Colin Hay on getting ‘royally ripped off’, playing with Ringo Starr, learning guitar

The ARIA Hall of Fame-inducted Men at Work frontman on the worst deal he’s ever done and his opinion on record labels today.

Scottish-Australian singer, songwriter and Men at Work frontman Colin Hay, photographed in 2021. Picture: Paul Mobley

Colin Hay, 72, is a ARIA Hall of Fame-inducted and Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and frontman of Melbourne-born rock band Men at Work. In this Confessional Q+A, he speaks about playing with Ringo Starr, feeling “plugged in” while performing live and the joys of continuing to study his lifelong obsession.

The worst deal I ever made… was the first Men at Work recording contract, with CBS Records in Australia. We were royally, well and truly, completely ripped off – but it was kind of our fault, because we didn’t get a lawyer. We were five guys and a manager, and we f..ked up. If you compare that with, say, two or three decades before that, if you were a black artist in America – where you never even got any royalties – we were not ripped off, but it’s a matter of degrees. By the time we got to making our record deal, a band – if they had a lawyer – would get between 12 and 14 per cent of recommended retail price. We got nothing even close to that.

My view on record labels today… They’ve always been banks, to a degree; they’ve always had money, so they fund records. But it’s become much more nuanced now, because a lot of people make their own records in the bedroom. Billie Eilish and her brother [Finneas] make those records themselves, and so they probably license them; a lot of big, successful, young artists today are much more in control of their work than a lot of people were [in the past]. But the record labels still do what they like to do; they still like to own the masters. That’s the whole difference now: I own my own masters. That’s the thing that’s worth something: the songs and the masters go hand-in-hand, usually. But as far as big record labels are concerned, there’s new deals now where they have what they call “360 deals”; they take from a band’s tour, they take from a band’s merchandise. They basically take from everywhere, because they realised that they can’t do what they used to do; they perform a different function. But I don’t really know, to be honest. I’m probably the wrong person to ask, because I haven’t really had anything to do with major labels for over 30 years.

The most exciting part of my life in music… is the writing and recording of the song, because it’s something you’ve produced. You’re creating it. It’s something that hasn’t existed before. So you create it, and now it exists – and then you put it out into the world. Now, when you go out and play live, it’s not quite as exciting, because you’re reproducing something you’ve already created.

My relationship with repetition while performing live… is interesting, because you can always let a song be reborn every time you play it, by just getting out of your own way. It’s not about you, it’s about the song. So it’s not like, ‘Oh f..k, here we go again, playing this song...’ You go, ‘OK, I’m gonna play this song. I’m a messenger.’ You’re delivering it, and that’s your job. When you do that, you find the song can be nuanced.

Walking off stage after playing a good show feels like… I’m pretty high for a couple of days. I float. It’s very addictive, because it’s about being plugged in to some kind of universal frequency, if you like. You walk on stage, and sometimes you go, ‘Ah!’ You can almost recognise it straight away. You put it out into the air, and it hits the audience, then it comes back; it’s like a cycle. It feels like a current.

Playing with Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band… I’ve been doing it on and off for 22 years, and consistently now since 2018; so for the last seven years, it has been basically the same band. (The thrill) never wears off. He was in the Beatles. How can that wear off? There was the Beatles – then there was everybody else. I mean, he was in the f..king Beatles! You turn around and he’s playing the drums to one of your songs. It’s ridiculous.

I’m currently obsessed with… Playing the guitar: how to play better, how to learn things more efficiently and make my way around the neck of the guitar. I equate it to some kind of internal freedom. I’m obsessed with doing what I should have done between the ages of 14 and 21 – really learn – and not just to rely on what I perceived to be some kind of ‘natural talent’, where I could sing and I could put a song together. That’s where I placed my energy and my focus – as opposed to learning the instrument properly, which is what I’m attempting to do (now). It’ll be a lifelong obsession until I pass on.

I hope to be remembered for… giving people a good night out, primarily. But I think deep down, I would really like to be remembered for my sauteed brussels sprouts. They’re pretty awesome. (smiles)

Colin Hay’s four-date solo tour includes shows in Melbourne (Dec 3-4), Meredith Music Festival (Dec 6) and Sydney (Dec 11). Tickets: colinhay.com