Together Forever
Richard Burnett
rburnett@hour.ca
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Twenty years later, Rick Astley and Bugs (L) are rounder in the face!
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I accidentally called 1980s teen idol Rick Astley "Rick Ass-lick" when I asked him recently what names bullies used to call him in grade school.Rick laughs out loud, then says, "Ghastly Astley!"
Of course, "ass-lick" is exactly what I wanted to do to Astley back in the 1980s when teens worldwide worshipped the heartthrob and his fellow Brit, 36D bombshell Samantha Fox, who co-headlines the Nostalgie 80 concert in Quebec City next week. A couple days after I met Astley in Montreal, I call up Fox at her London home and she tells me, "I love coming back to Quebec because it was always my biggest market [with] my most loyal fans!"
Fox and Astley are best remembered as bubblegum chart-toppers from London's Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW) assembly line that gave us such acts as Bananarama and Dead Or Alive. But neither Fox nor Astley have fond memories of the production trio.
"I think they'd like to think of themselves as [Motown's] Holland-Dozier-Holland," Astley quips. "They had the same ethos, the same ideas, but they just didn't have the artists."
Says Fox, "At the beginning I was a bit miffed because they didn't get rock songs. SAW have no guitars, no guitar solos. Then I did pop songs. I did I Always Wanna Be With You but it was cheesy. Working for SAW was like working in a factory."
Following his monster Number 1 hits Never Gonna Give You Up and Together Forever, Astley has mainly kept a low profile. On the other hand, Fox - who famously got her start as The Sun newspaper's
Page Three Girl - has maintained her public profile, touring nostalgia revues worldwide, including an Australian tour with '70s heartthrobs the Bay City Rollers, as well as Rick Springfield and Katrina & The Waves.Go figure, the night before Samantha and I blab, Bay City Rollers tartan-clad lead singer Les McKeown, now 53, came out as a gay man on the British TV show Rehab after living a secret gay life for the past 30 years, one which he even kept hidden from his wife.
"I've been a bit of a George Michael, meeting people, often strangers, for sex," McKeown said. "Not in public toilets - I'm not big on the unhygienic side of things. These days you'd meet online and figure out a place where to meet - your place or mine."
Ironically, a week earlier, New Kids On The Block heartthrob Jonathan Knight was outed in America. In other words, the song remains the same.
Fox - whose fabulous lesbian partner of 10 years, Myra Stratton, is also her manager - was as stunned about McKeown as I was.
"Les and I had become great friends on that [Australian] tour," Samantha explains. "When I was 10 in 1977 the BCR were huge and I used to wear white trousers and tartan bottoms! My friends and I had our own BCR song" - here Samantha sings it to me - "and I sang it to Les at the airport! I could see on that tour that he was a broken man. Now I understand [why]. I wish he had spoken to me because I could have helped him. Because it was [also] very difficult for me [coming out]. I could never live that lie that long because it destroys you. And people know. That's what happened to me. Even when I went out with guys, like Paul Stanley of Kiss, I knew."
Meanwhile, Boy George was originally scheduled to co-headline this current 1980s-nostalgia world tour (called the Here & Now Tour outside Quebec). But the former Culture Club singer is currently serving a 15-month sentence for handcuffing a male escort to a wall and beating him with a metal chain.
"It's really sad because he is a real pop icon," Astley says. "He made a difference. He seems to be bright, so much so that... people like that are always on the edge."
Astley will return home to his wife and 17-year-old daughter Emilie after this tour. "I quit [showbiz] when Emilie was a baby," Astley says. "I was never really comfortable with fame, to be honest. I didn't like the business. In pop music, you don't really have to be that good to be famous. Whereas in soccer or ice hockey you don't become famous unless you're one of the good ones. In pop, people are notorious now more than they are famous."
Kind of like Lily Allen, who reportedly emailed Astley a photo of her naked tits.
"Nah," Rick says. "But you can see Lily Allen's boobs anywhere!"
Astley now drums for a rock trio called The Luddites.
"We do a couple gigs a year and play everything from The Clash to AC/DC. I sing Highway to Hell!" Astley beams. "It's great, you'd love it! I'm more comfortable behind the drums than being a pop star."
As for Samantha Fox, the bombshell tomboy still enjoys being centre stage. But, she tells me, "Myra and I just got engaged! You're the first I've told!"
Are kids on the way?
"I'd like to try next year," an exuberant Samantha says. "But I never seem to have nine months off!"
ooo
Essential buttplug Rick Astley, Samantha Fox, Debbie Gibson and Tiffany co-headline the Colisée Pepsi in Quebec City, April 10, at 8 p.m. Opening DJ is drag bitch Mado La Motte! Surf to www.nostalgia80.ca.
