Still Greedy to feed off audiences

MENTAL as Anything are just one of the Australian music legends on the bill for the Apia Good Times tour ready to rock the Bunbury Regional Entertainment Centre tomorrow at 4pm.

Frontman Greedy Smith says he loves performing “more than I ever have before”.

“I can’t imagine a life without music, playing and singing,” Smith laughed.

“I’m still working out how to play our own songs.

“The best thing is going up there and having people recognise the song you have written yourself, and if they clap – that’s it,” he exclaimed.

The talented vocalist with a wicked sense of humour has toured with Mental as Anything non-stop for 40 years.

With 25 top 40 hits under their belt, the Mentals were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2009, with Smith joking he was worried the honour would force him into retirement.

Starting out as students filling in time at art school in Sydney in the mid 70s, the Mentals caught the attention of a new independent record label Regular Records and soon released one of their biggest hits.

“We never thought we would be here, we had no ambition to do this – we had a hit with Nips Are Getting Bigger and we have just been touring ever since,” he said.

Despite his years of experience, Smith admits he always expects creating music to become easier, but finds it “never is”.

“I still make lots of the same mistakes,” he laughed.

The Mentals released a five track EP on Friday, May 5 with singles Goat Tracks in My Sandpit and Shake Off Your Sandals and Come Back to Bed, with Smith jesting he was not sure how he and Martin Plaza managed to come up with the songs.

“Its just a mystery how it works,” he said.

“Both singles are about our mental state at the time of writing,” he said.

“It’s always a personal thing writing those songs but you intend them to be heard by a greater audience in the hope someone will relate to the personal experience you are talking about.

“The Nips Are Getting Bigger seems to have related to a lot of people over the years.”

Smith is excited to reunite on stage beside The Black Sorrows, Deborah Conway and Colin Hay after sharing history together.

“I am just really excited at the line-up, the Bull sisters are also amazing,” he said.

“We did something for TV to promote the show and got to sing with the Bull sisters and, oh, they are really like the Ferrari of music – there is a great sound under that bonnet.”

“A lot of thought goes into putting together the line-up for these shows and we are very privileged to have been asked to appear in it.”

Tickets to the show are available from BREC.