Astley will be interviewd by Dermot O’Leary for the show, which will air on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer in February 2026 and will also feature his Glastonbury 2023 set on the Pyramid Stage.

Rick Astley said, “I loved doing Reel Stories with Dermot O’Leary, what a treat to be taken back to the start and come right through to today. Dermot is the perfect companion to go on that rollercoaster of emotion, love and thanks, Rick x.”

O’Leary said, “What a pleasure to spend time with Rick and hear him talk so openly about his memories from over the decades. I’ve long been a fan of his, and after recording this Reel Stories episode, have even more admiration for him as a performer and a person.”

“There’s so much more to his story than we know, a really interesting and interested person. A true gent, wise soul and real talent. I hope that viewers enjoy this extended interview as much as I did.”

Previous interviewws on the show have included Rod Stewart, Kylie Minogue, Dave Grohl, and Noel Gallagher.

Rick Astley launched his career in 1987 with his debut single ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’, which spent five weeks at No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart. The song led him to perform tours in the late-1980s around the UK, where he became a regular arena headliner. He followed this decades later with albums such as ‘50‘ in 2016 and ‘Are We There Yet?’ in 2023. He has also made headlines for collaborations with Foo Fighters and Blossoms.

After a long break, Astley returned to touring in the mid-2000s, including sold out UK theatre and arena tours, and later headlined major festivals such as Glastonbury. He has also won Best Act Ever at the MTV Europe Music Awards as well as received BRIT Award recognition for his influence and commercial success in his career.

Astley has recently announced plans for a UK tour in 2026, with Gabrielle joining him as a special guest. Remaining tickets are available here.

He is also set to perform the the Isle Of Wight Festival next year alongside the likes of headliners such as The Cure, Lewis Capaldi, and Calvin Harris. Remaining tickets for the festival are available here.

Doherty, the frontman of indie rock band The Libertines, had become notorious for his struggles with substances and his run-ins with the law during the late 2000s and 2010s. Now attempting sobriety, he has reflected on his chaotic past with Louis Theroux.

A real pleasure to catch up with @louistheroux

Catch up now on @BBCiPlayer #louistherouxinterviews pic.twitter.com/FmOnG2VdV6

— Peter Doherty (@petedoherty) November 16, 2023

When questioned on his health, Doherty shared, “You are looking at a very sick man. I’ve battered it, haven’t I, I’ve fucking caned it. [The] heroin and the crack… I surrendered to that, and then it was cocaine and the smoking and the alcohol, and now it’s cheese and the saucisson, and the sugar in the tea.”

He continued, “It’s all gotta go. They told me a little while ago if you don’t change your diet then you’re gonna have diabetes and cholesterol problems. Death’s lurking, you know what I mean? That’s why I carry that stick.”

Doherty also shared that he doesn’t believe he will be able to see his daughter, Billie-May (born in June of this year) grow up. When Theroux suggested living another 25 years to see his daughter start a family of her own, Doherty responded, “That’s a stretch though, isn’t it.”

Theroux also asked Doherty what advice he would give to someone interested in dabbling in drugs, to which Doherty replied, “My life in using was so chaotic and the consequences of [it]… You’ll be in prison and you’ll fuck your body up and you’ll be skint and you’ll lose your family and you’ll lose everything you love. Is it really that good? That’s beyond curiosity, that’s a right mess. I still get tingles thinking about it, but I’m able to talk to you rather than running off and scoring.”

Doherty also delves into other highly publicised aspects of his life throughout the interview, including his relationship with supermodel Kate Moss and his feud with former Libertines bandmate Carl Barat. Barat revealed that Doherty’s addictions caused a rift in the band, leading to The Libertines performing without Doherty.

Discussing Pete Doherty following the interview, Theroux shared, “I was surprised by how funny he was, I was surprised that (maybe I shouldn’t haven’t been) his recovery still seemed precarious, and I would say that maybe I was sort of surprised by his level of openness.”

