The Story of Mental as Anything - Author Stuart Lloyd (22nd February, 2024)

Australian pop rock band Mental as Anything has a new music biography titled "Started Out Just Drinking Beer, The Mental as Anything Story". The book explores the band's history and features a foreword by Molly Meldrum. The author, Stuart Lloyd, spent 18 months delving into the band's journey and interviewed various people associated with the band. The book provides a behind-the-scenes look at the band's rise to fame and includes stories about their personal lives, song creation, and the ups and downs they experienced. The band's iconic song "The Nips Are Getting Bigger" has an interesting origin story and initially struggled to get airplay. The book is available as an e-book, hard copy, and audio book. Stuart Lloyd will be hosting an event at the Dubbo Library on March 9th to discuss the book. Metal is anything and deeply rooted into the history of Australian pop rock, from their funny and imaginative music videos that characterise Aussie suburbia, to the satirical and really self-depreciating sense of humour demonstrated in their chart-topping music releases, all reinforced with their 2009 induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame. But where did it all start? Central West author Stuart Lloyd has released a music biography titled, Started Out Just Drinking Beer, The Metal Is Anything Story, and he'll be hosting an event promoting and chatting about the book on Saturday the 9th of March at the Dubbo Library. To give us a rundown of what we can expect within the pages, Stuart joins us on the phone now. Good morning, mate. Good morning, Keegan. Before we even get into the story, I've noticed you've got Molly Meldrum doing the foreword. How in the world did that even happen? Well, I think I brought Molly out of retirement. The Mentals were such an iconic band, I guess, of what I'd call the Countdown era. They were made for colour TV because, as you pointed out, they were so animated, they were so colourful, so eccentric. And the way that I saw it is, if you're going to do a book on the Mentals, you had to have a foreword by Molly Meldrum. It was not easy to obtain. A lot of people said, how the hell did you get Molly to do that? Far more famous writers than myself have approached him and failed, but he came through for us. Other than just Molly Meldrum, it's a star-studded line-up of stories regarding both Mental as Anything in the band and all the other stars associated with their journey. How long did it take to bring all this history together? Oh, gosh. How long have you got? Oh, well, yeah, exactly. I presumed it wouldn't be an easy question. Yeah, you know, the whole thing kicked off, we first had this discussion 20 years ago with the band, and, you know, there was this idea, hey, you know, somebody should write the Mental as Anything story. And at that point, I think everybody in the band had their favourite rock journo who was interested in doing it. And then, over the years, they moved on to other things, I moved on to other things. And then when I circled back to this at the beginning of 2023, beginning of last year, I thought, hey, that book is still not being written, that story has still not been told. And, you know, it's a great untold Aussie story of five guys just having a go, having a red-hot crack. And, you know, it turns out, you know, it was a Rises rollercoaster ride that took them from the top of a very wonky pool table in an East Sydney pub to the top of the charts in Europe. So, for them, it was a 43-year journey. And for me, it was a very, very, very intense 18 months of trying to capture that and do it justice. Did something so massive and so well-renowned really just start over a beer and with a pool table obviously involved? No, I've got to correct you on that. It wasn't a beer, it was several beers. Oh, that makes sense, of course. And those beers continued over the decades. Yeah, look, the more I have delved into it, you know, the sort of stories of these five art school guys getting together, having a bit of a jam, and then as they're embarking on this incredible 43-year journey on the back of it, it was as simple as that because as prolific and productive and hard-working as they were, they were highly unambitious. And as it turns out, it seems the only ambition that they had was not to become art teachers. You know, that's a driver behind some people's motives. Yes, they were doing all they could. And when the music thing sort of took off and the first pubs and parties that they played, they got a good reception. They said, hey, we're on to something here. And they just kept on doing it and kept on getting more phone calls to do more of it at bigger venues and internationally and for bigger money and more fancy hotels. And they literally, as Martin Plaza told me, he said, hmm, I think we'll stick with this. And they were right to do exactly that. Does the book, does it take a perspective of just their rise to fame or does it really do the personal touch and all the ups and downs along the way? Oh, that's a really good question. I approached it as a fan, but certainly not as a thicker fan, you know, trying to just say it was all just kind of good times and, you know, happy, shiny people. I've really delved behind the scenes because I come from a psychology background for my sins and I wanted to sort of pull back the showbiz curtain, as reviewer Jane Gazzo wonderfully said, and I think I've achieved that in terms of creating not