![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Colin-Hay-JulyAugust-2012.jpg\" "\\"Colin-Hay-JulyAugust-2012\\"")
COLIN HAY<\/h1>\nCOLIN HAY<\/h1>\nThe former Men at Work frontman learns to enjoy life after platinum \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n In the early \u201980s, Men at Work exploded on the scene with such smash hits as \u201cWho Can It Be Now?\u201d and\u00a0\u201cDown Under.\u201d Quirky new-wave panache and goofy MTV videos propelled the group to global fame and millions in album sales. Yet just three years and as many albums later, the wild ride was over. And the man in the middle of it all, Colin Hay\u2014whose spunky vocals formed the core of the band\u2019s signature sound\u2014had launched a solo career with his first album,\u00a0Looking for Jack<\/em>. In the decades that followed, Hay released nine more on his own\u2014including his most recent,\u00a0Gathering Mercury<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I first went out, there would be maybe 40 or 50 people in the audience,\u201d he recalls. \u201cIt was challenging because I had come from playing for 20,000 a night. So for the last 20 to 25 years, I\u2019ve been building a solo career. The Men at Work thing was really a benefit, because people would go, \u2018Hey, that\u2019s the guy from Men at Work!\u2019 They may have an attitude about it, but at least they know who you are. Better than them not knowing!\u201d<\/p>\n These days, the reggae lilt and easy embrace that characterized the band\u2019s hits have been replaced by Hay\u2019s emphasis on weathered narratives and emotional reflection. \u201cThere might be a thousand people in the room who are there for very different reasons,\u201d says Hay, 59. \u201cThose people who are coming because I\u2019m the guy from Men at Work are pretty much the minority. If they\u2019re in the room, I don\u2019t care why they\u2019re there. By the end of the night, I\u2019ll get them. They can\u2019t\u00a0escape\u2014they\u2019ve been corralled.\u201d<\/p>\n Not surprising then, Hay\u2019s solo\u00a0efforts often appear autobiographical, reflecting the independent path he\u2019s pursued. That\u2019s especially true of his albums released since signing with Nashville indie Compass Records in 2003. \u201cI\u2019m making up for lost time in a way,\u201d Hay chuckles.\u00a0\u201cAfter the band broke up, I was on my own for nearly 13 years, and I was very\u00a0inefficient. I was doing everything pretty \u00a0much myself\u2014and not especially well. Once I got to work with the label,\u00a0things were better.\u201d\u00a0Still, Hay has never turned his back on his past entirely. There was talk about getting the old band back together, and he and a former bandmate, saxophonist\/flautist\/keyboardist Greg Ham, briefly toured under the group\u2019s banner.\u00a0But plans to retool the group never materialized, and Ham died in April in his\u00a0native Australia at age 58. Nevertheless, a pair of tours with Ringo Starr\u2019s\u00a0All-Starr Band offered the opportunity\u00a0to revisit the old hits.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can try to turn your back on it all you want, but you\u2019re never able to,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can\u2019t help but be affected by momentous events like that. You don\u2019t have a couple of records that sold millions of copies and play to ridiculous amounts of people and not have that affect you for the rest of your life. In the \u201980s, I had this emotional reaction like \u2018Oh, the band broke up,\u2019 and you want to distance yourself from that because it causes a certain amount of pain. But you realize what comes back to you are the songs. You say, \u2018The songs are great\u2019 and you\u00a0start playing them again.\u201d<\/p>\n Hay says time as a solo artist has allowed him to put things in perspective. \u201cThere is a certain part of you that says, \u2018I had that incredible success. I want that again.\u2019 Of course you do. You\u2019d be crazy not to admit that a part of you wants that to happen again. But the thing for me is to not go insane if I don\u2019t\u00a0have it. It\u2019s a challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013Lee Zimmerman<\/strong><\/p>\n COLIN HAY The former Men at Work frontman learns to enjoy life after platinum \u00a0 In the early \u201980s, Men at Work exploded on the scene with such smash hits as \u201cWho Can It Be Now?\u201d and\u00a0\u201cDown Under.\u201d Quirky new-wave panache and goofy MTV videos propelled the group to global fame and millions in album […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[5046,5045,5051,5048,4538,5049,5047,28,5050],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7546"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7546"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7549,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7546\/revisions\/7549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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