Martin Cilia

Joined: January 2014
Instrument: Guitar

Martin first heard Mentals play live in early 1983 at The Raffles Hotel in Perth when his new band “The Flying Fonzarellis” played the support slot. The Fonzarellis were still in rehearsal mode and didn’t have a full night of songs yet but went out and played a few short  sets to test the waters. He remembers loving the Mental’s songs, arrangements and their version of the Booker T and the MGs “Time is Tight”.

Martin remembers first meeting Greedy in the early 90s when he guested on keys for a few songs with a band called “Dave Warners From the Suburbs” at The Annandale Hotel in Sydney. From time to time they’d bump into each other on the road and have a chat.

In 1999 Martin joined The Atlantics and recorded the album “Flight of the Surf Guitar” which has now become a classic. As well as writing many songs that were recorded by  The Atlantics Martin has also released four solo albums and toured USA with his own band in 2013.

In late 2013 Martin arrived home from a meeting with the The Atlantics. They had decided to retire from live touring as they’d had a successful tour of Europe earlier that year and thought “let’s finish on a high”. On the way home he was thinking “ok what’s next?”.

When he arrived home there was a message – “Mental As Anything are looking for you”. After a couple of phone calls it was decided that he would start playing with them on Australia Day  January 2014. He was excited to know that a song called “The Rise and Fall of Flingel Bunt”  by The Shadows was included in their set as this is the song that inspired him to play guitar in the first place. Perfect he thought!

You can also find him at www.martincilia.com.

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