Mulletfest 2021: The uniquely Australian party that turned the mullet into a national identity and international sensation

Time passes and grit comes to settle in the cracks.

Megan Farquhar's friend, Lena, tells me to ask her about her muse. We're standing in the courtyard at the back of the Chelmsford Hotel at Kurri Kurri where the ground is made of cracked concrete and dusty granite and the stage, which is a converted truck trailer, is being held by the bush poet with a quicksilver tongue and a tumour the size of a golf ball in the left side of his brain.

He knows the tumour means he is going to die - that there is a chance he may not survive the year - but his sense of humour is his coping mechanism. He calls the grade four glioblastoma, just behind and above his left temple, Darryl. The second tumour, which emerged later, is called Derrick.

"People ask me why I didn't give one of them a girl's name," he tells me later, "I say, because I didn't want them reproducing up there."

The courtyard is filled with about 300 to 350 people, and they have come here because they all have one thing in common; a love of a classically Australian haircut.

Tell me about your muse, I say.

"That was a joke," Megan says. "She's my best friend and she has three kids and we live together. I never thought at my age that I would live in a house with three kids, but we make this joke about being like a rainbow family. We're not gay, but I say if 'I was, darlin', I would marry you in a heartbeat'."

Photos: All the photos from Mulletfest 2021

Megan talks fast. She asks questions as often as she answers them and holds you in luminous blue-green eyes. A friend comes to hand her a beer.

"What is that?" She says, "Is that an Old? A Tooheys Old? I love you, but that's a terrible drink." She takes a sip.

She has been telling me about the stouts she liked while she was travelling in Ireland before she was forced home by the pandemic, and how difficult it is to find a hairdresser who knows how to cut and style curly hair.

"Curly-haired girls will know this," she says, "It's really hard to find a curly-haired hairdresser. They cut it like it's straight and I have to tell them, no, it's curly. You have to cut the curls". Megan has her father's curls. The volume is inherited from her mum.

"I was sick of my hair," she says, "I want long hair, but it goes like Hey, Arnold. You know Hey, Arnold? And I thought, this is ridiculous. I just want to not have to get a haircut every two weeks because it grows really fast.

"My hairdresser is in Brunswick Heads, which is quite far away. I drove there two weeks ago. I was like, look, I'm going to this festival, and I'm really nervous about it but sometimes you just have to do something. I felt this urge. I needed to go to it.

"You can't travel right now. But, thank God, Australia still has some kind of fun to it where you can go to this weird festival; thank God, we still have some larrikin-ness to us, which we get from the Irish.

"I was in Ireland last year and I loved it; their generosity and kindness and humour. I think sometimes people struggle with insecurity and they feel like they have to facade themselves in a certain way. But that's what I loved about Ireland - everyone was honest and gritty and genuine. I was like, this is my people."

Megan describes her haircut as a slow transition. She was "borderline mullet" for a while before she fully committed. The sides of her hair are close-clipped now with a clean step into dense, wild curls at the back.

On Friday night, she was the people's favourite Rookie mullet - a category for those who have had the haircut for fewer than two years.

"I was really nervous about coming," she says, "And it sounds really corny, but I felt like I had to go to this."

Megan has two matching tattoos on her wrists that, when held together, read MAIDEN DAYS.

"There are three types of women," she says, "The maiden, the mother and the crone. When you're a maiden, you have these abundant opportunities and you're still finding yourself. You're not tied down, you don't have kids. You're still single.

"Then there's the mother, who is beautiful and nurturing. She keeps the whole world going. And then you have the crone, who is an older woman and really wise and smart and who tells you to do things like this, or think about it like that.

"I'm probably older than you think I am. I got these tattoos because I don't have kids and I'm not a crone. But I was like, you know what, I'm still a maiden. I still don't know what I'm doing. I'm still going to go travelling.

"I'm just going to own these maiden days, because I don't know how many I'll have left."

I wonder aloud if she thinks the point is to become the wiser woman or to become the mother.

"I like people who are kind and sensitive and supportive," she says, "When you're younger, you chase things that are maybe unattainable and you sort of get lost.

"I hate how people say that nice guys finish last. That's bullshit. I met this really lovely guy from Ireland a few months ago. We're still just friends, but he's a really nice guy and he's really friendly and kind and I'm really attracted to that, but I wouldn't have been a few years ago. I've learned to just accept it more and be more myself and to not tick other people's boxes.

"I think I would like to experience motherhood and all of those things," she says, "but if I don't, then I'll be the crone."

The poet, Dave Proust, is not a religious man. When the tumours in his brain do finally kill him, his family will scatter his ashes in the ocean and that will be his end.

"I come from a Catholic family," he says, "But I've never done anything wrong to anyone. If there is a bloke up there, why did he give this to me and not one of those mongrels who does horrible things to people?

"So, no. When I'm carried out of the church, they will take me to the local crematorium, and then take me down to Forresters Beach and the kids can throw my ashes in the water. I don't want a plaque anywhere. I don't want anything. Anytime someone wants to see me, they can go to the photos. That's better than going to some cemetery."

The former firefighter doesn't linger in grief. At every turn in his story, he's searching for the punchline that deflects from the fatalistic.

He takes solace in the knowledge that he has seen his children grow up; that he has lived, as he describes it, "a good chunk of my life".

"The only time that I have a bit of a tear," he says, and pauses, "My youngest grandson - in the early days, he was three or four and he was talking to me - he calls me Grampee - and I thought, he probably won't remember me. I can barely remember my grandparents, and I was 10. They're not going to remember me. That was confronting."

Prousty, as he is universally known, was diagnosed in 2018 after he woke one morning and found he had lost his ability to read.