Theroux continued, “I suppose everyone curates a persona that they present in public and I’m sure he does as well, but his curatorial choice seemed to be that he’ll speak about anything. Occasionally he deflects a bit, but I never felt that he was especially unwilling to talk about stuff, so it’s a very soul-bearing interview.”

Watch Louis Theroux Interviews: Pete Doherty here.

‘Sopranos’ star #MichaelImperioli defends ex-Smith’s frontman #Morrissey https://t.co/APGIP9pi9g

— Far Out Cinema (@FarOutCinema) August 11, 2023

Fans will be most familiar with Imperioli’s role as Christopher Moltisanti in what many critics call one of the greatest TV series of all time, The Sopranos. But the American actor has also proven adept at music, playing guitar and providing lead vocals for his band Zopa- releasing one studio record to date titled, La Dolce Vita.

The actor has now voiced his support of Morrissey, who is no stranger to making headlines himself, often for all the wrong reasons-being, in the past, accused of racism and bigotry. Imperioli still considers himself a staunch fan and defended the musician in a recent interview with The Guardian.

Imperioli said about Morrissey, “he’s uncompromising and very true to his art, to himself. As a lyricist, he’s on the level of Bob Dylan and Lou Reed to me: his intelligence, his wit and point of view. I think that’s why so many people connect to him, people who feel like outsiders. When they hear his lyrics and see him perform, they feel less alone in the world.”

Imperioli was introduced to bands like The Smiths when he was a young teenager living in Manhattan and attending acting courses. Bands like The Smiths provided him with a sense of freedom to express himself in a large city where it was easy to get lost in the crowd.

The actor, who appeared on the dark comedy anthology series The White Lotus, described Morrissey as being abandoned by the music industry in a not too dissimilar way to O’Connor who also courted controversy throughout her career. Imperioli said, “I thought what he wrote about Sinead O’Connor was spot on and brilliant-how easily she was abandoned by the music industry. He was as well….He’s on the edge of controversy a lot and they shy away from that. I’m not sure how racist the things he said were. To me they weren’t flagrantly racist….I still give him the benefit of the doubt. I know a lot of people don’t, but somehow I still do.”

Steven Patrick Morrissey, known mononymously, rose to fame as the frontman for legendary 80s act The Smiths. Acrimony between Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr led to the band’s split and to the successful solo careers of both artists.

Since 2022, Morrissey has had a turbulent relationship with Capitol Records-claiming the label had dropped him after his support for the far-right, anti-Islam political party For Britain came to light. In 2019, the artist was seen wearing a badge for the group during a live performance on Jimmy Fallon. Capitol has thus far declined to release his latest album Bonfire Of Teenagers, although Morrissey has announced that he finished a new album in 2023 titled Without Music The World Dies and is looking for a label to distribute it.

Waters spoke to The Telegraph about embarking on this project, saying, “not enough people recognised what it’s about, what it was I was saying then.” He believes this to be the perfect opportunity to point fans in the right direction, stating in the accompanying caption to the snippet of ‘Us and Them’ that reworking the album would provide a good opportunity to “re-address the political and emotional message of the whole album.”

Waters acknowledged that “it’s not a replacement for the original which, obviously, is irreplaceable.”

He continues, “But it is a way for the seventy nine year old man to look back across the intervening fifty years into the eyes of the twenty nine year old and say, to quote a poem of mine about my Father, “We did our best, we kept his trust, our Dad would have been proud of us”. And also it is a way for me to honor a recording that Nick and Rick and Dave and I have every right to be very proud of.”

Relationships between the ex-band members haven’t always been the best since Waters’ exit in 1985, with Waters anticipating backlash to this rerecording project. He told The Telegraph, “I wrote ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’. Let’s get rid of all this ‘we’ crap! Of course we were a band, there were four of us, we all contributed, but it’s my project and I wrote it. So… blah!”

