{"id":2036303,"date":"2026-07-10T06:59:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T03:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2036303"},"modified":"2026-07-10T06:59:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T03:59:44","slug":"colin-hay-recounts-how-men-at-works-fast-fame-turned-into-an-episode-of-survivor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2036303","title":{"rendered":"Colin Hay Recounts How Men at Work\u2019s Fast Fame \u2018Turned Into an Episode of \u2018Survivor\u2019\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\t\tTrending on Billboard\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tColin Hay was on top of the world with Men At Work. And then, abruptly, he wasn\u2019t. In time, the Scotland-born singer and songwriter would climb the mountain once again. <\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tColin Hay\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tMen at Work\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

See latest videos, charts and news<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tHay has gone on to enjoy one of rock music\u2019s remarkable second acts, both as a solo artist, as a member of Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band, and as a raconteur, his stories and music opening doors and minds everywhere. <\/p>\n

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\n\tHay has the gift of the gab, an easy charm, and stories that easily beat what the rest of us can drum up. Few tales can compare to the meteoric rise of Men At Work which, for a moment in 1983, simultaneously had the No. 1 single (with \u201cDown Under\u201d) and album (Business as Usual)<\/em> both in the United States and in the United Kingdom, a rare achievement for an act from Australia, then and now.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking with two-time Grammy Award\u2013winning producer and music executive Pete Ganbarg for the Rock & Roll High School podcast, Hay remembered the high times, some \u201cclassic blunders\u201d made along the way, turning his back on booze, and the comeback.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cYou always think that you\u2019re handling things really well, but of course you\u2019re not,\u201d he says of Men At Work\u2019s bright start. \u201cWe made a couple of classic blunders but I think more than anything else it just wasn\u2019t a band that was destined to go the distance really in terms of the personnel. This is also in hindsight really, we may have had another couple of albums in us, but five musicians and one manager. The manager was my friend and a couple of the guys in the band wanted to sack the manager and he wasn\u2019t gonna get sacked cause he was my friend.\u00a0It very much turned into an episode of Survivor<\/em>, who\u2019s gonna get voted off the island.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat situation \u201csoured me on the whole thing,\u201d he continues. \u201cI thought, well what is the point of conquering the world together if you can\u2019t enjoy it together. It should be enjoyed and honored together by all the people who did that and there were six of us who did it. I\u2019ll never understand why they wanted to get rid of him. It was just stupid.\u00a0Even to this day I still think it was stupid, so it was over pretty much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMen At Work completed two more albums, before calling it a day: Cargo <\/em>(from 1983) and Two Hearts<\/em> (from 1985).<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking with Ganbarg, Hay points to a moment in January 1991 that he got his life and career back on track. With a move to Los Angeles, Hay kicked the bottle. \u201cThat really was the start of my new life,\u201d he explains. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHay doesn\u2019t have any bad feelings, except for the bruising \u2014 and costly \u2014 copyright battle over the flute refrain in \u201cDown Under,\u201d which began in 2009 and\u00a0concluded several years\u00a0on, an \u201cunforgivable\u201d situation, he mentions. \u201cIt was horrible and it went for so long as well. It went for six years or something.\u00a0There was nothing really I could do about it but defend it,\u201d he reckons.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo make matters considerably worse, bandmate Greg Ham died in 2012, aged 58, two years after the Australian Federal Court ordered Men At Work to pay 5% of royalties earned from the song since 2002 and from future earnings.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt the end of the day the sadness for me was the fact that Greg, who wasn\u2019t in great shape anyway at that particular time, felt a sense of guilt about the fact that he played the line and yet he wasn\u2019t sued,\u201d Hay continues. \u201cI was the one that was sued as the songwriter and EMI Music Publishing was sued also.\u00a0And it had a great effect on my father, who had come to Australia as an immigrant and was so proud of what we\u2019d done and I would play him the songs all the time before they were records so he knew the song was clean in terms of composition so smoke would come out of his ears\u2026I\u2019ll never forgive them for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the podcast, Hay discusses songwriting, resilience, how life\u2019s great setbacks can ultimately lead to fresh starts, how Zach Braff\u00a0introduced Hay to new audiences on Scrubs<\/em> and Garden State<\/em>, the unlikely fan in System of a Down\u2019s Serj Tankian, and much more.<\/p>\n

\n\tListen here or\u00a0<\/strong>rockschoolpodcast.com.<\/p>\n

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[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/music\/music-news\/colin-hay-men-at-work-episode-of-survivor-1236291490\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/P1019QWW-e1783665982899.jpg?w=1024″] Trending on Billboard Colin Hay was on top of the world with Men At Work. And then, abruptly, he wasn\u2019t. In time, the Scotland-born singer and songwriter would climb the mountain once again. Explore Colin Hay Men at Work See latest videos, charts and news Hay has gone on to enjoy one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,226],"class_list":["post-2036303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-billboard-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2036303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2036303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2036303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2036303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2036303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2036303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}