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St. Pete Catalyst: With all the solo work that you\u2019ve done over these years, I imagine you still play a number of the Men at Work songs live. So what\u2019s the difference between a Men at Work show and a Colin Hay show \u2013 why call it Men at Work?<\/p>\n
Colin Hay: There isn\u2019t a simple answer, really. But I\u2019ll try and make it as understandable as possible I suppose. First of all, I never really had the desire or the need to go out as Men at Work for many years after the \u201880s.<\/p>\n
And then Greg and I did it from \u201996 until 2002, just because we kinda felt like it. I was over at his house one night, and he said oh, let\u2019s go out on tour. I said as Men at Work? And he said yeah. And then we got a call from a friend of mine, about 20 minutes later, saying \u201cDo you want to go on tour in Brazil, as Men at Work?\u201d It was weird, the synchronicity of things.<\/p>\n
So anyway, we did that till 2002, and I got kind of sick of it, for many reasons, which I won\u2019t go into now. And so we didn\u2019t do it any more, and then Greg passed away. And I didn\u2019t go out as Men at Work until 2018 or 2019.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been doing it a bit since. I went out last year, with Toto and Christopher Cross, as Men at Work. And it was a pretty good experience \u2013 there were a lot of people who wanted to hear those songs.<\/p>\n
There was a lot of young people that came along to hear the music, because they never really were alive when the \u201880s were happening.<\/p>\n
Did it surprise you that people knew, in addition to the hits, the deep tracks? That Men at Work had a lot of fans out there?<\/p>\n
No, because a lot of people who come to see the shows, they know all the tracks. It\u2019s mainly \u2018cause the band, in its day, you couldn\u2019t go anywhere without hearing Men at Work songs. It was ridiculous.<\/p>\n
To get back to your original question, it was more emotional, in a way. The Men at Work brand, if you like, or that thing called Men at Work, it\u2019s been floating rudderless for many years. And I suppose I just thought well, I\u2019ll just kinda grab it again and steer it for a while. And see what happens, you know?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
A lot of artists who are still writing and recording new music say they\u2019re not interested in pure nostalgia.<\/p>\n
Well, I\u2019ve done the solo thing and made a lot of records since then, 15 or 16 records. And when I go out on my own, on a good night I can put maybe 1,300, 1,400 people in a room or something. And they\u2019re not interested in hearing Men at Work songs. Or they don\u2019t mind the Men at Work songs, they have no problem with them. But they\u2019ve been following me ever since that time, so they take whatever I give them.<\/p>\n
So in a way, I feel nourished in that sense, in that I don\u2019t think aw, the only people coming to see me play want to hear \u201cDown Under.\u201d That\u2019s not the case. All the songs kind of live happily with one another.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The band has just come back from Brazil? How\u2019d that go?<\/p>\n
Brazil\u2019s an interesting thing, too, \u2018cause 40 years later, maybe between 4 or 5,000 people come to see us play there. So that\u2019s what I can do based on the fact that there\u2019s no new records, that\u2019s just Men at Work. And they\u2019re pretty unaware of anything solo that I\u2019ve done, you know, because my records never really had any saturation there.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MenAtWork-Color2-1024x771.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Men at Work 2026. Publicity photo.<\/p>\n
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