Waters also revealed to The Telegraph that this project had been “secretly” in the works for months, reworking the entire track list “from scratch” unbeknownst to ex-band members David Gilmour and Nick Mason.

He is reportedly “planning a lavish vinyl release” of the rerecording, with the release date pushed back from March to May as Waters keeps “tinkering with recordings.”

To celebrate the 50^th anniversary of ‘The Dark Side of the Moon,’ Pink Floyd have also announced a reissued version, due to be released on 24^th March. The reissue will also include a live recording of Pink Floyd’s 1974 Wembley Stadium show.

A book will also become available on 24^th March, titled ‘Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon: 50^th Anniversary.‘ The book will include rare and unseen photos taken during tours between 1972 and 1975.

Additionally, harking back to Pink Floyd’s successful stargazing events at the London Planetarium in 1973, fans will also be able to experience ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ stargazing events at planetariums around the world.

Full details of the 50^th anniversary reissues and events can be found here.

Purchase tickets for Roger Waters’ tour here.

31/05/2023 – Utilita Arena – Birmingham

02/06/2023 – 03/06/2023 – SSE Hydro – Glasgow

06/06/2023 – 07/06/2023 –  The O2 – London

10/06/2023 – Manchester AO Arena – Manchester

Stream ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ here.

During his conversation with Alex Mistlin, he was noted to display a shy nervousness at odds with the confident brand of music he creates and the incensed performance he gives in the music video for “Hate“: “People feel scared to say how they really feel because in the times we’re living they get crucified. I’m trying to unlearn that bit by bit and be more myself“.

It seems like part of his agitation might also stem from his awareness of the change in direction that he’s taken and the response it might generate. For fans of the sweet and unchallenging tones of 2018’s “Ottolenghi“, “Hate” may be jarring and uncomfortable, but it’s a risk he’s willing to take and likens to the journey that Kendrick Lamar went on to conceive his lauded third album To Pimp A Butterfly. “When you’re young, there’s a charm to the fact that you’re a bit naive,” he says. “You don’t know what you’re striving for. It’s a balance because you don’t want to be too old to feel connected to the culture of youth that you’re trying to speak to. There’s a sweet spot in the middle, like Kendrick with To Pimp A Butterfly, where you’re naive enough to still be free-speaking, but considered enough to refine your shit.”

To compare “Hate” to the cultural heft of Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly would be lazy and remiss of me. Loyle is a British artist discussing experiences and traumas unique to him and should in turn be appreciated on it’s own level. However, I will say I’m excited to hear more from him as the new album and direction he’s taken becomes more apparent in the coming year. As judging by the brilliantly emotive video that Loyle himself co-directed for “Hate“, it’s going to be exciting.

In a candid and forthcoming interview with GQ, Barnett revealed how close she came to losing her home after having to cancel all of her upcoming shows whilst not being able to claim the Governments small business loans “I came really close, and it made me pay attention and learn a lot about things that I never really paid attention to before, because I’ve always been on the go“. She had a lot of people to pay in her team, and continued doing so despite said losses, but as time went by and her balance ran lower, it became increasingly hard to find a solution in a world turned upside down by the pandemic.

With the ban on live music taking out a huge chunk of her earnings, she felt the pinch of agreements she had signed up to earlier in her career when she was less aware of the small prints repercussions. Learning from it all now, it’s served as a sharp wake up call to the singer who is now placing more emphasis on her business practice and personal sovereignty in an industry that often seeks to take it away.

Speaking with GQ‘s Briana Younger in a typically thoughtful and open manner, she said “It has been intimidating for me being a young woman running a business because I felt like I didn’t deserve to understand everything. I felt like I didn’t deserve to understand the contracts – or even, sometimes now, when you do a song, there’s royalties, publishing, there’s points, there’s who gets paid first”. 