sort of cardboard cutouts, but much more 3D understanding of the main characters in the story. I mean, who were the guys really? What were they thinking? What were they feeling, you know, at the time that they were either writing a certain song or performing a certain big festival, for example, what was going through their heads? And yeah, we certainly go through the sort of the good, the bad and the ugly, because my approach to this Keegan was it was not going to be the warts and all or not at all credit to the band that they largely entered into that spirit, which saying, yeah, well, we don't like it necessarily as part of the narrative, but hey, that is the story. So their addictions, for example, some of their relationship failures, for example, and I mean, I've spoken to some of their high school sweethearts, I've spoken to their wives, I've spoken to some of their ex-wives and, you know, they just create this very rich tapestry of who they were as people and, you know, what was happening in their lives and how they were, you know, whatever, struggling to pay the rent at a certain point. And, you know, yeah, the journey took them to the top of the charts in Europe, as I mentioned, but then you have the journey on the way down. We're speaking to Stuart Lloyd, the author of Started Out Just Drinking Beer, The Mental As Anything Story. Stay there a sec, mate, I want to come back and actually get into the meaning behind some of their music. There are some absolutely wild stories there. Quick break, back in a sec. You're on Zoo's breakie. It's Zoo FM Breakfast, your home of Dubbo's best music from the 80s to now across your summer. We're speaking to Stuart Lloyd, the author of Started Out Just Drinking Beer, The Mental As Anything Story. It has things behind the scenes with the band that you would have never realised were going on. You're on Zoo's breakfast. Take it away from the story of a personal journey and focus on, really, the story of the song creation. There's one thing I won't ever be able to forget, I was hearing someone that lives overseas and wasn't too wrapped around the story of some of the music that they put out, and they thought that the nips are getting bigger was actually a cruel jab towards people living in Japan, but the whole song itself is more like a bottle shop catalogue, but how did the song actually come together? Yeah, look, there's a lot of misunderstanding around the title, and how it started, actually, and I spoke to Martin's girlfriend, Kristen Kogan, who was actually the sister of their first bass player, who knew they had a bass player before Peter O'Doherty, but they did. They were at dinner at Martin's parents' place, and they were some young art school students, and Martin's father was pouring very generous glasses of red wine, very good red wine by all accounts as well, and at some point over that dinner, somebody said, well, the nips are getting bigger. You're right. And there you go. Yeah, so the scene was planted, but then Martin was driving his 1973 Combi micro bus back over the Sydney Harbour Bridge one day, and this melody came to his head, which went da-da, da-da-da-da-da, da-da, da-da-da-da, and he thought, oh, there's something in that, and as soon as he reached home, he sort of pulled out a beer, ripped the top off the hat, pulled out an acoustic guitar, and then that line of the nips are getting bigger sort of got glued onto that, and in a very short amount of time, possibly half an hour, that great Aussie drinking anthem was born, the nips are getting bigger. Actually, one of the origin stories I love, and this is something we'll be talking about at the Dubbo Library, is how these songs came about, and what are the stories behind the stories of the song. So, with Nips, what was great, having recorded it, they actually struggled to get airplay, notably from 2SM, which was the big pop station back in the day, because of, A, their name, mental as anything, they said, oh, that sounds a bit derogatory, but getting back to what you were saying about the song title, yeah, it's like, oh, you know, is this sort of anti-Japanese, is this perhaps something about women's trees or whatever? The ironic thing is that they were driving over the bridge the opposite direction, on their way to starting a tour up north, when suddenly the DJ came on and said, and here's the new thing from the new band, mental as anything, the nips are getting bigger, and that's when they heard themselves on radio for the first time, and they're like, whoa, geez, we're on city radio, and they thought it could not get any bigger than that ever before. It's just, it's absolutely fascinating, I mean, I'm just glued to the story already, and I'm not actually reading the book yet, it's, I have to end up at least getting through the book, and then looking further into the story of mental as anything. Thank you so much, Stuart, for coming on. Absolutely, my pleasure, and looking forward to rocking that boat. Started out just drinking beer, the mental as anything story is out now online as an e-book, it's also in hard copy in all good bookstores, and as an audio book, however you can catch Stuart in person at Dubbo Library on Saturday the 9th of March, for more information you can always head to dubbo.com.au under the events section. That was just fascinating, I could end up listening to these stories for hours. Yeah, well, you're in luck, there is an audio book. Oh, right, well, even better, I can literally do just that. You're on Zoo's Breakfast.