It's no hard day's night playing with Ringo for Men At Work's Colin Hay

"I did ask my father when I was young, 'could I be in The Beatles, Dad'?," the Men At Work vocalist says. "He said, 'no, you can't be in The Beatles, son'."

But when this journalist catches up with the Aus-music icon over Zoom from his Los Angeles home this week, he's just four days removed from completing another US tour with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band.

Since 2018 Hay has been a permanent fixture of the legendary Beatles drummer's touring band. Starr's set list even regularly features Men At Work covers, with Hay on lead vocals.

"The novelty never wears off of having Ringo play Overkill or Down Under or Who Can It Be Now?," Hay says.

"It's bizarre really. It's like some surreal dream you're having where you're playing your songs and Ringo is playing the drums and you turn around and he is actually playing the drums."

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The 83-year-old Starr is also proving an inspiration to Hay, who turns 71 later this month, to continue performing and releasing new music.

"He's almost 84 and he still does jumping jacks at the end of the show," he says. "He's sharp as a tack, he's in great shape and looks after himself. It's remarkable."

Hay, himself, also has no plans for retirement. In 2022 he released the well-received album Now and the Evermore, which proved the Grammy Award-winner has lost none of his knack for melody and analysis of the human condition.

"I still think my best days are ahead of me, I don't know whether that's true or not, or if I'm fooling myself," he says,

What cannot be disputed is the enduring legacy of Men At Work.

Their UK, US and Australian No.1 single Down Under, remains one of the country's unofficial national anthems, some 43 years after its release.

It's also being embraced by younger audiences. In 2022 Tasmanian electronic artist Luude released a drum'n'bass remake of Down Under with fresh vocals by Hay.

The song cracked the Australian and UK top 10 and went No.1 in New Zealand.

Rising Northern Territory rock band King Stingray also recorded their cover of the song with parts sung in Indigenous language, Yolngu Matha, for a global Tourism Australia campaign.

"I was very happy with what happened with the young lad Luude, who put it out and seemed to touch a nerve which the Tik-Tok crowd and went kind of nuts on those platforms," Hay says.

"King Stingray's version also was great because they used Indigenous language, which was cool, and I thought if anyone is going to re-interpret that song it's fantastic it was done in that way."

However, Hay doesn't view it as a late-career renaissance, as he's never stopped touring and releasing new music.

"Ever since those times [in the early '80s] I've just kept working really," he says. "So work begets work. You've got to keep moving forward and things happen in a very odd way sometimes."

Men At Work in the early '80s became massive globally, seemingly overnight. After initially forming in Melbourne in 1979, two years later Men At Work's debut album Business As Usual was released.

The new-wave brand of pop-rock topped the charts on both sides of the Pacific on the back of the enormous singles Down Under, Who Can It Be Now? and Be Good Johnny.

A Grammy Award followed for Best New Artist and Brit Award nomination in 1983.

But two albums and three years later, the band of Hay (vocals, guitar), Greg Ham (synths, flute), Ron Strykert (lead guitar), Jerry Speiser (drums) and John Rees (drums) acrimoniously split.

Hay started a solo career in 1987, but by 1989 the man who famously sang "I come from the land down under" made the decision to move to Los Angeles, where he's lived ever since.

"At the end of the '80s there was nothing for me in Melbourne at that particular time. You have to read the signs," the US citizen says.

"I had a deal based in LA, I was getting divorced and I was having trouble with the drink, so I thought I had to get out of here. It wasn't particularly healthy for me at the time.

"I came over here and I could wipe the slate clean and re-invent myself."

Hay may have reinvented himself in California over a 15-album solo career, but he says Australia remains central to the Scottish-born performer's identity.

"I have a deep love of Australia and I love the way it makes me feel," he says. "It reminds me of when I first arrived there when I was 14, whenever I arrive in Melbourne, although we arrived on the ship.

"The space, the air, the surroundings, it's a very freeing feeling for me."

For tour dates, visit: https://www.colinhay.com/tour/

Colin Hay plays Birdsville on July 2, Sydney on July 5, Newcastle on July 6, and Thirroul on July 7 before heading to the US for a string of shows.