Rick Astley

Rick Astley

By
Punn Tiawtrakul

Content

Preface
Introduction
Biography
Religious belief/Belief
Reference

Preface

Rick Astley is one of my favorite singer and the only
singer I look up to. His work was very different compared to
other singers and he was also extremely hardworking even
though he got extremely popular after the overnight hit “Never
Gonna Give You Up”. Even now he is still singing and making
new songs.

So I want to do a research about him and his beliefs
about this world. Here are my findings.

Introduction

Before getting started we must first understand what are
beliefs and what are religions and what are the differences
between them. Meaning of the word belief is an acceptance that
a statement is true, trust, faith, or confidence in someone or
something that something exists. While religion on the other
hand means a particular system of faith and worship or a pursuit
or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
So religion is basically a system that is made out of one belief
like many religions that we have nowaday.

Biography

Richard Paul Astley or aka Rick Astley is an English
singer, songwriter and radio personality, who has been active in
music for several decades
born 6 February 1966. He
gained worldwide fame in
the 1980s, having multiple
hits including his signature
song "Never Gonna Give
You Up", "Together
Forever" and "Whenever
You Need Somebody", and
returned to music full-time
in the 2000s after a 6 year
hiatus. Outside his music
career, Astley has
occasionally worked as a
radio DJ and a podcaster.

the fourth child of his family. His parents divorced
when he was five and Astley was brought up by his father
Horace Astley. Astley remained in very close contact with his
mother Cynthia Astley, who lived a few streets away from his
father. After finding out that his father was the one who kicked
his mother out of the house, Astley distanced himself from his
father. When he was 10 years old, Astley began singing in a local
church choir, which began his love of music. During his

schooldays, Astley formed and played the drums in a number of
local bands, where he met guitarist
David Morris. After leaving school at
sixteen, Astley was employed during
the day as a driver in his father's
market-gardening business and played
drums on the Northern club circuit at
night in bands such as Give Way –
specialising in covering Beatles and
Shadows songs – and FBI, which won
several local talent competitions.

In 1985, Astley was performing as a
drummer with a soul band named FBI, with Morris on guitar.
They were a well-known local band writing and performing their
own music, gigging in pubs and clubs. When FBI's lead singer
left the band, and Morris left to concentrate on his career in
hairdressing,
Astley offered to
be the lead
vocalist. This was
when he was
noticed by the
record producer
Pete Waterman,
who persuaded
him to come to
London to work
at the Pete

Waterman Limited (PWL) recording studio, with RCA Records
publishing his records. Under the tutelage of the production
team of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman, known as
Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW), Astley was taught about the
recording process and groomed for his future career, supposedly
starting off as the recording studio "tea boy". The reason for
Astley to be hired as a "tape op" was to overcome his shyness.
SAW also hired most of FBI, including Morris as a
guitarist/songwriter.

After this period of his life he would then move on to

create many more album with the more popular and notable one

being “Never Gonna Give You Up”, "Whenever You Need

Somebody", "Together Forever" and lastly he would then move

to a new band name Soul one of his passion project leaving

behind his pop past. This would prove to be less successful with

him retiring in the year 1993 at the age of 27 after a very

stressful time dealing with the business side of his singing career.

However in the year of 2000 he finally decided to return to his

music career which proved to be successful. He also become an

actor, radio host,

podcaster and

even go to become

a guest singer

on many other

band

concerts.

Religious belief/Belief

Even though many of Rick ‘s works are about faith,
angels or religious icons. He is not a really religious person by
any mean as he stated in his BBC interview “I'm not really
religious. I've got a faith but I'm not exactly sure what it's in. It's
mainly in human beings, I think. But when you do gigs, there's
definitely an emotion you have in contact with other people -
and it does come close to religion, if I'm honest. There's a real
joy in it. There just isn't a negative moment.” so from the
interview we can conclude that he isn’t really a religious person
by any mean
By he does have faith/belief of his own rather a faith it us puny
humans. And he also make a comment on his career being
closely related or like a religion of sort.

Reference

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36469774

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Astley