Saturday, Aug. 23, 2003 | 1:14 a.m.
Who: Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band featuring Colin Hay, Paul Carrack, John Waite, Sheila E. and Mark Rivera.
When: 8 p.m. Saturday.
Where: The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel.
Admission: $55.50, $105.50, $130.50.
Information: 693-5066.
Colin Hay is a man at work once again, performing with one of the most famous musicians on the planet.
The former Men at Work vocalist and guitarist is in the middle of his first tour with ex-Beatles drummer Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band, past membership in which has included such luminaries as the Who's John Entwistle, the Eagles' Joe Walsh and Cream's Jack Bruce.
The eighth and current edition of Starr's revolving supergroup also includes bassist John Waite of the Babys and Bad English, keyboardist Paul Carrack of Squeeze and Mike & the Mechanics, one-time Prince percussionist Shiela E. and saxophonist Mark Rivera.
The band stops by The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel at 8 p.m. Saturday night.
Hay, who penned such Men at Work hits as "Down Under," "Who Can it be Now?" and "Overkill" during the band's early '80s heyday, also continues to write music and release solo albums. His latest CD, titled "Man at Work," hit stores on July 22.
The Scottish-born, Australian-bred Los Angeles resident, who turned 50 in June, took time for a phone interview from his hotel room in Palm Beach, Fla.
Las Vegas Sun: So how does one get selected to play with Ringo's All-Starr Band?
Colin Hay: You have to fit the bill, in a sense. You have to have had some hits of your own and you have to be able to negotiate your way around an instrument, be it keyboards, a guitar or a bass.
They called and asked if I was interested. I was on the freeway, and it made the trip home pretty exciting.
Sun: As a longtime Beatles fan yourself, what is it like to share the stage with Ringo Starr?
CH: It's just a great experience. It truly is. You turn around and Ringo's playing your songs and you're playing his songs.
It's a whole lot of fun, but it's more than that. It's somebody you've grown up with. It's very special. It doesn't happen to all that many people and those kinds of things don't happen very often in your life, so you grab them when they do.
Sun: Do you have a favorite Ringo number?
CH: All those songs, the Beatles songs. I love pretty much every record they made. It's great fun playing "(A Little) Help From My Friends." It's such as great song. I mean, they're all great songs. I love playing Paul's songs and John's songs as well.
Sun: So you guys play non-Ringo Beatles material as well?
CH: No, sorry, I meant Paul Carrack and John Waite (laughs).
Sun: How does Ringo structure the set?
CH: We do three songs each, three of mine and three of John's and three of Paul's and a couple of Sheila E.'s and the rest are Ringo's or Beatles. And we kind of go 'round the band a couple of times, and by the time you do that two or three times there's the show. It's very very entertaining, I think.
Sun: How did Men at Work's first go-round come to an end in 1985?
CH: To be honest, the original band ended in the beginning of '84 because the rhythm section got sacked basically.
Then me and Greg Ham and Ron Strykert made a third album called "Two Hearts" in 1985, and during that album Ron went home and didn't come back. And then Greg and I toured that third album, which stiffed monumentally. So then Greg said, "This is no good" and went home. So that was it. It was just over.
Sun: Considering how well the first two Men at Work albums were received, how tough was it for you when everything unraveled so quickly?
CH: I think it probably would have been possible to predict it because it was never a particularly cohesive or happy band or a band with a lot of soul as far as I'm concerned. It was always problematic, with people not being able to communicate with one another.
I always thought that we were going to be successful in a way. It seemed that was our destiny because the songs got better and the crowds kept getting bigger. We just thought, "We'll take this as far as it can go," and we did.
Sun: You and Greg toured as Men at Work again from 1996 until 2002. Why did you stop?
CH: We toured maybe two or three months of the year, to different parts of the world -- South and Central America and North America -- and basically just had a good time.
We thought we might do something new, but we never did. And it wasn't that much fun after six years, playing the same songs. I love those songs and I love being in Men at Work, but it became very time-specific.
Like if you go somewhere once that you've never been before, it's great. But then when you go back again and you don't have anything new as a band, it's a little bit like repeating yourself.
Sun: Is it tough to play "Down Under" and "Who Can It Be Now?" every time you play a show?
CH: I love those songs. They're very good to me, so we look after each other, my songs and me. And the songs still stand up. I play them every night with Ringo and people love them.
Sun: Your new album, "Man at Work," includes reworked Men at Work songs and more recent solo material. Why the decision to mix old with new?
CH: It's an attempt to reintroduce myself, because for the most part, no one has really got a clue what I've been doing for the last 15 or 20 years. I've made seven albums, which basically haven't been commercially successful at all. I mean, my fans have them and I've sold thousands of records, but not millions.
So for all intents and purposes, this is a way of saying to people, "Oh, remember me?"
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