Mental As Anything: Legendary rockers Reg Mombassa and Peter O’Doherty set to play Perth’s Astor Theatre

The word “artist” gets thrown around a lot these days, but not many can say they’ve lived a life as rich in artistic endeavours as Mental As Anything’s Peter O’Doherty. This year marks 50 years since the formation of the Mentals, who ground their way into Australian music history by sheer loveability and larrikinism. Their unparalleled 25 top-40 hits in Australia are a testament to their popularity, and their well-known cover artwork and merchandise became their own sub-culture. To mark the half-century, original members and prominent visual artists O’Doherty, 67, and older brother Reg Mombassa (born Chris O’Doherty), 74, are hitting the road for old times’ sake to remind new generations and old they’ve still got it. And to help the New Zealand-born musicians remember the colourful lives they’ve lived, their documentary Live It Up: The Mental As Anything Story — directed by Matthew Walker — offers rare insight into the moments that shaped them. For O’Doherty, who performed for more than two decades as a guitarist and vocalist, the memories are not all so vivid. “I think we did something like over 3000 gigs in those 22 years,” he tells The West Australian. “The film is interesting because a lot of stuff comes flooding back, and you think, ‘What’s that? Where was that? I can’t even remember doing that interview, or that show was in some far-flung State, or even overseas, because we travelled America, and we did some stuff in England and Northern Europe.” The brothers have enjoyed careers as prominent visual artists, both during and after the band’s heyday. Along with them, the film features interviews with founding members Martin Plaza and David “Bird” Twohill, veteran Kiwi-Aussie musician Neil Finn, and Mombassa’s daughter Claudia O’Doherty, who has since enjoyed a career as an actor and comedian. One notable absentee is beloved spiritual leader Andrew “Greedy” Smith, who died of a heart attack in 2019. To this day, it is Greedy’s smash hit Live It Up, released in 1985, that remains their most recognisable. The tune even enjoyed a resurgence on the UK streaming charts in recent years when Scottish football clubs began using it as a celebratory anthem to taunt each other. With an origin story conceived 50 years ago, the documentary touches on the band’s humble beginnings as art students at East Sydney Technical College in 1976, now named National Art School. O’Doherty says what began with jam sessions between Plaza and Mombassa soon led to the recruitment of other students to fill the roles of drummer and bass guitarist. “Then a few months later, by 1977, I joined in. I had just come out of high school, so I was like the little brother, Reg’s little brother. I was like the young one who just joined to fill in for a couple of weeks. And those two weeks turned into 22 years,” he recalls. “And I remember thinking what we were all thinking back in the day: ‘This is good, we’ll see how long it goes for’. Then we made a first record, and we’ll see how long this goes for, maybe we’ll make another one, and it just kept on rolling, like a snowball.” The group released their debut record Get Wet in 1979, and 13 studio albums in total. However, it didn’t all happen in a straight line, with a horseriding accident injuring Greedy and forcing a hiatus in the early 1990s. Fate opened the door for O’Doherty and Mombassa to launch their own musical project, Dog Trumpet, in 1991. And later, for a period of nine years, both bands operated in tandem. Satisfied today with what he’s achieved, O’Doherty reflects on a period that could have changed the band’s trajectory. On the verge of hearing their music played on American radio in the mid-1980s, a scandal broke which found their promoter had been “bribing the radio stations with bags of cash and cocaine” to play the music of artists they represented. “So that didn’t happen by literally a day or two,” O’Doherty says. Grateful to have avoided a potentially toxic and chaotic lifestyle as a rock star in the US, the artist is excited to head back on tour in Australia with his brother 25 years after the pair last played with the Mentals. The brothers will be joined by O’Doherty’s son Declan on the drums, Simon Rudston-Brown on guitar and vocals, and Shannon Stitt on keyboards. Mental As Anything play the Astor Theatre on June 13. Tickets are available from Ticketek.