‘We were just astonished’: Mental As Anything on their highs and lows – and hitting the road again

Peter O’Doherty, Reg Mombassa and Dave Twohill on the set of the documentary Live It Up: The Mental As Anything Story. O’Doherty and Mombassa will be touring through March. Photograph: Larry Meltzer

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’s a war chant.

“We were just astonished by that … and reasonably happy about it suddenly being sung by tens of thousands of Glaswegians,” says guitarist Reg Mombassa as he pours coffee in the kitchen of his Glebe terrace. Rangers fans adopted the Mentals’ 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’Doherty, are taking a new iteration of the band back on the road.