On his first studio album in five years, Are You Looking At Me? (Compare Prices), he crosses genres several times in each song, starting the disc out with a spoken word piece, and moving through pop, folk, jazz, and rock to tell the engaging stories that have helped his career survive through decades and trends.
I caught up with Hay while he was in San Francisco, gearing up for a tour to promote the new record.
Kim Ruehl: I’m wondering if you even consider yourself a folk artist. Do you identify with American folk music at all?
Colin Hay: Well I think folk is a fairly broad term. These days, if you see someone playing an acoustic guitar, people pretty much think it’s folk music. I just tend to think … I’m playing for the folks, you know.
Your new album (Are You Looking at Me) starts with a spoken word-song about, basically, your life story. You talk about the influence of cowboys and rock and roll. You grew up Scottish in Australia, so it’s interesting that these very American elements were such a huge influence.
Well anyone who’s brought up in Scotland or Australia or anywhere else, really … American culture is everywhere. It’s on television … growing up, you see these images everywhere. It’s not even something you had to look for. [In my case,] my mother and father owned a music shop in Scotland, so I was exposed to American music from a very young age.
Were there any artists in particular that inspired you early on?
Well yeah, I mean Sam and Dave … I have a brother who’s four years older than me, and he introduced me to all kinds of artists that he was listening to, like Booker T and the MGs, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding … before, I’d been listening to other things, whoever happened to be around. That included a lot of British bands like, well, of course the Beatles were huge. The Kinks, Rolling Stones. Then Bob Dylan came out and then the Byrds … I just really loved that sound. That was a great sound. I remember walking down the street and hearing “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys. That made me want to come to California. Of course, then we moved to Australia, which was pretty much how I imagined California would be.
I came to know your work back when you were playing with Men at Work in the 80s, and now this [record] sounds so very different from that. How do you feel your music has changed over the years? Or has it been more of a slow, evolving process for you?
No, I think it really hasn’t changed all that much. I started out playing acoustic guitar at the age of 14. I’d play James Taylor and Beatles covers for the next 15 years. Then in the late 1970s, people weren’t giving record deals to acoustic musicians. I started meeting the band [Men at Work], and the band kind of just fell into place.
We were really popular for about three or four years, and then we split up, and I think I just worked back to what I was doing originally with the songs and the stories. I think the fundamentals and the basics are the most important thing about pretty much anything. I think you essentially remain kind of the same. For me, it’s just natural to stand onstage and play for people, so I think it’s been a matter of starting in one place and then working away from it and then working back to where I started from.
Do you ever get tired of performing?
Well I don’t perform for ten months out of the year, or anything. Writing songs and recording, being in the studio, is still really exciting to me. But as for touring, I only tour for maybe three or four months at a time. I’m usually sick of it by the end of the tour, which is convenient.
I know you’re a great arranger. How do you approach that with recording? Do you do it all ahead of time, or do you ever let it evolve in the studio with feedback from the other musicians…?
It’s not so much with the other musicians … maybe a little bit, but there’s no particular need for that. By the time they come in, the song is pretty much set in terms of where the pitch is and where the chorus goes … that all changes more from just listening to the song. The song’ll tell me if it’s too long or too short, it’ll say, “I need a new bridge. Write me a new bridge.” I tend to listen to the song more than listening to other people. That said, there are two or three people I really respect that I’ll listen to.
[Speaking of listening to other people,] are there any new artists you’ve been listening to, who you think other people should check out?
Well, there are the obvious ones, like Amy Winehouse. She’s just pretty incredible, and she’s an obvious choice. I’m trying to think. There are also people I always respect, who have been around a long time. I’m pretty excited about music at the moment. I’ve been really filling my iPod with a lot of music—older music like Jeff Beck … old music that I’m just trying to remember and [put in my iPod].
Well, that’s all our time, Colin. Do you have anything else you want to say to the world?
Just that the world should wake up to itself.
Amen
Yes.
