In 1985, Astley was playing the club circuit as a drummer with a soul band named FBI when he was noticed by the record producer Pete Waterman and persuaded to come to London to work at the PWL recording studio. Under the tutelage of the production team of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman, known as Stock Aitken Waterman, Astley was taught about the recording process and groomed for his future career, supposedly starting off as the recording studio \'tea boy\'. During this time, Astley also changed his name to (Ricardo) Bocanegra as a tribute to his Mexican parents who had changed their Hispanic names after immigrating to Britain. However, Waterman convinced him to change his name back due to the unusual pronunciation and existing reputation with his original name astley, bastard, funny, ginger, lol, music, rick