Although he co-wrote Down Under, a song widely regarded as Australia's unofficial national anthem, Colin Hay says he receives an equally positive crowd response no matter where he performs in the world.
"[Australia's] a great place to play, but the whole idea is to try to introduce people to what you're doing at the present time - that's always the challenge," the Scottish-born songwriter explains.
"I just think about trying to perform good shows.
"If people come to see you play, they're there because they want to be there.
"It's always a great experience."
Raised in the historic Scottish town of Kilwinning, Hay moved to Australia when he was 14.
In 1978, he met guitarist Ron Strykert and the two formed the band Men At Work.
The group's landmark debut record, Business As Usual, was released in 1981 and was an international success.
Men At Work became the only Australian band to have a simultaneous number one album and single in both America and England - the record sold over 21 million copies in the 1980s.
When Men At Work broke up in 1986, Hay moved to Los Angeles to pursue a solo career and has been based there since.
While Hay has spent a large portion of his life on three continents, his heart doesn't belong to one in particular.
"They all feel like home, that's the truth of it," Hay says, his Scottish brogue still apparent.
"If I go to Scotland, I feel quite at home. I feel at home in England or Ireland.
"I definitely feel at home in Australia and also if I'm in California.
"I think if you travel around to perform at these different places, you become quite good at making wherever you are feel like you're home."
Aided by guest appearances on the television comedy Scrubs, both on screen and soundtrack, Hay has achieved what he wanted from his move to California.
Now the singer's solo song catalogue far outweighs the amount of material he released with Men At Work.
But Hay admits that he enjoys performing the music of his famous band.
"They're great songs and I'm very proud of those songs," he says.
"If you take a song like Down By The Sea, I've never stopped playing that.
"It's got space in it and it means a lot of different things to different people - it's got some dimension to it."
Even though some were written almost 30 years ago, Hay still feels a strong connection with the songs he wrote for Men At Work.
"I think they all hold a relevance," Hay says.
"Sometimes songs go through rebirths from time to time.
"I think if you have respect for the songs and you're inside the song when you're performing it, then they give a lot back to you.
"If you're spacing out and not really there, then you lose a bit.
"I don't perform songs I don't want to perform."
Hay released his 11th solo album, Gathering Mercury, in May last year.
A work of great emotional depth, the record was inspired by the death of his father at the end of 2009.
"When he died I was in Scotland, which was weird. I was in Glasgow," Hay explains.
"I'm hardly ever in Glasgow, but I was there that night - not far away from where he was born and brought up."
While Hay says he doesn't have a definitive belief in an afterlife, he felt his dad's presence while writing the songs on Gathering Mercury.
"When I started to work on that record he was around a lot," Hay chuckles.
"Whether I conjured it up or whether he was actually there, it was pretty intense in the studio.
"It was selfish in some ways too, because [the album] was a way to bring him back to life in many ways.
"I thought a lot about his life and I wrote a couple of songs that were written in the first person for him to sing - of course he couldn't sing them because he's not around anymore - so I thought he wouldn't mind if I sung them.
"So I wrote that song Family Man, which is him singing it - in my mind, anyway.
"When The Sky is Blue is about him courting my mother when they were teenagers, because they were together for so long.
"That was good for me to do that, because it meant I could really fantasise about that time in their life when I wasn't around."
It occurred to Hay to call the album Gathering Mercury when he used it to describe his collaborator.
"I was writing the song Send Somebody with my friend Michael Georgiades, who lives up the road from me," Hay says.
"He's a bit older than I am - he's been around since the '60s and he made a record with Bernie Leadon from The Eagles.
"He's a beautiful songwriter and guitar player, but he has this child-like frenetic energy.
"Whenever we're in the studio if we write one verse together, he wants to go out and play in the playground.
"He's one of those guys who is a million miles an hour.
"I said to him that 'working with you is like trying to gather mercury', so that's when the term hit me and I quite liked it."
But as the themes of each song appeared to Hay, he realised that the phrase could also describe the futility of gathering together a comprehensive knowledge of life and the universe.
"A friend of mine I went to school with, technically died twice - he was in a coma for nine days at one point," Hay explains.
"He was telling me about it and it was such an amazing tale - I became very intrigued and fascinated by it.
"When [my friend] came back he said that he does indeed have a sense of wonder about what he doesn't know.
"The older I get I understand a bit, but then there's these other layers underneath.
"You go, 'oh my god, it's much bigger than I imagined!' - everything seems so elusive.
"But I'm OK with that - I don't feel the need to have to know everything because it's impossible.
"There's some kind of solice in that - this is my path."
Hay is still a driven songwriter and describes creating music as "a joyous way to spend time".
Part of his motivation is the unshakable sensation that he hasn't achieved enough musically in his lifetime.
"I always think that I've done nothing," Hay says.
"That's the truth of it - I just think 'my god, I haven't even started yet - I'm only scratching the surface'.
"So I do feel like the best work is ahead of me.
"Whether that's right or not, I have no idea."
n Colin Hay performs at Lizotte's Newcastle on Wednesday, February 8.
Limited tickets are available through www.lizottes.com.au.
Email a friend