As frontman and principle songwriter for eighties hit machine Men at Work, Colin Hay is responsible for one of the most identifiable sounds in pop music: infectious, Caribbean-spiked blue-eyed soul with a pointedly quizzical lyrical outlook. Classic songs like “Down Under,” “Overkill,” and “Who Can It Be Now” unfold before the ears like miniature movies, with timeless twists and a bittersweet sense of humor. The wit and warmth that defined the now-classic Men at Work albums is still intact in Colin Hay. Whether fronting an electric band, contributing to a Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band performance, or in an intimate acoustic setting, Hay’s everyman charm, familiar voice, and clever observations still resonate with an audience.

Colin Hay first landed on American shores as the frontman and principal songwriter of the pop sensation Men at Work. With Hay’s wry songs and burnished vocals leading the way, they were responsible for a series of massive hits, such as “Down Under,” “Who Can It Be Now?” and “Overkill,” that defined pop music of the early eighties. Men at Work were also one of the first pop icons of the video era, with Hay’s distinct visage gracing a number of intriguing, humorous videos that aired endlessly in the early days of MTV. He stared down at the world from the most extreme heights of pop stardom, and yet stardom is not something he yearns for today. “When you have commercial success, it takes a while for the effects of that to leave you. But after a while you stop asking ‘Is that gonna get on the radio?’ over and over. Now I just want to try to write cool songs that people will get something out of – the rest really doesn’t matter.”.

As the eighties gave way to the nineties, Hay continued to write and perform, parlaying his gifts as a performer and storyteller into such varied enterprises as a narrative television special and a one-man stage show entitled Colin Hay: Man at Work. His music made the migration from commercial radio to the world of film and television, gaining prominent placements in the hit television show Scrubs and the acclaimed film Garden State. “Having my music out there like that opened up a new younger audience to me,” Hay explains, “which is fantastic.”
Hay’s new album American Sunshine, available from Compass Records, is marked by several sideways glances at the American dream – that perilous balance between potential and reality – along with knowing ruminations on the transformative effects of love and the passing of time, set to some of the purest pop, hardest rock, and most emotionally bare acoustic balladry Hay has yet laid down. Curiously, the America of American Sunshine is profoundly shaped by two very different dream factories on nearly opposite ends of the country: California and Nashville.

“Oh, California” – all smog-kissed sunlight and lingering, still-untapped possibilities – opensAmerican Sunshine with a perfect blend of awe and cynicism, exploring an idea of the west that began with the pioneers and persists well into the present. When Hay tells of how “The sons and daughters / Followed all the signs to paradise / drinking only dreams and promises”, he could be describing the region’s earliest settlers or tomorrow’s American Idol hopefuls. “There’s a broken dream in every grain of sand,” Hay observes, “but it’s as close as I can get to the promised land.”

American Sunshine’s title track, which concludes the album, is an evocative instrumental that counters the decaying glory and bittersweet compromise of “Oh, California” with widescreen glory and the inspiring vision of an endless horizon. “It began in my head as a surf song,” Hay explains. “Not that I surf…but the Californian experience has a lot to do with surfing. It just has a liberating, free kind of feeling. I had this musical idea that I was playing in the studio, and when it came time to attach a name to it, I thought of my wife’s cousin Mateo, who lives in Lima. He has a nickname for me. My wife was down there in Lima and she was on the phone to me, and she said ‘Mateo, say hello to Colin,’ and he picked up and, through his thick accent, said ‘Colin, Colin, lindo – American sunshine.’ He’s one of the only people I’ve ever met who has a genuinely pure spirit…” Hay’s wife, dynamic salsa vocalist Cecilia Noël, provides harmony vocals throughout American Sunshine, and co-wrote the touching character study “The End of Wilhemina.”

CHECK OUT:

• Official Site

• Paste Magazine Performance

• Live On Mountain Stage

• Colin on Cafe Tonight

• The Daily Times