By Christina Wood
Colin Hay, former front man for ’80s pop/rock phenomenon Men at Work, is known to have a somewhat irreverent and self-deprecating sense of humor. Ask him what audiences can expect on his current tour and you’ll get a taste of it.
“I think they can probably expect that they’ll be entertained and that they’ll be happy they came,” he says, his native Scots accent in evidence. “Beyond that, there’ll be people up on the stage playing music.”
Hay is touring in support of his new CD, Fierce Mercy, set to be released March 3 on Compass Records. The record – Hay’s 13th solo effort – explores themes of love and loss, mortality, even the odd UFO sighting, but always with the singular perspective and insightful wit that define Hay’s work.
“I love the old stuff, too,” he says. “But you always love the new stuff – because it’s new.”
You’ll hear some of both at Hay’s South Florida appearances. “It’s like if you go to a party, you want to know if there will be people there you know or if it will just be a room full of strangers.” On this tour, he says, “There will be strangers but there will be some friendly faces as well.”
With Men at Work, who took home the Grammy for Best New Artist in 1983, Hay performed before thousands. These days, he is known for his intimate, acoustic shows. “Big audience, small audience, it doesn’t matter – just as long as there’s an audience,” he says with a laugh.
On this tour, he’s bringing some company along. “I am touring with a band, which I don’t often get to do these days,” he says. “I’m looking forward to it.”
The songs that fill Fierce Mercy deserve it. A sense of urgency, more easily communicated with drums on stage, runs through “The Last to Know.” “Come Tumblin Down” displays lively flourishes of Americana. Pop sensibilities infuse the ballad “A Thousand Million Reasons.”
“It was a thrilling record to make,” Hay says. “There were lots of elements to it.” As an example, he explains that some of the songs came to life in just the last few months, when strings were added during a recording session in Nashville. “That was kind of a joyful thing to make happen.”
Some of the songs on Fierce Mercy, which was recorded primarily in Los Angeles and mixed by Vance Powell (Chris Stapleton, Jack White) and Gordon Hammond (Buddy Miller, Don Williams), are deeply personal. Hay wrote “She Was the Love of Mine” in memory of his mother, who died three years ago.
Other songs display Hay’s penchant for storytelling. “Frozen Fields of Snow” recounts the story of a war veteran returning to his childhood home after outliving the other members of his unhappy family. “Sometimes lyrical ideas will come into your head, so you follow them and see where they go,” he says.
In “I’m Going to Get You Stoned,” Hay draws on memories of the year 1967 – a year that “felt like heaven.” It was the year when, at age 14, he and his family moved from Scotland to Australia.
“When you go to the other side of the world at that age, it’s like living in a kaleidoscope. There are so many new things to see,” he says. “It did have kind of a heaven-like quality to it. Scotland’s very beautiful, but it’s quite a gray place for the most part.”
Hay, who became a U.S. citizen last year, still visits Australia when he can. “I go back and just go for drives, different places – either with a friend or by myself. It’s still the same, relatively speaking.”
The first line in Hay’s bio may always refer to his success as front man and guiding force behind Men at Work, but a new generation of fans know him as a singer-songwriter. The use of his music in TV and film – including hit shows such as Scrubs (on which he made several cameo appearances) and Modern Family, as well as the Grammy-winning soundtrack to the indie film Garden State – helped Hay reinvent himself as a solo artist.
Whether they first knew him as a guy from “Down Under” or as the indie artist “Waiting for My Real Life to Begin,” audiences rave about Hay’s performances. He has performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and ABC’s Greatest Hits, sharing the stage at various times with Of Monsters and Men, Choir Choir Choir! and Kings of Leon.
He’s toured with Barenaked Ladies and the Violent Femmes. Artists as distinct as James Hetfield of Metallica, Jeremiah Fraites of the Lumineers, Troy Sanders of the metal band Mastodon and the members of the acoustic/bluegrass band Infamous Stringdusters all cite him as an influence.
“I feel like I’m getting better,” Hay says. But still not good enough to meet his own high expectations. “I’d really like to be able to play a guitar properly. That’s really what my ambition was back then and, in many ways, it still is. The songwriting got in the way.”
Maybe it’s the storyteller in him. On stage, many of his songs tell a tale and between songs, he lets the audience in on his own evolving narrative.
“I’d like to spend more time just playing the guitar and learning to play it better. It’s a great instrument, I love it,” Hay says. “I think it’s quite an expressive instrument. Piano is expressive, too. I love the piano but I can’t play the piano very well – well, I can’t really play it at all.”
Hay follows the guitar into a “zone,” one that he likes.
If you hear him perform “Overkill” with nothing but his acoustic guitar and distinctive vocals, you may get a sense of what he’s talking about. The song you know so well becomes a revelation.
“With a lot of the songs, that’s how they were written and conceived,” Hay says, offering an explanation for that something special that shines through in his acoustic performances. “It’s nice that they can just stand up on their own like that.”
Hay’s 13th solo release has 13 songs (since they’re not dropping it on March 13, you can tell yourself that’s a coincidence). Ten of the compositions were collaborations with Michael Georgiades, including the pop vocal ballad “A Thousand Million Reasons” and the irrepressible “Come Tumblin’ Down.”
“Michael Georgiades is my secret weapon,” Hay says. “I guess now with this album it’s not a secret anymore.”
The album’s title concept of “fierce mercy” is introduced in “The Last to Know,” which features an engaging pop beat driven by the bright commentary of drummer Charlie Paxson’s cymbals. “When you’re in your 20s, you think you’ve got all the time in the world,” Hay says. “You get older, and you go through a quickening. Everything seems to get faster.”
Hay can have you smiling while he sings about life’s struggles. (“Who Can It Be,” one of Men at Work’s biggest hits, was based on his experience with a debt collector.) The challenges expressed in “The Last to Know” are personal but, Hay says, the song has broader meanings as well.
“With the changing weather patterns, or the polar ice caps melting, we’re getting all of these warnings, and a lot of them are incredibly fierce. But they still feel somewhat merciful — they’re not destroying us totally,” he explains. “We’re all being told, ‘Listen, you can still maybe address this, and it won’t get to the point where I have to take you all out. You’ve still got a shot.’
Largely recorded in Topanga, Hay’s adopted home in California, Fierce Mercy features Hay’s wife, Cecilia Noël, and regular accompanists – bassist Yosmel Montejo, drummer Paxson, keyboardists Fred Kron and Jeff Babko, and guitarist/tres player San Miguel Perez. The recording was completed in sessions at Compass Sound Studio in Nashville with Compass Records principal Garry West, who also contributed bass on a few cuts, at the helm.
As Hay tells, “Garry is always trying to get me to Nashville to do some recording, to get me out of the comfort zone of my own studio — get me out of my lair! So I went to Nashville and we recorded the strings with a nine-piece section, and he introduced me to some players that he loves, who added another fantastic layer to the album.”
The Nashville players include guitarists Audley Freed (Sheryl Crow, the Black Crowes, the Dixie Chicks) and Doug Lancio (John Hiatt), pedal steel guitarist and organist Jim Hoke (Iris DeMent, Don Henley, Darius Rucker) and Compass co-founder Alison Brown (banjo).
Colin Hay appears Saturday at the Key West Theater, Key West, at 8 p.m. ($60-$75); Sunday at the Boca Raton Resort and Club, 8:30 p.m.; ticket options include one-night luxury accommodations at the resort, deluxe open bar and snacks; ($160 and $200); Saturday, Feb. 18, at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Fort Lauderdale, 8 p.m. ($39.50-$59.50)