RICK, you look the same as you did in the ’80s!
Keep talking, you’re a lovely woman.
Do you get recognised a lot?
It depends. If I have the full quiff going – which I can’t fight because I have a cowlick – then I get more looks.
If people are polite then I like it, but when drunk idiots pull their phone out at a urinal then that’s not good.
What’s your new album like?
I feel very different about this record because some bugger might actually hear it! I made an album a couple of years ago called 50, which did way better than any of us thought it would [it went to No.1]. Before that, I’d got to a stage where I thought: “I’m probably past it and a bit irrelevant.” But I’m doing gigs and people are shuffling along to the new songs, which is an amazing feeling.
What music do you like listening to?
A real mixed bag from Frank Sinatra to Biffy Clyro. I also play the drums in a three-piece punk-rock band called The Luddites, which is a midlife crisis in the extreme.
You’re not such a luddite though – you’ve got almost 120k followers on Twitter!
It’s great people can have their say [on Twitter], but I think there are times they shouldn’t – all the way up to the US president. It’s like a drunk call to the ex but on a big scale. Weird things happen on social media. There was a rumour that I was dead, so I had to call my mum and say: “Hi Mum, it’s Richard. I’m not dead.”
What did you make of Rickrolling (an internet gag where people click a link and get diverted to the Never Gonna Give You Up video unexpectedly)?
It felt weird. I knew it was just that week’s nonsense. It raised my profile, but I don’t think it got me more gigs or album sales because it was just a prank.
What do you think when you see the video now?
I’m like a different person. I wore my own clothes and we just turned up. The dancing wasn’t choreographed, that was pure fear. I remember a man shouting out the window of the tower block: “I’m on nights, turn it down!”
Are you still in touch with the ’80s pop crew?
Pete Waterman will come to a gig, but I was never mates with Kylie and Jason or Mel and Kim as I was too busy. I went out for dinner with Jason a few years ago to just be human, rather than only seeing him backstage.
What’s been your biggest extravagance?
Nothing really. The most expensive car I bought, the first day I owned it a truck ploughed into it, so it was like the universe was trying to tell me something.
Your wife, Danish film producer Lene Bausager, is also your manager – what’s that like?
It’s amazing because when you live with someone they go through it all with you anyway. They know you have good days and also days when you want to punch a pillow.
What else do you want to achieve?
I’d love a beachside restaurant in Italy. I’d be there barefoot in a velvet jacket singing Sinatra.
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BTW
- Rick lives not far from Hampton Court Palace and often goes walking there
- Three people spotted him and said hello – one sang Never Gonna Give You Up at us
- The song was the bestselling single of 1987
- Rick’s album Beautiful Life is out now and his UK tour starts this winter.
- Thanks to Hampton Court Palace (Hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace)