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He’s no stranger to love — or quality Nineties rock. Rick Astley, best known as the voice of 1987 dance-pop hit “Never Gonna Give You Up,” added a soulful spin to Foo Fighters‘ “Everlong” in a solo acoustic cover.
“Sometimes you just have to find a song that’s gonna lift your spirits and put you in another place, and I’ve been doing that a lot recently with music,” Astley said to introduce his YouTube rendition. “One of the bands I always go to, believe it or not, is Foo Fighters.”
The singer stripped down the song, a highlight from 1997’s The Colour and the Shape, to just vocals and acoustic guitar. He tackled the first chorus in a lower octave, saving his voice for a higher roar in the second half. (Another highlight: ad-libbing an enthusiastic “Come on!” to his virtual audience.)
Though the pairing of song and singer may surprise some, Astley and Foo Fighters have a friendly history. At Tokyo’s Summer Sonic Festival in 2017, the singer teamed with the group for one of the greatest “Rickrolls” in pop culture history: teasing a riff reminiscent of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” before morphing into a grungy take on “Never Gonna Give You Up.” As Spin notes, they also performed that version at a 2017 London show and the 2019 Reading Festival. (Grohl returned the favor during a gig last year at Club NME.)
In mid-April, Astley paid tribute to the late Bill Withers with a solo home recording of the soul giant’s “Ain’t No Sunshine.”
