World Championship skateboarder Tas Pappas and filmmaker Eddie Martin talk to Francesca Rudkin about their collaboration All This Mayhem that chronicles the extraordinary careers of the Pappas brothers.

When Australian brothers Tas and Ben Pappas were hanging around the Prahran skateboard park as kids in the 1970s, they could not know where their extraordinary talent would take them, and the incredible highs and lows that would follow.

Their story is the subject of leading Australian filmmaker Eddie Martin’s latest documentary, All This Mayhem. It’s a gut wrenching rollercoaster ride that follows the tight knit brothers from the North Western suburbs of Melbourne to America, where they fulfilled their ambition to “smash Tony Hawk” and become the number one and two skateboarders in the world.

Making it to the top wasn’t a surprise for those who had grown up around the Pappas brothers. Martin, a childhood friend who became interested in film after dabbling in editing homemade skate videos, recalls they always were “super talented” skaters. “Even though they were better than the world’s best we were in the middle of skateboarding nowhere – skateboarding no mans land - so they didn’t get recognised. But as soon as Tas went overseas, I knew he’d make an impact, there was no doubt, and the same with Ben.”



After dropping out of high school at 16 and working for a year and a half, Tas headed to Tampa Florida, with Ben following. Soon they were both traveling the competition circuit, and they moved to skateboarding mecca San Diego, where they joined Danny Way’s XYZ Platinum team with Henry Sanchez and Chet Thomas. Ambitious, passionate and abrasive, the brothers made a name for themselves on and off the skate ramp with their wild, full throttle approach to life.

But the more successful they became, the more life began to unravel. Fuelled by a furious drug addiction, undiagnosed mental illness and the belated impact of being sexual abused as a kid, Tas’s life descended into a spiral of drugs, crime and violence that ultimately ended in jail.

It’s a story you’ve got to hear in Tas’s own words, which are straight up Aussie and brutally honest. “I didn’t set out doing this as a skate doco, it’s about life and family set in skateboarding…we weren’t wanking on about the tricks we made up and all that stuff. This is a bloody cautionary tale. I want to show kids what happens when you have mental health issues that are left unaddressed, what can happen with self-medication and bad life choices, and that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”



All This Mayhem may not be a typical skate documentary, but nor does Tas use it to play victim or offer excuses for his dramatic downfall. He only briefly touches on his difficult childhood and doesn’t mention his mental illness. “There was too much detail and I thought it quite evident,” says Tas, “you don’t go that bonkers if you’re completely normal.”

This approach allowed Martin to tell the Pappas story like a feature narrative. “We were conscious of using a present tense narrative story telling technique because their story is so unbelievable,” says Martin. It’s a clever approach because it allows the crazy story to unfold in a way that doesn’t giving away what happens next.

While many of the Pappas friends and acquaintances were happy to contribute to All This Mayhem, the man Tas Pappas knocked off the number one spot in 1996 at the World Championships, Tony Hawk, was not. “I want nothing to do with it,” was what he said when Martin approached him, says Tas. “Even before the doco was out he was still cut at me, and he got even more cut when the doco came out”.

Martin wasn’t the only one keen to tell the Pappas story, but it was Martin who understood Tas’s motivation for speaking out. “I just wanted the truth to be told. If we were going to have people trip on me and my brother, well, then I wanted them to at least trip on what’s real, not the bullshit that’s been fed,” says Tas. “He did the best job I think you could possibly do.”

Not that it was easy, especially when it came to finding archive footage of the brothers in action. “It was really hard, I’m not going to lie,” says Martin. “It wasn’t like contacting a professional organisation and getting footage. There was some of that, but it was more about reaching out to people that used to film 20 years ago that might have tapes in their garage, shot on formats that don’t exists anymore.”

Martin was pleased that his story coincided with the release of the camcorder and the beginning of kids recording everything, although it still meant hours and hours of amateur skating footage to trawl through to find those special moments. “It was a mission,” says Martin, “but well worth it in the end.”

Rumour is there’s a television series in the pipeline. When asked about who he’d like to play him Tas replies, “Brad Pitt”. This answer leaves them in stitches.