Now she feels like she’s matured and gained enough experience of the industry to deserve a seat at the table and be at the helm of the decision making of her business “I’m learning, and I want to make my own mistakes. I don’t want other people to make mistakes and then me not understand what’s happened… I think it’s important for specifically young women in a creative industry to have the confidence to understand their business and have the confidence to understand their worth and have the confidence to want more for themselves”.

You can check out FKA Twigs latest single “Killer” here:

In a recent interview with the Guardian the singer songwriter from Los Angeles commented on how the label often used her fragility and highly publicised drug use as a means of getting their own way and exploiting her “They’d say I’m crazy, I’m mentally ill, I’m difficult, I’m unprofessional – oh, I’m a drug addict. That’s by far everyone’s go-to. Troubled women. You can do whatever you want if they’re not like, save-me troubled. It was like the label almost wanted those things to be true about me so they could exploit it and use them as ways to sell”. Interviewer Laura Snapes noted that Ferreira “doesn’t seem well” and that it was “not comfortable to witness” but later went on to say that her erratic behaviour seemed “less like the trait of an unreliable narrator than a woman who has frequently been made to doubt her own reality“.

It’s an all too familiar story in an industry that often does more to perpetuate an artists personal struggles than it does to help them. However it is at least comforting to note that Sky is beginning to emerge again, with her first single in years “Don’t Forget” being released back in May, it seems that at least some movement is being made towards her highly anticipated new album Masochism. You can check it out here:

“Brother To You” is a particularly touching moment of the album, coming in at track number 4, Nick sings “Being a brother to you wasn’t easy for me, Head full of toxic scenes and other people’s dreams, Oh my days what a waste if I can turn it back make the change, I have missed your face, your mind, your company”. It comes only 6 months or so after losing his older brother back in December last year and is a raw and emotional apology for taking time for granted. Speaking recently with Dork Magazine Nick said “It’s about atonement and apology and writing it has been relief for me. From these personal origins it’s been cool to see how much people resonate with the song. It seems like most people have someone in their past who they would like to say this kind of message to.”

Nick has also spoken on some of the influences that inspired New Mythology with Clash, including Brian Eno, Sault, Kae Tempest, Fimba Brava, and Wild Beasts as big sources of inspiration for the new album. Speaking on Kae Tempest’s influence, and their two songs “More Pressure” and “Grace”, he noted “Kae performed these two tracks back to back on Jimmy Fallen a few months ago and I’m still electrified. The truth they speak…! It’s wild and it just pierces more, somehow”. 

Going on to note the grandfather of ambiences influence he also said “(Brian) Eno gets it. Says me and every other artist / person, I know, but… he does. He is an inspiration in these times not only for all his culture shaping creations and ideas over the decades but because he is acting with the appropriate urgency these times are demanding. He is awake”.

Honesty seems to be the running theme here and is a sentiment reflected in much of Nick’s music. New Mythology can be seen as an exploration of family, character, and connection, and a deeply personal one at that, pushing Mulvey’s reputation as one of the UK’s most consistent songwriters to new heights.

Unfortunately Nick has had to postpone much of his intimate UK record store tour due to an ongoing wrist injury, however you can stream and buy his new album here.

For those of you hoping the brothers might have buried the hatchet, Liam puts those hopes to rest, admitting that “The last time I saw Noel was at a football match about ten years ago. It’s a shame, isn’t it?” However, Liam argues that “The good times outweigh the bad times. I think it’s best to just leave it at that.” Unfortunately, it seems his brother doesn’t agree.

To be honest, it doesn’t seem like Liam is the only ex-Oasis member that Noel hasn’t been keeping in contact with. Noel revealed on the Matt Morgan podcast that the last time he saw Oasis guitarist Bonehead was in “the last five years …. I haven’t seen any of them. I haven’t seen Guigs since the day he fucking left“. To be fair to him though, it doesn’t seem like Guigsy has made much of an attempt to keep in contact anyway, allegedly quitting the group via fax.

