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Men at Work frontman Colin Hay performs at Manship Theatre next month.

Spend a day anywhere near a radio, and at some point, a Men at Work will be heard. Twenty years on, lead singer Colin Hay remains hard at work and touring in support of his latest album, American Sunshine. Hay performs July 9 at the Manship Theatre. 225's Alex V. Cook caught up with the singer on the road. colinhay.com

You’re on the road right now?

I am on the road, yes.

And you live in California?

Yes, for the last twenty years.

What brought you to California from Australia?

I had a record deal based out of Los Angeles, MCA records, and a number of things that were happening there in the late 80’s, so I came to California and I liked it, so I stayed.

It’s hard not to like. California permeates your new record American Sunshine, not only the first track that mentions California, but it’s got that top-down, hit the highway kind of vibe to it that one associates with California.

Well, I wouldn’t think so necessarily, but I can see what you mean. I think there are a lot of other influences there as well. The main reason for that is the first two tracks I co-wrote with a friend of mine who’s a Californian, and my geographical situation permeates the record.

You play a lot of your shows solo. Is that a logistical choice or do like that sense of it being just you on stage, connecting with an audience?

It started off being logistical and circumstantial. I didn’t have a band, and it really was just a simple thing to do. It’s what I started off doing, playing shows when I was fifteen years old, and after the band broke up, people seemed to respond to it, so I just kept doing it. I did it more and then it took on a snowball effect.

When I was a kid, Men at Work was a huge. For those reading this that that may not have been there, how big a band was Men at Work?

There was a moment there where we were as big as you could get, for at least a few minutes anyway. We were number one for four months, which doesn’t really happen these days. It was pretty incredible. We made three albums, the first two with the original band and when that was over, we didn’t really carry on solidly from what we’d achieved. We got to a peak, and then it just went away.

Your solo work has a relaxed, self-assured nature that you were in a band that hit the kind of peaks most bands never hit, and that you were comfortable with whatever comes next.

I don’t think I’m particularly comfortable. I’m always creatively trying to do better work. What motivates you is trying to get better at what you do. I had enough money so I could put food on the table but you are always striving for something.

I’ve read you tell a lot of stories between songs.

I’ve been known to do that.

And there are a lot of stories on American Sunshine. I wanted to ask about one of them, “The End of Wilhemena.” It’s a heavy song.

I wrote that with my wife Cecilia who is sitting right next to me in the car. She was inspired by the story of a boy that was kidnapped. They made a film about it starring Angelina Jolie. The idea for the song is that there is a woman, one of these people that you meet when their young and you think, this person is destined for … something. You don’t quite know what it’s going to be, but you know there is something serious or exotic perhaps, and it sprung from there. She a woman whose done extraordinary things, you don’t; know what they are. She might have been a criminal, might not, might have killed her husband and taken off with the money; you don’t really know. She was an extraordinary person that lives large in your life for a short period and then disappears and you never hear from her again.

I have friends that came to the United States as adults and have lived here for a very long time, and they possess a distinct and open perspective on living here, and in “O California” and the title track, there is a balance you are trying to find in the good things and the sometimes difficult to swallow things about living in the U.S. How has your perceptions changed after living here for two decades?

You can find the shadow side of all complicated beings. That’s what I think about because, here you have the extremes of thought, extremes of behavior, extremes of racism, and extremes of creative aspiration. It’s this massive experiment of who’s gonna win out, whether we are going to survive or not.

It’s an interesting experiment because in most places in the world, you have only one people. In Norway it’s mostly Norwegians, in Japan its Japanese, but America, and Australia for that matter, and a lot of other places in the world, are these glorious experiments of human turbulence to see if we can make it work. The idea is really good, being forward with one another and treating each other well and you see examples of that as well as horrendous behavior. It s a matter of whether you will go back to judging somebody of killing someone in the street, and then I travel around for these shows and meet people an am struck with the amazing kindness of people as well. It’s really quite a mix.

I have a very good feeling about it because this country has been very kind to me for the most part, welcoming and open-minded, provided me with a living. I’m one of the lucky ones.

I always what to know what musicians listen to on the road as they go from show to show.

I listen to all kinds of things, nothing in particular. I was listening to “All of the Day and All of the night by the Kinks, rediscovering what that is all about. When you’re on the road, it’s less about being inspired than it is just getting from one place to another intact with enough energy to do the show. I spend more time thinking about how to pack the car or finding the next freeway interchange.

One last question, do you still play Men at Work songs in your solo shows?

Oh yeah, I’ve never stopped playing those songs. I still play them.