FRONTED BY A SCOTTISH NATIVE WHO RELOCATED DOWN UNDER IN HIS TEENS, MEN AT WORK GLIMPSED GREATNESS BEFORE IT ALL BECAME A BIT SPINAL TAP. FRONTMAN COLIN HAY TRAWLS THROUGH A THORNY AND TRAGIC HISTORY WITH CLASSIC POP.

DAVID BURKE

Colin Hay with the current incarnation of Men at Work © Jorge Sayegh

The rise and fall of Men At Work is a tale of friendship forged in music and ruined by conceit, of smallmindedness stymieing big dreams, of what might have been but wasn’t because of that conspicuous human proclivity for self-sabotage.

On the cusp of world domination, the Aussie outfit had scored a brace of American No.1 singles with Who Can It Be Now? and Down Under (the latter also claimed pole position in the UK) and were touring their second platinum-selling album, Cargo, when, in 1983, infighting led to their eventual implosion.

“The original band kind of split into two camps, really,”recalls Colin Hay, the Scottishborn singer now domiciled in Los Angeles.

“There were six people in our band – five musicians and one manager. The rhythm section – the drummer and the bass player – got sacked on that tour. So that left four of us. We made a third album and during that record one day Ron [Strykert, guitarist] just said, ‘I’m going home’. And I said, ‘Oh, are you coming back?’And he said, ‘Nah, I’m not coming back’”

KINDRED SPIRITS

Hay, born and raised in Saltcoats, North Ayrshire, until his family upped sticks and moved to Australia in 1967, and Strykert first met in Melbourne during 1978, each recognising the other as kindred spirits.

“I was wandering about playing and writing songs, fairly self-contained in that regard. I’d been performing solo for a long time and enjoying that. But I suppose at the back of your mind you’re always looking for somebody to work with. I wanted to put a band together – that was always a dream of mine.

“I met Ron one day in someone’s backyard. He was playing this 12-string guitar and had this beautiful touch. This lightbulb went off in my head. I just knew this was somebody I could have a musical relationship with. I was going off to do a musical and I said to him, ‘When I’ve done that, we should work together, we’ll get something going.’So I came back and found him again and we started working together.”