Among the many surreal moments in the opening scenes of Live It Up: The Mental As Anything Story is footage of tens of thousands of Scottish football fans caterwauling the lyrics to an Australian pop song like it\u2019s a war chant.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were just astonished by that \u2026 and reasonably happy about it suddenly being sung by tens of thousands of Glaswegians,\u201d says guitarist Reg Mombassa as he pours coffee in the kitchen of his Glebe terrace. Rangers fans adopted the Mentals\u2019 1985 hit Live It Up as an anthem, a novelty that propelled the song to the top of many British charts. Four decades later, Mombassa and his bassist brother, Peter O\u2019Doherty, are taking a new iteration of the band back on the road.<\/p>\n
The documentary, which is released in Australian cinemas on 5 March, tells the story of a bunch of art students turning their hobby into a hit machine: the international success and the platinum records \u2013 and then the meddling studios, the drinking problems and the lawsuits. It shows a band coming to terms with their heritage and legacy \u2013 and how they managed to keep the show on the road.<\/p>\n
The new Mental As Anything era kicked off just before Christmas, at a large gig in the Sydney beachside suburb of Manly. \u201cThere were about 800 people, and a lot of young people, and they\u2019re all singing along. I found it quite gratifying,\u201d Mombassa says. \u201cManly was good. We were both feeling nervous about it, because we hadn\u2019t played these songs for 25 years and we hadn\u2019t had a huge amount of rehearsal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reg Mombassa and Martin Plaza (AKA Murphy) formed Mental As Anything in 1976, while studying at Sydney College of the Arts. Plaza had a golden voice and Mombassa a unique slide guitar attack, making for a distinctive sound. They were joined by O\u2019Doherty on bass and fellow students Dave Twohill on drums and Andrew \u201cGreedy\u201d Smith on vocals, harmonica and keyboards.<\/p>\n
Most Monday nights in 1977, every hipster and would-be punk rocker was in the back bar of the Unicorn Hotel in Paddington, sweating as the Mentals unleashed a set of classic pop and their own somewhat quirky tunes. It was here that Martin Fabinyi and producer Cameron Allen resolved to start a record label called Regular \u2013 with the Mentals their first signing. The first release, The Nips Are Getting Bigger, was a hit. Twenty-four more Top 40 entries followed \u2013 more than any other Australian artist. <\/p>\n
In 1985, Mental As Anything moved from Regular to Sony and recorded a fifth album, Fundamental; it would be their biggest hit and sow the seeds of their demise, as the budgets grew and the artistic control shrank. American producer Richard Gottehrer \u2013 who had discovered Blondie \u2013 preferred Greedy\u2019s sentimental and melancholic songs over the ironic, arch tracks by the others. The records he made relied on drum machines and keyboards, a step away from the organic chemistry the band had hitherto perfected.<\/p>\n
Peter O\u2019Doherty, Dave Twohill, Greedy Smith, Martin Plaza and Reg Mombassa. Photograph: Philip Morris<\/p>\n
The single Live It Up from Fundamental was a massive hit in Australia, the UK and Canada, so the electronics stayed; O\u2019Doherty and Twohill were barely used on the next album, Mouth to Mouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hated it,\u201d says O\u2019Doherty of that album. \u201cI personally hated it and I felt dismal as a musician. I thought I wasn\u2019t good enough. And [Twohill] felt pretty much the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cracks began to appear, exacerbated by the pressure to deliver another hit. The problem with being a party band was the parties. \u201cWe did have a tendency of drinking most of our rider before going on stage. Not always, but sometimes. That was probably part of what gave us our personality, We built sloppy in to be part of the whole aesthetic.\u201d<\/p>\n
The problem with being a party band was the parties. Photograph: C.Syray<\/p>\n
For some, the drinking got out of hand, and a series of events \u2013 losing their manager Jeremy Fabinyi, Greedy falling off a horse, Plaza\u2019s solo career, and Mombassa\u2019s growing acclaim as a visual artist (his style would become synonymous with the Mambo brand<\/a>) \u2013 put the band on the downslide.<\/p>\n In 2000 the O\u2019Doherty brothers left to concentrate on their side project, Dog Trumpet, and on their painting. Nonetheless, they all remained friends \u2013 until a rift in 2004 between Plaza, Greedy and Twohill, which saw Twohill sacked, leading to a bitter unfair dismissal case which the drummer won<\/a>. In 2016, Plaza, now battling cancer, hung up his hat, and Mental As Anything was just Greedy Smith and hired hands \u2013 right up until his unexpected, fatal heart attack in December 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n