HIS music was a product of the 80s.

So when Nik Kershaw was asked to revisit the era for the new Eddie the Eagle movie he was surprised to hear his music sounded too modern.

The I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me and The Riddle singer was approached by Gary Barlow to contribute to the film's soundtrack and he remembers being taken aback by Gary’s feedback.

Nik said: "I didn’t have time to do anything new because I was about to go on tour with Go West so I sent him something that I recorded in 2012 for my last album and he loved it.

"Bizarrely the lyrics fit perfectly to the brief he gave me. The problem for him was that the song didn’t sound ‘80s’ enough. He wanted me to make the song sound more 80s but I didn’t know how to do that.

"It’s a really weird thing to do because all that any of us have ever done is to make things sound as good as we can with the available technology. That’s what I did in the 80s and that’s what I do now."

Nik sent the recording of The Sky’s the Limit to Gary’s sound engineer who remixed it to fit with the rest of the album.

He added: "I had fears that they would put this sparkly piano over it and make me sound like Bette Midler but they didn’t.

"They were very faithful to the original song and recording, it was just mixed in a way to make it sound more 80s."

Eddie the Eagle, starring Taron Egerton and Hugh Jackman, is based on the true story of Michael 'Eddie' Edwards who became the first person to represent Great Britain in ski-jumping at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. He famously came last.

Nik added: "I was 30 when the Calgary Olympics were going on and I remember it really well. What a star Eddie was and what a great thing to make a film about.

"I attended the premiere and I thought the movie was great fun."

Now the 58-year-old, who penned Chesney Hawkes' The One and Only, will appear alongside a host of fellow 80s icons at Rewind Festival North, Capesthorne Hall, this August.

"I resisted the revival thing for quite a few years but once I got into it I can’t remember why I had a problem with it," said Nik.

"There’s nothing complicated about Rewind, it’s an 80s festival, people come to hear those hits so you know exactly what your job is. You come on stage, do your job and the audience love it.

"They’re very well organised festivals and they’ve been going for a long time now so they’ve had time to get it right.

"The crowd are looked after, the artists are looked after and I get to hang out with my workmates again. On top of all that they have the nerve to pay me for it, what’s not to like?"

This is not the only 80s reunion gig that Nik is part of. Last year he toured Australia with the suitably named 80s Mania.

"Go West and I had already decided we were going to do a UK tour so it was a great opportunity to try it out down there," Nik said.

"I was there a few years before with Kim Wilde so it was great to go down with this group of people – Go West, Paul Young and Cutting Crew – we had a good old laugh."

Before entering the world of 80s revivals, and even before his first chart hit, Nik had his start in music from living in a musical household and listening to his idols.

"Music was always around in my house," he added.

my parents were classically trained musicians so it was always there. That had the opposite effect when I was younger and I rebelled against it,” said Nik.

"I wasn’t really that interested until I was in my mid-teens when David Bowie turned up. Early on it was Bowie, Mark Bolan and his band T-Rex that gave me a nudge in the musical direction.

"Before that I had visions of being an actor. I always wanted to be on stage – I just wanted to show off really."

As a huge fan of David Bowie, Nik recalls the two albums by the late artist that inspired him to begin creating music.

He added: "With Bowie there were two albums which started me off. I came to him when he released Aladdin Sane. It was the first album that I remember being obsessed by and playing all the time.

"After that I went back to an earlier album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. I started seeing a point to learning an instrument and I picked up a guitar."

Nik’s career has included working with stars such as Elton John and in 1985 he appeared on the line-up for Bob Geldof and Midge Ure’s iconic Live Aid.

But he told Weekend some of his best moments have been his alone.

Nik said: "There are so many standout moments in the studio that nobody ever gets to witness. You might do a great guitar solo or there’s a wonderful event that takes place in a millisecond, but it’s still there.

"Things keep happening and you still like to think that when you wake up in the morning that the standout moment hasn’t happened yet and that you're still working on it."

- Nik Kershaw is at Rewind North at Capesthorne Hall on August 7. Visit rewindfestival.com

- Eddie the Eagle is in cinemas now

HAYLEY REID