Rick Astley, Now a TikTok Star, Isn’t Sure He Could Have Broken Out in 2020

In 1987, singer-songwriter Rick Astley didn’t know he was recording a song that would arguably define his music career and make him the face of a bait-and-switch prank on the Internet. He also did not fully realize he was setting himself up for a future in advertising. Now in 2020, thanks to his biggest hit, “Never Gonna Give You Up,” Astley has worked with brands like Virgin Mobile, GoDaddy, Ancestry.com and now Frito-Lay. We sat down virtually with Astley this week to talk about his latest campaign, as well as what he’s learned about advertising and social media over the years—and the enduring appeal of Never Gonna Give You Up. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Adweek: What can you tell us about this new campaign? Astley: I do get the odd offer to do things of this nature and I'm very, very conscious of what the things are. When I was probably 21 or 22, I did a soft drink advert for a company in Japan. And I was very, very conscious of, “Is it super sugary?” Even in those days, it was becoming a thing, you know what I mean? I'm personally becoming conscious more and more of what I eat and so it made a bit of sense that it's helping people possibly make a healthier choice. And I'm all for that, to be honest. Never Gonna Give You Up, which is featured in a new Frito-Lay campaign, was released 33 years ago. Why do think this song has endured? I don't know, really. If I knew that, I could probably predict the next one and I'd be writing it. But I have no idea. It was a bit of an unusual record in the time that it came out in the sense that it was number one everywhere. And it just wouldn't go away that summer and all that year because obviously it came out the year after in America and different places. I think we just got lucky. Certain producers and songwriters will tell you they know exactly what they're doing. I don't think they do. I just think there's a magic dust that appears in the studio that day and it just works, you know? Did you realize what exactly you were creating at the time? It felt good. I remember I had a cassette demo and I had it in my car and I played it to friends and stuff and every one of them kind of was like, “Yeah. …” Even the ones who didn’t like it said it was pretty catchy. So I think we knew we had a chance with it. But you don't expect to be number one in America. It’s now been featured in countless ads—what have you learned about marketing and advertising since then? When you're going to make a music video, even if you're hiring a director, it is your thing at the end of the day, whereas with a commercial, you're jumping into someone else's well. And so much gets talked about so there's no surprises on the day and everyone's comfortable and everyone knows what they're doing. But the truth of it is you are actually fitting into someone else's world. And so I think you've just got to make sure you're comfortable about that before you do it. https://www.tiktok.com/@rickastleyofficial/video/6890858524092402946 You mentioned an interest in healthy brands—is there anything else you look for in the brands you work with? I actually have a collaboration with a brewery from Denmark. I'm not a big beer drinker, but I like a beer and they approached us a few years ago. And they've made three beers for me now, but we also have two bars with them in London. They're focused on quality and they don't really mass produce on the scale that the big brewers do because obviously they're the kind of the funkier side of the beer world. I've been on trips with them, I've been to see them brewing and stuff, and so I felt quite comfortable because, obviously, when you're talking about alcohol, you've got to be really careful. And also I'm not 21, so my main audience is not under-aged people, you know what I mean? How do you think your career would have been different if there had been social media when you were starting out? I was pretty shy when I started out, to be honest. I was pretty naive as well. I'm from a very small town in the north of England. And the only thing is we can't really say because we don’t know, but I'm not sure I would have adapted to the demands of social media. When I look at a Dua Lipa or somebody who's just breaking all the records right now and going crazy and everything in terms of achieving everything, I think a lot of it is down to great records, obviously, but I think a lot of it is down to a team of people who are keeping the focus on what she's doing all the time. And to do that across all social media, I think must be exhausting. She's young, so I'm sure she can cope with it, but it must just be crazy. I had to do so much promotion—I can't tell you how much I did. But everything that anybody does as a young artist now is either filmed or photographed. It's just on the whole time. And I don't know how I would have responded to that. If I'm honest, I'm not sure I would have done well with that. Hey, we got to sort of fool around, make mistakes. Go out and party sometimes. Nobody ever knew. You can't do anything anymore. You just can't. If you were starting out as an artist today, how would you approach it? One thing I have said is make sure you really like what you've done before you put it on social. Because once it's out there, you can take it down, but somebody might have already captured it, so in a way, it is there forever. And I've got good experience because Never Gonna Give You Up is 33 years old. And you could kind of say to yourself, “Well, that's done, that’s finished, that’s years ago,” but you can't control and predict what you've put out there. So you better be able to look at yourself in the mirror 30 years later, and say, “Yeah, I'm pretty proud of that. That's pretty cool.” If you're going to do something, you better make sure you really like it because there's no retracting it later, you know? You have a new Christmas song—this is perhaps an obvious question, but why release it now? I think it's just because of the crazy year that we've had. I've done a few things on TikTok recently, which I've only just got into because I'm 54. And one or two of them kind of just went a bit crazy. So I thought Christmas is coming, I'm going to knock together a little thing, maybe just on the acoustic and do a TikTok thing, maybe get some people joining in with me or something. And then that just turned into me finishing the track—properly doing it. And then that turned into a record label saying, “Come on, let’s put it out.” And so that's what we've done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYCUNULp868 What did you like most about the song? I like the fact that it went from an idea I was going to put on TikTok to being an actual song. And I also like the fact that I did it at home. Obviously, I didn't do the backing vocals, the girls who I work with on tour and do lots of sessions with, they did it from home. I just sent them the rough idea. And then I said, “Look, you just do what you do.” And I like the fact it's kind of homemade and a lot of things I'm seeing at the moment are homemade. But I think that's sort of all right, you know what I mean? I think people are behind people just doing stuff. Not everyone can go to a studio. We're so used to seeing even like news reports where people are sitting there in their living rooms. It's so homemade at the moment. So that's kind of the thing I'm probably proudest of, really, it’s just a little ditty that turned into an actual thing.

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Rick Astley, Now a TikTok Star, Isn’t Sure He Could Have Broken Out in 2020

The pop star’s 1987 hit "Never Gonna Give You Up" has become advertising gold

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