In the early years of MTV, Australia’s Men at Work was one of those bands you couldn’t throw a stone without striking. Fronted by Scotsman-turned-Aussie Colin Hay, who wrote, sang and memorably starred in the humorous videos for “Who Can it Be Now?,” “Down Under,” “Overkill” and a handful of others, Men at Work were ubiquitous.
In the era of Mad Max and Crocodile Dundee, Colin Hay made “vegemite sandwich” a household phrase.
And then, like so many acts that sold millions in the 1980s, they were gone. 1983, winner of the Grammy for Best New Artist. 1986, whatever happened to those guys?
Here’s what happened: Hay began a solo career that continues to this day. In 2003, he started traveling the world as member of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band, a part-time gig he’s held onto (albeit with a couple of years off in the middle) ever since.
Every once in a while, he’d hit the road with Men at Work co-founder Greg Ham (whose sax on “Who Can it Be Now?” and flute on “Down Under” were hallmarks); that partnership ended with Ham’s death in 2012.
Hay, and Men at Work, will play the BayCare Sound Saturday, with support sets from Shonen Knife and Toad the Wet Sprocket.
The 2026 edition of Men at Work includes Hay, his wife Cecelia Noel on vocals and percussion, Jimmy Branly on drums, Yosmel Montejo on bass, San Miguel Perez on guitar and Rachel Mazer playing sax, flute and keyboards. These are the same musicians who make up the Colin Hay Band.
Tickets for Saturday’s 7 p.m. show are at this link.
St. Pete Catalyst: With all the solo work that you’ve done over these years, I imagine you still play a number of the Men at Work songs live. So what’s the difference between a Men at Work show and a Colin Hay show – why call it Men at Work?
Colin Hay: There isn’t a simple answer, really. But I’ll try and make it as understandable as possible I suppose. First of all, I never really had the desire or the need to go out as Men at Work for many years after the ‘80s.
And then Greg and I did it from ’96 until 2002, just because we kinda felt like it. I was over at his house one night, and he said oh, let’s go out on tour. I said as Men at Work? And he said yeah. And then we got a call from a friend of mine, about 20 minutes later, saying “Do you want to go on tour in Brazil, as Men at Work?” It was weird, the synchronicity of things.
So anyway, we did that till 2002, and I got kind of sick of it, for many reasons, which I won’t go into now. And so we didn’t do it any more, and then Greg passed away. And I didn’t go out as Men at Work until 2018 or 2019.
I’ve been doing it a bit since. I went out last year, with Toto and Christopher Cross, as Men at Work. And it was a pretty good experience – there were a lot of people who wanted to hear those songs.
There was a lot of young people that came along to hear the music, because they never really were alive when the ‘80s were happening.
St. Pete Catalyst: With all the solo work that you’ve done over these years, I imagine you still play a number of the Men at Work songs live. So what’s the difference between a Men at Work show and a Colin Hay show – why call it Men at Work?
Colin Hay: There isn’t a simple answer, really. But I’ll try and make it as understandable as possible I suppose. First of all, I never really had the desire or the need to go out as Men at Work for many years after the ‘80s.
And then Greg and I did it from ’96 until 2002, just because we kinda felt like it. I was over at his house one night, and he said oh, let’s go out on tour. I said as Men at Work? And he said yeah. And then we got a call from a friend of mine, about 20 minutes later, saying “Do you want to go on tour in Brazil, as Men at Work?” It was weird, the synchronicity of things.
So anyway, we did that till 2002, and I got kind of sick of it, for many reasons, which I won’t go into now. And so we didn’t do it any more, and then Greg passed away. And I didn’t go out as Men at Work until 2018 or 2019.
I’ve been doing it a bit since. I went out last year, with Toto and Christopher Cross, as Men at Work. And it was a pretty good experience – there were a lot of people who wanted to hear those songs.
There was a lot of young people that came along to hear the music, because they never really were alive when the ‘80s were happening.
Did it surprise you that people knew, in addition to the hits, the deep tracks? That Men at Work had a lot of fans out there?
No, because a lot of people who come to see the shows, they know all the tracks. It’s mainly ‘cause the band, in its day, you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing Men at Work songs. It was ridiculous.
To get back to your original question, it was more emotional, in a way. The Men at Work brand, if you like, or that thing called Men at Work, it’s been floating rudderless for many years. And I suppose I just thought well, I’ll just kinda grab it again and steer it for a while. And see what happens, you know?
A lot of artists who are still writing and recording new music say they’re not interested in pure nostalgia.
Well, I’ve done the solo thing and made a lot of records since then, 15 or 16 records. And when I go out on my own, on a good night I can put maybe 1,300, 1,400 people in a room or something. And they’re not interested in hearing Men at Work songs. Or they don’t mind the Men at Work songs, they have no problem with them. But they’ve been following me ever since that time, so they take whatever I give them.
So in a way, I feel nourished in that sense, in that I don’t think aw, the only people coming to see me play want to hear “Down Under.” That’s not the case. All the songs kind of live happily with one another.
The band has just come back from Brazil? How’d that go?
Brazil’s an interesting thing, too, ‘cause 40 years later, maybe between 4 or 5,000 people come to see us play there. So that’s what I can do based on the fact that there’s no new records, that’s just Men at Work. And they’re pretty unaware of anything solo that I’ve done, you know, because my records never really had any saturation there.
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