How a Melbourne pub band topped American charts with Down Under
Men at Work began as a Melbourne pub act whose name was scrawled on a hotel blackboard. By January 1983 they had become the first Australian artists to hold the top album and single in the United States at once, and they took the Grammy for Best New Artist the same year.
Colin Hay, who had moved from Scotland to Australia with his family in 1967, formed an acoustic duo with guitarist Ron Strykert in 1978. Drummer Jerry Speiser came aboard by mid-1979, followed by Greg Ham on flute, saxophone and keyboards, who held off until October 1979 while completing a music degree, and then bassist John Rees, which let Strykert move to lead guitar. When a name was needed for the blackboard outside The Cricketer's Arms Hotel in Richmond, Hay suggested Men at Work and Strykert backed it.
Their self-financed 1980 debut single, Keypunch Operator, carried Down Under on its flip side and missed the national top 100, yet by year's end they were the most sought-after unsigned act in the country. After signing with CBS Records early in 1981 they released Who Can It Be Now?, which climbed to second place and lingered on the chart for 24 weeks. A reworked, poppier Down Under followed in October and sat at the summit for six weeks, while the album Business as Usual held first place for nine.
The label's American parent rejected that album twice before manager Russell Depeller's persistence won out. Released on 9 November 1981, it eventually topped the charts in the US, Britain, New Zealand and Australia alongside its hit single. The follow-up, Cargo, arrived on 2 May 1983 and peaked at number 1 at home and number 3 in America. Total sales passed 30 million albums, and the band entered the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1994.
The line-up unravelled quickly. Speiser and Rees were asked to go in 1984, Strykert quit while Two Hearts was being recorded, and Ham departed after its 1985 release, leaving Hay to retire the name in early 1986. He and Ham toured under it again from 1996 to 2002, and Ham died at home on 19 April 2012, apparently of a heart attack. In 2019 Hay brought the name back once more with new players.
Source: Men at Work
