By – Kayleigh Drake

“I had a nervous breakdown and wound up in a psych ward thinking I was the Antichrist.”

When a documentary — or any film, for that matter — opens with a line like that, you know you’re in for a compelling story. And that’s exactly what Weirdo is.

Named after the album and song of the same name, Weirdo is a documentary about the legendary Athens, Georgia-based rock band Five Eight. Formed in the late 80s, the band rose to popularity in the early-to-mid 90s with songs like “God Damn It Paul,” “Looking Up” and the aforementioned “Weirdo” (not to mention a really, really good cover of “I Can’t Stand It” by the Velvet Underground).

Directed by filmmaker Marc Pilvinsky, Weirdo tells the story of a group of longtime friends and musicians who weathered a number of challenges including mental illness, addiction, trauma and PTSD, yet always found a common thread through music. It’s a story of resilience, perseverance and lasting friendship. It’s also a brilliant portrayal of the reality of living with mental illness and how important art can be in coping with that reality.

You’ll see some familiar faces in this film, including fellow Georgia musicians Amy Ray (of the Indigo Girls), Bill Berry (of R.E.M.) and Patterson Hood (of Drive-By Truckers), who talk about their experiences sharing the local music scene with Five Eight.

Ultimately, this is a kickass music doc about an equally kickass band. And it’s screening at Saturn this Sunday, March 9! Here’s a glimpse into what this film is about — and why it’s one to watch.

After suffering a mental breakdown in college and being diagnosed with manic depression and schizophrenia, frontman Mike Mantione turned to music to help make sense of his experiences — and “to stay out of the psych ward,” as he mentions in the film.

Mike formed Five Eight with bassist Dan Horowitz, and the band eventually fleshed out its lineup with drummer Patrick Ferguson and guitarist Sean Dunn — the “core four” members who are still playing together to this day.

Five Eight soon became known for their energetic (and oftentimes erratic) live shows — which, as artist Christ Bilheimer puts it, “would go from moments of brilliance into verging on ‘trainwreck’ and then back into brilliance.” Mike’s onstage presence as a “loose cannon” of sorts became one of the band’s hallmark features — so much so that record labels began using Mike’s mental health diagnoses as a marketing tool.

The band spent years touring extensively throughout the U.S., playing hundreds of shows and staying on the road for upwards of nine months at a time. They shared stages with the Ramones and Cheap Trick. They went on tour with R.E.M. They recorded an album with renowned producer Ed Stasium (Living Colour, Talking Heads, Misfits). They sold out shows at the iconic 40 Watt Club numerous times. This is a band that “did everything right,” yet somehow always remained just outside the threshold of commercial success.

But in reality, “success” means something different to everyone, and Weirdo proves that you don’t have to sell millions of records in order to achieve success as an artist.

I got the chance to speak with Marc and Patrick about the documentary and the band itself — and I was a bit star-struck to learn of Patrick’s plethora of impressive music connections.

To name just a few, Patrick was high school friends with Bryan Poole (aka The Late B.P. Helium), a longtime collaborator in the Elephant 6 music collective in Athens. Five Eight’s album Weirdo was produced by David Barbe, who played in Bob Mould’s band Sugar (a longtime favorite of mine). Patrick also works as a roadie for the B-52s and as the production manager for Gang of Four. (“That’s my secret other life,” he says.) And the list goes on.

After a fair amount of my own “fangirling” at these revelations, I was able to glean more info on Marc’s relationship with Five Eight, as well as the making of the documentary and the impetus behind it.

“When I lived in Athens in the 90s, I worked for the Flagpole (Magazine),” Marc recalls. “Five Eight put out the Weirdo record in ‘94 and I got the assignment to go talk to the band about it…I was a fairly green journalist, and it went pretty badly, and I sort of walked away thinking, ‘We’re not going to be friends, me and these guys.’”

Fast forward to 2014, when Marc and his family moved to Atlanta after living in Los Angeles for a while. It was around that time that Five Eight was remixing and remastering their Weirdo record — i.e., the very same one that Marc had initially interviewed them about all those years ago — and they wanted to make a brief video announcement about it. Mike Mantione ended up friending Marc on Facebook, and the two connected over the prospect of making said video. After interviewing the band a second time, completing the full-circle moment, Marc whipped up a video in the span of only three weeks.

“It was supposed to be a two-minute documentary. It ended up being 20,” says Marc. “Mike gave me a mountain of material, like VHS tapes and cassette tapes and all this archival stuff…and it came together really quickly and sort of re-energized the band, and me as a filmmaker.”

Through word of mouth, the video ended up getting thousands of views in the span of a couple of days. “It was crazy that it came together that quickly and turned out to be something we all thought was good,” says Marc. “It doesn’t happen very often like that.”

Once the Weirdo reissue was released and things died down a bit, the band asked Marc if he’d want to make a full-length feature doc about them — and that’s how Weirdo came to be. This was a long-term, “labor of love” type of project, with Marc noting that the film took nine years to complete (due in part to the pandemic happening right in the middle of the process). It’s also a testament to how small the world can be, and how deep the musical connections run in a city like Athens.

“I’m grateful that there are bands like Five Eight out there who are just so real, and so human — and so good at what they do,” says Marc. “You see the magic that they create in the room when they play a show — it’s just electric.”

As of this moment, Five Eight has been playing together for 37 years, which is something that not a lot of bands are able to say — “famous” or otherwise.

“If there’s a central message to the film, and I feel like there is, it’s that you don’t have to end up touring with a bus and three semis to feel like you’ve had a successful artistic career,” Patrick says. “In fact, I think in some ways those two things are kind of diametrically opposed. I feel like there’s a success in continuing to make music and surviving.”

“In some ways, we kind of dodged a bullet by not becoming a giant band with huge expectations,” he adds.

You can see Five Eight in action this Sunday, March 9, at Saturn following the screening of the Weirdo documentary. There will also be a Q&A with Marc and the band, as well as an opening performance by Orlando-based band the Pauses. Put simply, it’s a night you don’t want to miss.

You can listen to the full interview with Marc and Patrick here