Ju ne, 2017 RollingStoneAus.com | Rolling Stone | 51LIVING^ L
EGEND
T
he light through the stained
glass of Colin Hay’s Los Angeles
home is “dappled. That’s the only
way to describe it,” he says. “Out-
side are these twisted California
oaks and beyond that, circling the
house are these very, very robust gum trees.
They’re like, ‘Get out of the way, mate’,” the
Scotsman grunts in fl awless Aussie yobbo,
“‘I’m comin’ through’.” As a man of poet-
ry, the American citizen with the indelible
Australian past lets the metaphor stand for
itself as he prepares for another album and
tour of the land down under.Your parents ran a music store in Scotland.
How did that inform your future?
My father was a great singer and a great
dancer so whatever I got, I got from him.
But in a music shop you’re surrounded by
guitars and drums and records and pianos... the eff ect was that I never made a con-
scious decision to make a career of music.
The path was there and I followed it.
What else would you single out in terms of
inspiration?
When I was growing up there was the
Beatles and then there was everybody else.
For me it was mainly because they seemed
to create a sound that had something else
apart from just the four of them. It was al-
most otherworldly, almost like there was
something divine.
From the Beatles’ doorstep, Australia must
have felt like the end of the Earth in 1967.
No. Coming to Melbourne... it wasn’t
America, but it was closer than Britain was.
Scotland was social entrenchment, catho-
lic/protestant, raining, cold... I came to
Australia and friends would have cars! We
didn’t even have licenses, you know? The
oceans were huge and there was this sense
of freedom that I didn’t feel in Scotland.
Was it as exciting musically?
Melbourne had fantastic bands. You’d see
Chain and go, “OK, they’re a blues band but
they’re defi nitely an Australian blues band.”
Even the Seekers: that sound couldn’t have
come from anywhere else. My mother
worked at Festival Hall so I’d go see people
like José Feliciano, John McLaughlin’s Ma-
havishnu Orchestra, Frank Zappa, Free...
The creative core of Men At Work was you
and guitarist Ron Strykert. Can you share a
memory of that partnership blossoming?
I met Ron in a backyard in West Mel-
bourne, sitting there playing a 12-string
acoustic guitar. He immediately opened
up this creative thing in my brain, chord-
ally and harmonically. We didn’t write that
many songs together but he inspired me to
write. He would give me tapes he would re-
cord at home which were brilliant. When
I think about it visually, I was like a tree
trunk, rooted down to the earth and he put
the foliage and the fl owers there. He gave
the music beauty.
With hindsight you’ve described Men At
Work as “like building a roof without thefoundations”. Did it feel tenuous at the time?
We were a powerful unit but that went
away reasonably quickly. When we toured
the States it was like a monsoon coming
through and when the dust settled it was
gone. We were a darling of the MTV age
but we didn’t have that fi ve or 10 years of
building up a really strong live foundation.
How crazy did it get?
The experience is so hard to explain, es-
p e c i a l l y t o A u s t r a l i a. Pe ople don’t k now how
massive it was for us, for two or three years
there. We were number one in America for
four months! So at that particular point in
your life, you’re in the brightest light possi-
ble, and that doesn’t last and you’re faced
with “Now what?” The diffi culty is trying
not to compete with yourself. You have to
let that be what it was; live in the present
moment. Otherwise it’s a recipe for insanity.
Your solo albums Looking For Jack and Way-
faring Sons were good records desperately
seeking an audience in the late Eighties. Did
you consider giving it all away?No. [Laughs] No, I never thought about
doing anything else. When you make re-
cords you try to make better records all the
time. That’s really why you do it. But I was
lucky. I’ve managed to make a living from
music ever since Men At Work took off.
On your new album, Fierce Mercy, you reit-
erate for the record “I’m not a drinking man
no more”. Does showbiz make that choice
more diffi cult?
I don’t think the business had much to
do with my drinking. As soon as I start-
ed to drink I knew I had a problem. It felt
chemical. I just knew I was an addict. I
think when you play music it does make it
more diffi cult just because there’s so much
alcohol abuse around you. It’s not some-
thing I’m drawn to any more.
I used to go to [A A] meetings
but I haven’t for a while. I’ve
no desire to drink anymore.
“Down Under” Vs. “Kooka-
burra”. Is that all behind you?
Mostly, except for the fact
that Gregory [Ham] is not
with us any more and I think
about him every day. He was
a beautiful guy and it’s not
right that he’s gone. The court case came
at the wrong time for him. He would read
things in the paper and say, “I don’t want to
be remembered for something that I cop-
ied.” Two days ago a friend of mine told
me there’d been this competition here in
America for the greatest saxophone solos
and Gregory was at number two [for “Who
Can It Be Now?”]. He was being celebrated
as the great intuitive musician that he was.
You toured as part of Ringo Starr & His All-
Starr Band. What did he teach you?
He affi rms what I feel myself about music
and about why you do it. There’s something
that happens when you play music that
doesn’t happen with anything else in your
life. He obviously had it in the highest way
possible, and he still wants that. He’s just
one of those guys who would get on with
it. Don’t talk about it, just do it. It’s exciting
to be with someone like that, who’s at the
top of the food chain. And he loved to play
“Who Can It Be Now?”. He really loved it.
Wow. Ringo’s playing my songs.COLIN HAY
His journey has been long, but Colin Hay’s “recipe for insanity” has
been averted by one driving principle: “make better records”
✦By Michael Dwyer ✦
IT WAS MASSIVE FOR
US. WE WERE NUMBER
ONE IN AMERICA FOR
FOUR MONTHS!”