Despite not speaking much, the brothers still had something to do with each other recently, starting up a production company for their Oasis Knebworth 1996 documentary last year (which turned out to be the year’s highest-grossing documentary).

Liam argues that he was there to check on his brother. “I can’t remember the name, but he wanted to call the film something fucking ridiculous. I just went, ‘Fuck that – it should be just called Oasis Knebworth 1996’. Simple. He was calling it, ‘Ooh, The One With The Fucking Golden Ticket, Operation Fucking Gold’. Obviously he owns the key when it comes to the songs and that, but the image of it – I think I play an important part of [that].”

Other things Liam talked about in the interview include an interesting theory on how he became so passionate about music. “One day, I’m in school having a cigarette and minding me own business …. A couple of lads were looking for a bit of a fight …. and one of ’em hit a hammer over my head. Then a couple of weeks later music started creeping in …. I’m like, You know what? I like that song, that’s pretty cool. Whoever it was whapped me on the head, I’d like to thank him.” Not one to try at home, obviously.

Otherwise, Gallagher’s got a new documentary coming out featuring his two sons, titled Liam Gallagher: 48 Hours at Rockfield. You can look at his website for any other incoming news about the Britpop star.

The new song is only the second release the New York-based trio has dropped since their 2019 EP King Of The Dudes and follows last year’s single “Moment In The Sun” and their Manics collaboration with singer Julia Cumming’s, “The Secret He Had Missed”.

“Baby Don’t Cry” discusses the disposable nature of content in the digital age and encourages us to enjoy what we do have in life that “give us meaning”. It’s a message that was inspired by “being stuck at home” during the pandemic, with “the only connection you had to the outside world being a screen,” guitarist Nick Kivlen told NME.

“Instead of being out in the real world living your life, you were just looking at this screen that was constantly trying to manipulate your emotions and make you have this whole range of life just sitting at home and being completely disconnected from actually doing anything,” he continued. “It was hard to grasp onto anything real because even going to the grocery store was this traumatic experience that had to be rushed through and every person you saw was a possible threat.” You can hear the track below.

“Cooking dinner for one / Got The Caretaker on,” Julia Cumming sings in the song’s first verse. “Lyrics make me exhausted / I just need to clear my head”. The band then recalled that this made for a direct shoutout to an artist they spent the last 18 months listening to and who they immersed themselves in “something less demanding of you and very out of the time period that we’re living in”.

Kivlen goes on to say “He’s a British artist who takes old ‘20s and ‘30s parlour music it into these five-hour ambient albums, [Listening to it], you have these nostalgic memories that aren’t real but they’re comforting to hear and it almost has the effect of looking at a campfire.” “Baby Don’t Cry”, he added, is a celebration of such pieces of art “that you can find and feel really personal and special to you, and you can connect with in a way that doesn’t feel cynical or fleeting in the same way that a lot of content can make you feel really empty”.

Whereas 2020’s “Moment In The Sun” as Cumming stated found the band “recognising what is important in one’s life [and] the people you decide to spend it with” in a bleak time, “Baby Don’t Cry” comes from a different place. “‘Moment…’ was this urged forth sunniness and hopefulness, ‘Baby Don’t Cry’ is really part of how we’re feeling now and how we’re looking towards the future with the music that is on the horizon.”

The band are also set to embark on a UK tour after having some much needed time off during the pandemic to find themselves and “get their lives together”

Tickets for Sunflower Bean’s 2022 UK tour are already available for pre-sale and go on sale today (Friday 15). The tour dates can be seen below:

03/30/22 Junction 2 – Cambridge
03/31 Brudenell Social Club – Leeds
04/01 Waves Festival – Manchester
04/02 Stereo – Glasgow
04/04 University  – Newcastle
04/05 Rescue Rooms – Nottingham
04/06 Mama Roux’s – Birmingham
04/07 Electric Ballroom – London
04/09 Thekla – Bristol
04/10 Wedgewood Rooms – Portsmouth
04/11 Concorde 2 – Brighton