Q&A With Colin Hay

Men At Work Frontman Going Solo In Ridgefield April 30

By John Voket

Colin Hay is enjoying the best of both worlds, and we’re not talking about how much this displaced Australian enjoys his new home in southern California. Hay has arrived at a point in his career where he has a cache of solo material to draw from in concert including a dozen brand new tunes from his latest release, Are You Lookin’ At Me, and in between he’ll sprinkle a few gems from his former band, Men at Work.

Yes, it’s been a long time since Hay romped through the outback in a fried out combie (with a head full of zombie!), but he still credits his big ‘80s act with giving him a launching platform that has sustained him well. Although his immersion into MTV fame and the crazy lifestyle it provided for many years made him an easily recognizable pop star, Hay says he still gets a lot of musical inspiration being an industry outsider.

“Being born in Scotland and growing up there for 14 years, I felt a particular way,” Hay said in his bio for the new album. “Then my family moved to Australia, and instantly I was in a very different place. As for the last 15 years, I’ve lived mostly in the United States. So, once again, I’ve had to learn to adapt. But that’s never really been a problem for me, because I’ve always found that when you look closely, you find more similarities than differences.”

Hay hopes to find an audience full of fans looking for the familiar and diverse when he rolls his solo set to the stage of The Ridgefield Playhouse on April 30. Connecticut audiences can also plan to see Hay and his full band in a free show at Mohegan Sun’s Wolf’s Den on August 28, and accompanying his old friend, Ringo Starr as a member of Ringo’s All Starr Band at the Mohegan Sun Arena on June 22.

In an exclusive chat with The Newtown Bee ahead of the Ridgefield show, Hay was happy to talk about the various inspirations behind his latest project, working on new material, and his plans for the summer with Ringo and the All Starr Band.

 Newtown Bee: Your schedule puts you out on the road into the early fall in various configurations. Do you think you’ll have time to work on any new material while you’re out that may eventually find its way into your solo set?

Colin Hay: There might be. I’m probably going to be doing a lot of songs from the new album — I’m still touring to support that. When I’m out on tour I could do some new demos, I have the facility to do that over the next few weeks. I won’t have as much free time as you might think though, because I’m going out with Ringo this summer, so I’ll probably be concentrating on learning that repertoire.

NB: Are you the only guitar player on the All Starr Tour?

CH: No, Billy Squier is playing guitar as well, lead guitar. We’ll play all Ringo’s songs and then a few songs from everyone else in the band as well. I’m going to get to play “Frankenstein” by Edgar Winter and “Pick Up the Pieces” with Hamish Stuart (from Average White Band). The last time I did this in 2003, I did three Men at Work songs, and I was able to do a solo song of my own. But I don’t think we’ll be getting that chance on this Ringo tour.

NB: When you’re on your own with your band or on a solo tour, do you play the Men at Work material with any variations, or do you stay loyal to the original arrangements?

CH: You play them as people remember them – that’s the whole idea, really. We play the Men at Work versions and they sound fine. I love Men at Work, I loved being in the band and I have no problem with them.

Oddly enough, when I play them as a solo performer, that is closer to the way they were originally performed before I recorded them with Men at Work. I think on this solo tour, there are a lot of other songs I enjoy playing live from other albums, so I’ll go through and stick them in. Over the next few days I’ll be thinking about that. I hope there will be a couple of new things nobody has heard.

NB: Two of the songs on Are You Lookin’ At Me were co-written by your wife Cecilia Noel, and she sings with you on all but one track. Tell me about her influence on your new music?

CH: She’s a great musician, a good record producer, she’s got good instincts. She has an interesting take on things as well. If I’m working on things downstairs (in the home studio) I can call her to have a listen, or to sing on the backing tracks. We come from two different schools of music, but it’s all really the same once you get down to it.

NB: On the new album, there is a song co-written by Chad Fischer called “I Wish I Was Still Drinking.” It’s got some fun hooks in it but there’s an underlying message there, too.

CH: Yeah. I don’t wish I was still drinking, of course. But it’s all about the reasons why you do, or the reasons why you don’t. There’s so much pain in the world and maybe it seems like a great way to block it out. Sometimes I’m having a conversation with someone who is still drinking, and I think to myself, “I wish I was still drinking so I can stand to be here with this guy and listen to him rave at me.” (laughing)

NB: Well, if I could talk to Ringo and convince him to let you play a solo song with the whole band this summer, it would be “Lose to Win,” because it has such a great Beatles feel to it.

CH: It’s funny you should say that because you know there’s actually a song I wrote for Ringo on the new album that I sent to him because I thought it would be perfect for him. I tailored the lyrics a little bit for him, but he never said whether he got to listen to it. It was just sitting around the studio, so I recorded it myself. It’s called “No One Knows.” Listen to that one and imagine if you can hear Ringo singing it – or not singing it, as it were.

NB: So you hinted at possibly pulling out some rare tunes at your show in Ridgefield. What are we in for when we see you here in Connecticut?

CH: They’ll probably hear a few of the songs they expect to hear, but they’ll probably hear some things they didn’t expect. I want to put a few surprises in there to surprise myself as well – to keep myself interested while entertaining the folks!

Tickets for Colin Hay’s solo show at The Ridgefield Playhouse are on sale now. Visit www.ridgefieldplayhouse.com or call 203-438-5795 for reservations and additional information, including directions to the playhouse.