All of our lives move in phases, with times of great hardship tempered by times of reward and joy, humour and love… and then the wheel keeps turning, and hits us again with the Stick of Woe. There aren’t too many singers out there whose career has waxed and waned quite as uniquely as Colin Hay’s. The former frontman of iconic Aussie band Men At Work found himself skating periods of true uncertainty between the band’s demise and his own attempts at a solo career. It was a journey that took the better part of two decades, and suggests a level of faith and tenacity you can’t help but admire.
“I don’t know, and it’s a question that I really do ask myself,” Hay explains in his Scottish-Australian accent. “When we came through, we were a classic radio and MTV band. Classic pop success. But eventually we broke up, went our ways, and the audience wasn’t a secure audience. They’re driving to work listening to the radio and, well, there’s always somebody else on the radio once you’re gone. We didn’t have that foundation, so when the wind came through it blew it all away. The moment I realised I was having to start it all over again was when I went out on the road and nobody came to any shows. There was very little overlap between Men At Work and Colin Hay, so finding somebody who liked my solo work, or who was interested in me from the time with the band, was quite a big thing. So it’s grown from that point. I can’t say if I ever really wanted it, if it was a drive to perform. I just couldn’t think of anything else to do.”
He laughs genuinely at the thought. There are undoubtedly countless performers scattered across the world who enjoyed early success and who have since faded from the public, their names worn away by the endless appearance of new acts and new audiences. It’s a tough gig, being a pop star who never quite hit the self-sustaining big time, and conjures thoughts of legacy, of the mortality of your art. While Hay has experienced his share of doubt, at the end of every resurgent gig there was always someone there who connected with his words, and from there, his audiences swelled.
“I’ll tell you the one thing that keeps coming back to me. The live audiences over the last 25 years have been very, very fulfilling for me, because for a long time I didn’t have a record deal, I didn’t have an agent, no booker. I was just stumbling around trying to figure it all out. And the one constant was when I’d turn up and play, there would be someone there who really loved the show, and that really kept me going.”
He sighs, and starts several different sentences before finding the right words.
“It was pretty soul-destroying to traipse around the country. That shouldn’t be a complaint – I’ve never been really hungry, I’ve never been really poor. It wasn’t like I ever had to scratch around to find my next meal or anything. But the whole legging it around, taking flights, checking in somewhere, getting across to the venue, setting up, and there turns out to be 15 people there – you’re left thinking, ‘What the fuck? Is this actually worth it?’
“But you have to really think to yourself, ‘What else can I do? What else do I want to do?’ I sing. I couldn’t really come up with anything else I’d do better. So I kept doing what I was doing. You’d have moments when you’d catch yourself thinking, ‘Is this all just habit, or do I actually like this?’ I like being in the studio, I like writing songs. I like messing around on the guitar, that’s my favourite part of it. But the performing thing has good days and bad. It’s more uneven. But I think I have to do it to keep from going crazy.”
His latest album, Next Year People, contains some beautiful tracks, and like the best of Hay’s songwriting (‘I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You’ or ‘Waiting For My Real Life To Begin’, for instance) there is a pervading, striking darkness at its heart. Yet even though his sentiment can at times be quite despairing, there’s always something worth moving towards or celebrating in his lyrics. At the risk of overstating his intentions, you feel this is a balance at the heart of Hay himself.
“I think about this Woody Allen documentary where he was talking of the first moment when you realise you’ll eventually die, where you just think, ‘Oh, fuck! This has to end at some point!’ I was just thinking the other day, that’s really the bedrock of despair. We never want to talk about it, we never want to deal with it. But it’s always there, somewhere in the depths of your psyche, that knowledge: ‘One day I’m not going to be here anymore.’ And so, from that, there and then, is the celebration of where you are. Thinking, ‘Fuck it, I can’t be thinking about that all the time. I have to be here. I have to enjoy myself.’ That’s the fate we all suffer in the end – that there is an end. But we live anyway.”
Colin Hay’sNext Year People is out now through Compass/MGM. He appears to Enmore Theatre (as part of Sydney Comedy Festival 2015) on Saturday May 9.
