Colin Hay (Men At Work)

0:03Backstage here at Largo Los Angeles, California with Colin Hay formerly a men at work now fantastic solo career Also part of the all-star band from Ringo star. I mean there's pictures of Beatles all over the place here I saw you there a couple summers ago Up the casino. Yeah, I can see no rhyme. Yeah, I guess the opening nine to the tour very exciting Yeah, would you do it again? Oh absolutely What are some experiences from that? I mean playing with the Beatles got to be kind of I mean obviously you're one of the big rock stars of all time as well But I mean well, I wouldn't say that but It was very exciting It used to blew my mind every night, you know playing on stage with Ringo turning around and Ringo was playing the drums so I Mean there's a lot of things that I could say about it But basically it was one of the highlights of you know of the last of definitely of the last 20 years for me

0:49You know to see come and approach you and ask you to play that kind of thing or how does that all go down? I Think that I think that he has a list you know a couple of lists of people that they They're interested in and then they draw from that and they they try and make it different every time I think nice. Well, let's start the show off of the song one of your songs. Maybe something off the last record your choice What do you want to play for everyone which record going somewhere? Or the rework one and it worked whatever you feel like you're in well Let's play Let's play beautiful world Just a colony with beautiful world now he released two records recently now I was looking on the internet the past few days trying to get exactly with release dates and stuff was re-released and all Replaced what came up first man at work or going somewhere?

1:37Well the original going somewhere came out on my own label, which really you know was a bit of a secret because I Didn't really have distribution I had distribution for a while, but then the the record company that I was working with when bankrupt So I just got the albums back and so I was just really selling them Through the internet and it shows and stuff like that. So So that's really what happened with that that was in 2000 and then in 2003 Compass records out of Nashville became interested in working with me. So and They liked the records, but they said to me look no one is really No one is in the mainstream has really had of what you've been doing for the last 10 or 15 years So which is true?

2:22so they said what you consider putting out a compilation of of songs that you've written from the last 20 years so that to I guess so that you can it can say reintroduction to people of What you've been doing so that's why that can't say that came about and then that came out 2003 and so I'm working on a new Album now, but it wasn't ready last year. So they said look we really like going somewhere. It gets really well received Let's let's re-release it with a couple of extra tracks on it So that's what you include at the Garden State tune obviously which got you a lot of How did that all come about do they ask you to write that song or was it already written beforehand? No, no, it was just it was a song that was on an album main from 1997. Ah, okay. Almost 10 years ago and

3:08Zach Braff You know comes here used to come here to see me play so Because I've been playing here for At this venue yeah, I've been playing at this venue for about 14 years. Oh wow. Do you live around here? Is that one I don't live around here, but I live in Los Angeles. Oh, okay Yeah, he was used to come down here So he had a copy of that album and before he before he was in scrubs. Oh nice and So once you've got the job and scrubs He took so a couple of my albums into the producers and they came down here and so they've they've licensed a bunch of my songs from me so pretty very very kind so it's it's And you know when you don't get playing the radio that much It's it's you know being on television is an incredible way to get exposure definitely I wanted to talk about that, but let's play that song first the song from Baron State

3:56I just don't think I'll ever get over you long title. You don't see very long titles anymore for songs You've heard some calling hey talking here You mentioned technology TV shows as the way to get music out there You also mentioned putting your CD on the internet and you've been around for what about 20 years in the industry 2023 years something like that About I don't know 26 years really five years or something longer than I've been around and How do you feel the way it's going is it going in a good direction with technology and downloading in my space and all this stuff? Well, I don't really know what's a good direction, you know, it's going in a direction it's going in the direction it's going Mm-hmm, so you have to You have to embrace it in some way because it's unstoppable

4:43You know, it's like the trains already left the station. You either stay on the platform or you get on it, you know And you have to you know, I suppose Work with work with what you can you have to you have to play with the cards you've got, you know, and there's some obviously some some unfortunate aspects to it where Now people have the ability to You know have music for nothing which which means basically that Alice can't get Paid where they should get paid as far as their royalties and so forth On the other hand You know, it's it's a way to In a lot of ways it

