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
bit four later people playing three
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.
albums audience battle call calling came cards compass decided guess holding involved kindness label last letting liked matter nashville nice potential records three touring until weird won
These are just weird times, but then the last 20 years have been kind of weird for me. It's just a matter of doing what you can. You just have to play the cards you're holding and letting your audience know where you are. I've been on my own pretty much for the last 20 years. I've just been touring and you could call the albums that I've been making my calling cards. I haven't even had a label until the last two or three years. Then Compass Records came along. They're out of Nashville and they liked the stuff, so I guess they could see some kind of potential in me. They decided to get involved and I like them. They're nice people. These days, every battle won is like hand-to-hand combat.
audience audiences building change coming decade five gone hundred night people playing six somewhere tour
Sometimes I'm out on tour and you feel you're really getting somewhere and the audience is building and there's five or six hundred people coming to see you every night just from word-of-mouth. And then you go somewhere and you feel like you've gone back a decade and you're playing to 15 or 20 people. You think to yourself, 'Should I change my life, get another job?
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.
base glad journey leads particular people seem songs talk thread travel wrote
I try to take people on some kind of journey during the show and people seem glad to travel with me. There is some kind of thread through it. I base it on the songs really, I'll think where I was when I wrote a particular tune, and the song leads me to what I want to talk about.
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.
song writing rocks
I do like writing songs in a band. When it's rock, it's such a different kind of dynamic, obviously.
writing ideas sometimes
I tend to write, either myself, or I sometimes write with a co-writer, my friend that lives up the road. It's usually a relatively solitary thing, but I do like coming up with ideas.
world west my-favorite
I love going up the West Coast of the U. S. because it's one of my favorite parts of the world to tour.
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.
guitar play ideas
I sit around and play acoustic guitar - usually acoustic, sometimes electric, occasionally piano, but more often guitar, just trying to come up with tunes. Ideas kind of pop into your head.
cutting thinking listening
It's frustrating to do albums that you think are worth listening to, but it's just so difficult to cut through.
energy get-up sofas
The thing with playing live is, most of the audience is in their 20s and 30s. If you're older than that, you don't tend to go out to shows anymore. So it's good if you can attract a younger audience because they've got the energy to get up off the sofa and go out.