Colin Hay
Colin Hay
Colin James Hayis a Scottish Australian musician and actor who made his mark during the 1980s as lead vocalist of the Australian band Men at Work, and later as a solo artist. Hay's music has been frequently used by actor and director Zach Braff in his work, subsequently leading to a career rebirth in the mid-2000s...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth29 June 1953
CountryAustralia
face found grateful hear people songs songwriter ways
Let's face it, ... I'm not the most marketable songwriter out there today. But there are still some people who want to hear those songs. I'm grateful I've found ways to get the songs to them.
honest remember wish
I can't remember too much about the '80s, to be honest with you, ... I wish that weren't true, but it is.
writing thinking years
I tend to write pretty much by myself. I always did that anyway. I used to write with Ron Strykert 'cause he was the only guitarist and we played well together. We lived in the same place. I would play a certain style and he would kind of dance around what I did, in a sense. I learned from him and also vice-versa. With this band, I think I bounce ideas off everybody. Perhaps on the next album they'll be more collaborative stuff, but for the last 2-3 years, I've been pretty well writing by myself.
character soul lines
There's a fine line between character building and soul destroying.
song writing thinking
I suppose ever since I was about 14, I remember listening to "Sgt. Pepper's," and I remember thinking, "how do you possibly write songs like that?" I remember starting to try and write songs around that age, but just sitting around with an acoustic guitar, and try to come up with ideas for songs, and that's just what I've done ever since. I just never really stopped doing that, I suppose.
cities lucky kind
I find that, rather than the cities, I'm very lucky because the audiences that come and see me are very, generally speaking, truly kind, so I have a great time playing everywhere.
fun writing men
It's great fun if you get a good piece of writing and you can pretend to be someone else, tell a story that needs to be told, make some kind of connection. I've always fancied myself as a leading man, but I really doubt whether anyone else sees me that way.
years people perception
I just found over the years that it's very hard to change people's perception of what it is that you do.
song writing rocks
I do like writing songs in a band. When it's rock, it's such a different kind of dynamic, obviously.
song men thinking
The Men at Work thing is always there, it's always going to be there. It's not something I consciously think that much about anymore. The thing that stays with you is the songs, which is a good thing for me, because the songs are the things that stand the test of time.
couple people tunes
Most people remember me for a couple of tunes.
mean years careers
I had a very strange career. I mean I went from playing to 150,000 people in 1983/84. Three or four years later I was playing to four people, you know, in Melbourne. I thought - bit strange, you know bit odd, bit erratic.
drinking used shows
I used to drink a lot. I had to stop drinking because it was getting the better of me, and I replaced that with really doing shows.
song writing feel-good
I like the process of writing songs. It makes me feel good.