCESS IS NEVER JUST DOWN TO YOU
EvEn though I’m a solo artist with only my name on the record or the concert ticket, that’s not the truth of it.
Yes, my new album, like the one before it, was all my own work: I recorded it in the studio I had built in my garage at home. I wrote and sang every song; I played every instrument. But I couldn’t do what I do without a team of people behind me.
It’s like when somebody wins the singles title at Wimbledon. You know they didn’t win it on their own. Being a tennis champion like Roger Federer with all his talent is just the beginning of it. Success second time around is more of a solo effort than when I was in my 20s, and had Pete Waterman and my record label behind me.
now, Lene is not only my wife, she’s my manager. And that means she has to put up with all my nonsense when I’m in the middle of creating and simply let it pass.
Even my daughter Emilie has had to make some sacrifices in the past few years. She’s in the back of the car listening to her mother and me rabbiting on about some tiny detail to do with my work. She has to suck up all of that.
Then there’s my engineer and my crew and the people who back me when I’m doing concerts.
It might be different if I were in a band. It’s me out front and yet it’s important to keep reminding myself that it isn’t just me. You’re in danger of floating off the edge of the planet if you start believing it’s about you and you alone.
In the Eighties and early nineties, it would have been easy to have got caught up in the cult of self. It’s happened to a lot of people and that’s why many lose their way.
The people behind you may not stand on stage and take a bow. But experience has shown me that I couldn’t do that either, without all of them behind me.