5:28released some kind of stranglehold that the record companies had on on artists for a long time for example even myself I had a lot of success, so I'm very fortunate very lucky But I made I made a couple of albums that were released on big labels and you couldn't Get access to them and I couldn't get access to them because I didn't own the Masters and so As far as most people were concerned, I just really disappeared off the face of theirs So with the advent of the internet I could actually you know get a work get a Website up and I could put my music up there and people can find you whereas it couldn't do that before and And so it's um You know I I Don't find that I spend a lot of time thinking about it. I just find that most of the time

6:15I'm just trying to you know get done what I really want to get done Which is to write songs and record them and go out and play and figure out how to do that And I'm lucky because I have a little deal now with a small record label out of Nashville and I I kind of like them They have an infrastructure so in a lot of ways I feel like I'm you know in a relatively good position as far as I'm making my music available to people, you know getting it out It's difficult to tell what the situation is going to be in five years and I'm so quickly notoriously Bad it's making predictions Do you think it's gonna get rid of the whole album concept now that everyone has I pause and just constantly on shuffle and you Just listen whatever song you want won't have like for example the Beatles Sergeant Pepper, you know like an album

7:02Well, it would seem like that You know it would it would seem that that's I mean I'm in my 50s, so it's very difficult for me to actually know What 22 year old people are gonna do Myself I you know buy stuff off iTunes and yeah, if I like songs and I I still tend to buy albums as opposed to songs. Do you sell my vinyls at all? No, no, I don't have a record player. I have one in Australia and I have a lot of vinyl there but but So

7:47Oh, thank you, but I But CD's in a lot of ways. They're so they're so annoying So well, you just lose them all the time you take them out of the yeah It's in there kind of end up and all different parts here house and car and different bags and it's like you know It's it's pretty handy having you know having having a stuff one in one place although that's just another You know a lot of songs there songs here songs there I've songs everywhere, you know Let's play another song what do you want to hear could be one of your songs could be someone else's Can be here that Death cab for cutie song. I love them one song. I can't remember the name of it now off the new record

8:40There's some death cab for cutie requests by Colin. Hey, you said you're working on some new stuff that they didn't want to release earlier Is it gonna be coming out how's it? No, they didn't want to wait. Sorry They what did they want to wait? No, it's no, it's just that No, I had you know I had No, it's just the fact that they wanted to try and you know reintroduced me because of the fact that they figured that you know it would be difficult to come with a totally new record Oh, okay. I took a lot time, you know But no, this is this is I had another album. It's you know, it's complicated I have a bunch of albums that really are kind of

9:26Not really that well known But this is this is about halfway through this new one. So this will be released My plan is to finish it by June the middle of June to get released say in September Oh nice you are you playing that stuff live some of the new stuff? Yeah, bits and pieces. Yeah, but it's It's when I play here. I just can't play whatever whatever comes out This is really like my Cliche but home away from home. Very enough is an acoustic record you're working on. I know you're doing acoustic dates and full band dates back and forth So no, it's it's a band record. It's you know nice rocky What's the direction it's going on? Maybe very atmospheric

10:15No, it's it's you know, I don't know what you call it. It's It's Contemporary very nice. I heard you're playing with the symphony in a couple months. Yeah, that'll be exciting They just gonna be backing you up if you taught them music yet, how do they get to learn it? I'm scoring a music with a friend of mine. Oh really? I'm scoring it and I'm helping him score. So you know how to write music? I kind of stuff. I always want to learn that I'm learning no my friend is scoring and he can he's very good with the dots And I'm very slow with the dots, but I know what the dots are But I couldn't score for the life of me So I have a friend of mine who's doing that with me and then we send the send the orchestra the charts nice

11:01How much rehearsal do you think is going to be needed before before something like that with them? Two days apparently. Oh really? They have it all set up and everything cool. It's playing on their song Let's go down under just because I love that song. What do you think of when you hear that song now? Do you ever get sick of playing it? I mean you probably playing it Night and night out for 20 odd years. No, I like it. I have a lot of respect for it. Mm-hmm. You know because it's It's looked after me very well. I would think so do this thing every week called five questions five quick questions one more Dancers I pod her CDs which you kind of answered before I guess Yeah, I pod let her McCartney Let him cut me Alcohol or marijuana or No one song you've written your most proud of

11:48The next one and one word calling hey Fabulous one song to close us out. What do you want to hear? One of your songs Well, they're cool. Nice. Oh no one cool. Well. Thank you very much. Appreciate it