Group

Men at Work

Australian rock band

From: Melbourne, Australia
Active: 1979–1985
Rating: ★ 4.75 (4 votes)
Releases: 39

rock
new wave
pop
pop rock

About

Men at Work are an Australian rock band formed in Melbourne in 1979. They were best known for breakthrough hits such as "Down Under", "Who Can It Be Now?", "Be Good Johnny", "Overkill", "It's a Mistake" and "High Wire". The founding member and frontman is Colin Hay, who performs on lead vocals and guitar. After playing as an acoustic duo with Ron Strykert from 1978 to 1979, Hay formed the group with Strykert playing bass guitar and Jerry Speiser on drums. They were soon joined by Greg Ham on flute, saxophone and keyboards and John Rees on bass guitar, with Strykert switching back to lead guitar. The group were managed by Russell Depeller, a friend of Hay whom he met at La Trobe University. This line-up achieved national and international success during the early to mid-1980s.

In January 1983, they were the first Australian artists to have a simultaneous No. 1 album and No. 1 single on the United States Billboard charts: Business as Usual (released on 9 November 1981) and "Down Under" (1981), respectively. With the same works, they achieved the distinction of a simultaneous No. 1 album and No. 1 single on the Australian, New Zealand, and United Kingdom charts. Their second album Cargo (2 May 1983) was No. 1 in Australia, No. 2 in New Zealand, No. 3 in the US, and No. 8 in the UK. Their third album Two Hearts (3 April 1985) reached the top 20 in Australia and top 50 in the US.
They won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1983, were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1994 and have sold over 30 million albums worldwide. In May 2001, "Down Under" was listed at No. 4 on the APRA Top 30 Australian songs and Business as Usual appeared in the book 100 Best Australian Albums (October 2010).
In 1984, Speiser and Rees were asked to leave the group, leaving Hay, Ham and Strykert as a trio accompanied by session musicians. During the recording of the Two Hearts album, Strykert decided to leave. Soon after the 1985 release of Two Hearts, Ham left also, leaving Hay as the sole remaining member. Hay elected to work as a solo artist shortly thereafter in early 1986 and the Men at Work name was retired.
From 1996 until 2002, Hay and Ham revived the name and toured the world as Men at Work accompanied by new group members. On 19 April 2012, Ham was found dead at his home from an apparent heart attack.
In 2019, Hay once again revived the Men at Work moniker and began touring with a new lineup.

From Men at Work on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.