When fresh-faced Rick Astley hit the music scene at the tail end of the 80s, he was hailed by critics as the English answer to Elvis.

Despite scoring number one success with his debut album and three top 10 singles, the lofty expectations proved a heavy burden and led to his becoming disillusioned by the business after several years.

"The comparisons with Elvis were ridiculous, he's the King," explained the Lancashire-born singer with a wry laugh. "It was really weird being in the eye of the storm for 15 minutes. I'm really grateful for what happened to me but I had a hard time dealing with it."

As the smooth-crooning star explained, his moment in the limelight has afforded him the luxury of "being able to bum around", but it's not in his nature to simply sit back and do nothing.

Now in his early 40s, he is a lot more relaxed and enjoying life as a father-of-two who has no regrets about bowing out of the commercial music industry. He was one of the very few British solo artists to break America and having sold in excess of 30 million records around the world, he hasn't done so badly.

Several years ago he turned his hand to producing a well-received album of classic swing ballads. Though he admits that project didn't turn out exactly as he anticipated, it proved an interesting sideline - as did starting up a hair salon in London with one of his business partners.

Intriguingly, he has also taken a unlikely musical direction in having a giggle with playing drums in a punk band with several friends for charity which he finds a good way of letting off steam.

TV viewers were nearly treated to his return to more mainstream music when he was lined-up to appear in the BBC's celebrity duets series Just The Two Of Us. He was heavily criticised for withdrawing from the show at the 11th hour but, as he explains, it was a tough decision to make.

"My wife (Lene) is a film director and had just been nominated for an Oscar so I just couldn't miss going to support her for that. I feel sorry if I let people down on the BBC show," added Rick, who revealed that his other half is helping him work on a script for a musical.

"I know that doing it is a real long shot, but it's something I would really like to do. It's quite different from most musicals and has a really good setting in 80s New York."

His own experiences during that decade were quite a rollercoaster ride and he looks back on it all with a great deal of fondness. Before making the transition to solo singer he started out as a drummer in a local rock group which sowed the seeds for his eventual career.

"I always loved playing the drums and guess I come from quite a musical family. My mum still plays piano once a week in a pub up north!"

From these humble beginnings he started working on his own material and moving to London, he found himself working at Stock Aitken and Waterman's infamous studios.

Though much derided for their philosophy of churning out formulaic hits, you can't really knock their success rate with the likes of Kylie, Sinita and Bananarama, who Rick will be touring with for the Here and Now tour.

The story goes that Rick allegedly made up the lyrics to his first and biggest hit, Never Gonna Give you Up after a conversation to Pete Waterman about him not giving up on a woman he was seeing.

"That's not actually true, but of the many things that have been said about it, the strangest has to be the lawsuit against us! There was a woman who said that she had been sat on a bus with me singing Never Gonna Give You up and claimed that I heard her and stole the song! That was just mad, it cost us so much for that case."

The song has gone onto even weirder cult status for an internet craze known as Rick in which people logging onto what they think is a particular site are redirected to a YouTube video for Rick's famous debut single.

How does he now feel about the track, which is endlessly repeated at a 1,000 80s nights around the country week in week out?

"I don't love being in a pub and hearing it blaring out on the juke box, I’ll just say give it a rest. But I have enjoyed people coming up to me and saying 'that was our song when we were getting together'. It's nice to think that you have some meaning in people's lives. There's a real love of nostalgia which is why were doing this tour as everyone wants to think back to what it was like being 21."

Though he describes his former boss Pete Waterman as something of a tough cookie, he discovered a lighter side to him after working so closely together. Though he was indebted to him for boosting his early career he parted ways with him in the early 90s and took a more soulful direction with his music.

This resulted in his last top 10, the gospel tinged ballad Cry For Help soon after which he made the decision to retreat from the music scene.

"I know that there's difficulties with every profession you choose, but being in the industry was making me ill."

More than a decade on he comes across as being more than content with his lot. He has risen to the challenge of fatherhood and enjoys making time for the family. A keen fan of all things outdoorsy, he says that canoeing down the Thames near their home in the Richmond area is one of his favourite pastimes.

But it's not a mode of transport that's particularly practical for his latest tour, in which he will be appearing alongside a wealth of 80s stars including Curiosity Killed the Cat and Paul Young.

"I do enjoy the live side of music and it will be good to get out to some decent venues with this tour which should be fun."

Rick Astley plays the Brighton Centre on Thursday, May 15. Tickets 0844 8471515. see www.brightoncentre.co.uk