David Twohill

David Twohill is a musician formerly with Australian band Mental As Anything who is perhaps better known by the pseudonyn Wayne DeLisle or by his nickname Bird.

Early life

Twohill was born in Cooma, Australia on 21 April 1956. He moved to Sydney in the early 70s and attended the East Sydney Technical College at Darlinghurst. Here he met, and later audtioned on drums with, fellow students Chris O'Doherty, Martin Murphy and Steve Coburn who were putting a band together. The band would soon be known as Mental As Anything and would become well known around Australia and the world.

Art career

Twohill is not a recognised artist, however he has had works exhibited at various group art exhibitions. He has tended to concentrate on curatorial responsibilities, with exhibitions at Tamworth, Manly and Liverpool under his control.

Mental As Anything

Main article: Mental As Anything

Pseudonym/Nickname

In the early days of the Mentals, the band would often invent psuedonyms for each other that combined an exotic lastname with a common Australian firstname. "Wayne Delisle" was one of the products of that amusement. The additional nickname of "Bird" (or "C-Byrd" as it was often written) was bestowed by Reg Mombassa who thought the scavenging seagulls at Bondi Beach reminded him of Twohill. The nickname was immortalised in the Mentals song "Looking For Bird" from the Cats & Dogs album.

2001 Bushfires

Twohill was in the national news for unfortunate reasons on Christmas day 2001 when his house was lost in the bushfires that raged on the outskirts of the Sydney metropolitan region. The music industry rallied around with a benefit gig at Revesby in early 2002. "Bird's Big Burnout" was notable for the appearance of a four piece Midnight Oil minus Peter Garret. http://www.abc.net.au/dimensions/dimensions_people/transcripts_2002/s477425.htm