Mental As Anything

Mental As Anything started out as an Australian new wave and pop rock band, forming in Sydney in 1976. The lineup that became most famous—and recorded all their charting singles and albums—lasted from 1977 to 1999. It included Martin Plaza (born Martin Murphy) on vocals and guitar, Reg Mombassa (born Christopher O'Doherty) on lead guitar and vocals, his brother Peter O'Doherty (also known as "Yoga Dog") on bass and vocals, Wayne de Lisle (born David Twohill) on drums, and Andrew "Greedy" Smith on vocals, keyboards, and harmonica. Original hit songs came from Mombassa, O'Doherty, Plaza, and Smith, working alone or together. The band also scored Australian chart success with covers of songs by Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and Wreckless Eric.

Their top ten Australian singles included "If You Leave Me, Can I Come Too?" and "Too Many Times" (both 1981), "Live It Up" (1985), and "Rock and Roll Music" (1988). Overseas, "Too Many Times" reached the Canadian top 40 in 1982, while "Live It Up" hit number 3 in the UK, number 4 in Norway, and number 6 in Germany after appearing in the 1986 Australian film Crocodile Dundee.

All the early members were visual artists who held combined studio displays, and some had solo shows. Mombassa's artwork was also used by the Mambo clothing company. Most of the band's record covers, posters, and video clips were designed and created by the members or their art school friends. On 27 August 2009, Mental As Anything entered the ARIA Hall of Fame along with Kev Carmody, The Dingoes, Little Pattie, and John Paul Young.

Most original members left during the 2000s. Andrew "Greedy" Smith, the only original still touring with the band, died on 2 December 2019 at age 63 from a heart attack. That effectively ended the group's activities; from the end of 2019 to late 2025, Mental As Anything was neither recording nor performing. Surviving members from the classic 1977–2000 era did take part in interviews for a book-length study and an upcoming film documentary.

Reg Mombassa and Peter O'Doherty, who had both left in 2000, reformed Mental As Anything in late 2025. The revived group played a free warm-up gig in December 2025 and appeared at the St Kilda Music Festival on 15 February 2026. They plan a 50th Anniversary Tour starting in April 2026 at the Byron Bay Blues Festival. Mombassa and O'Doherty are the only original members in this reformation, though original drummer David Twohill is expected to make a few guest appearances.

The band's music features poppy, accessible, well-crafted melodies and lyrics, with an ironic, satirical, and self-deprecating sense of humour. They are seen as a typically Australian rock group, their sound and good-time image rooted in Australian suburbia, even though the O'Doherty brothers were immigrants from New Zealand. Their art school background and visual design skills made them pioneers of the music video form in Australia in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and their videos are considered among the funniest and most imaginative produced there at the time.

The group formed at an art school in Sydney in 1976 when Martin Murphy (Martin Plaza) met fellow student Chris O'Doherty (Reg Mombassa) at Alexander Mackie College at East Sydney Technical College, now the National Art School. They soon jammed in O'Doherty's Darlinghurst flat. Murphy brought in his college friend Steve Coburn on bass, and another student, David Twohill (Wayne de Lisle), joined on drums. They were first billed as Mental as Anything on 14 May 1976, after early party appearances without a name.

Before a gig at a Chippendale Settlement Dance, they gave promoter Paul Worstead a list of possible names. Worstead chose Mental As Anything—a phrase fellow artist Ken Bolton had used to describe them after an earlier party—and designed a poster with a truck hauling a giant cabbage. The phrase is late 1970s Australian slang for being crazy, outlandish, having extreme fun, or 'going off'.

Late in 1976, another East Sydney Tech student, Andrew Smith (Greedy Smith), made guest appearances on harmonica while still in another band. By year's end he joined full-time and also played keyboards. Coburn left in 1977, and Mombassa's younger brother Peter O'Doherty joined on bass, completing the classic lineup. Their first performance with this lineup was at the National Art School's Cell Block Theatre on 17 August, the day news broke of Elvis Presley's death.

They played many Elvis covers and two original songs, along with their usual set of blues, rockabilly, country, and 1960s covers including Roy Orbison and The Monkees. The band built a live following in Sydney with residencies at the Unicorn Hotel in Paddington on Mondays and the Civic Hotel in the CBD on Thursdays. At the Unicorn, their stage was on top of the pool table to free up floor space. Filmmakers Cameron Allen and Martin Fabinyi spotted them and founded Regular Records in September 1978 to record and release their music.

Fabinyi's brother Jeremy became the band's manager. Their debut release was a three-track EP, Mental As Anything Plays at Your Party, in December, featuring all original tracks.