The tumour had invaded the part of his brain that dealt with comprehension, so it was not that he could not see the words on the page, or even that he could not understand them, it was just that he could not get them out.

He has been unable to drive for the past four months in case he suffers an unexpected seizure. (He has never suffered a seizure, his wife Therese tells me, but it's a possibility.) His speech has been affected as well. He misplaces the words that he needs and it frustrates him. When he stumbles, Therese helps finish his sentences.

"That is the most frustrating thing," he says, "to have to have my wife read to me because I can't read menus. If I'm watching TV and it's a movie with subtitles, I can't read them.

"I couldn't score for golf, and I've been scoring for two years. I know that I hit a five, but my mouth says seven, six, I got a three. I know what I got, but I can't tell you."

One of the entrants in the Everyday mullet category on Saturday is a young man with severe cerebral palsy. He is non-verbal and unable to move. It's impossible for his chair to be lifted onto the stage and, in a moment, the competitors leap down as one and gather around him for their song.

"He had his moment in the sun," Prousty says, and takes another pause. "He was trying really hard to move and to verbalise a couple of words. And all five or six of them, they were all around him. And it was their idea, not ours.

"That was such a beautiful and confronting moment. I started to cry."

At Rod's Barber Shop at Kurri on a Thursday afternoon, Paul Baker has brought his son for a haircut.

Beau Baker is six. He's not tall enough to sit in the barber's chair and see over the bench to the mirror, so his barber turns down the backrest and he sits on that instead.

Beau is losing his baby teeth and the bigger front ones are still coming through. When he smiles, he pushes his tongue into the gap. He wears his hair closely clipped at the front like his dad's. At the back, it cascades past his collar, copper-red and straight as an arrow, before turning to russet ringlets at the ends.

"I've had mine since I was a young fella," Paul says. "It was Beau's first haircut; he was six months old. He's never had another one. He loves his mullet. What do you like about your mullet mate?"

"It's longer than dad's," Beau says, never taking his eyes off the barber in the mirror.

Paul and Beau have lived in Kurri all their lives. Paul's father worked at the Kurri aluminium smelter for 30 years before he died of lung cancer. His grandfather was killed at work in the mines that once surrounded the town and honeycombed the unseen earth below the surface. His great-grandfather died on the railway.

"He was hit at the bottom of the Kurri train station," Paul says. "I've been a local all my life."

When change came for Kurri it was not, as you might expect, in a time of economic collapse or social upheaval. It was the autumn of 2012 and the dollar was strong. Mining directly employed more than 7 per cent of the region's workforce and drove construction, which employed another 8 per cent. The Hunter contributed more than $36 billion to gross state product that year, making it the largest regional economy in the country.

House prices were rising. Sales were rising. But the jobs that had kept the small country town afloat were disappearing.

Aluminium futures were down, and the prospect of a carbon tax from Canberra meant the Hydro aluminium smelter, which had employed fathers and sons for more than 50 years, had, for months, been sloughing off workers in gradual increments. More than 600 jobs were lost in a town of 6000 residents when the final pot lines closed in May. The smelter permanently closed two years later, in 2014.

"It took a little while for the redundancies to run out," Laura Johnson, the former publican of the Chelmsford Hotel and Mulletfest founder, says. "But there was this sense of real fear. People just had their defences up.

"All of those predominantly male jobs were really well paid - disproportionately well-paid compared to the retail sector and what else was available in the town. So, all of a sudden, granddad, dad and his son didn't have an income. And grandma is wondering what she is supposed to do because there is no money coming into the household and she doesn't know how to handle it. Mum, who is 50, has never had to work and is looking at entry-level positions competing against 20-year-olds.

"And no one is spending any money, so the dress shops aren't putting on retail assistants because nobody is buying dresses. And the butcher isn't putting someone on to sweep the floors because nobody can afford to buy steak."

Peter Poole works at the Tomago aluminium smelter about 26 kilometres east of Kurri. It's hot, hard, and heavy work. His days consist of 12-hour shifts changing anodes and tapping out metal from massive 11-tonne ladles. His work gear consists of heavy-duty woollen shirts and pants and heavy woollen gloves about 5mm thick. His boots are covered in layers of rubber to avoid magnetisation. The pots, which heat the metal to a liquid before it's pressed into ingots, run at 1000 degrees.

"It's normally about 90 to 100 degrees in between the pots, even in winter," he says. "the best way I explain it is that I tell my mates that we walk outside in a 40 degree day to cool off."

Peter's father, Dave, has worked at Tomago for 32 years. When his son was having trouble finding regular work as a glazier, he brought him to the smelter.

"I said come to where I am, mate. Put your resume in. I ended up chasing it up. I rang a bigger boss and said here's my boy. I've been here for 30-odd years, you can check my record; it's schmick as. A week later, he got a call for an interview."

Dave started working at the smelter as a bricklayer building the bake ovens and flu walls. I ask if he had ever considered giving it up.

"No mate. Not yet," he says, "I'll stay as long as I can. The money is good and it makes a good lifestyle for you. It gives Peter a chance to get some nice stuff in his life, instead of the shit money he was on before, you know?"

Laura Johnson views her and her family's role as being "the mum and dad of Kurri". When the jobs went away and the workers that had filled the front bar of a Friday and Saturday night started staying at home, she was left untethered and adrift.

"It doesn't matter whether you're 80 or 20, I'm still your mum," she says, "So, I ask how did you get to work today? What's happening with that? What do you need? Did you pay your rego?"

Then: "I've never liked the Dan Murphy's advertising strategy of two for $92, or two for $80. I have always hated that. It always seemed like a double-edged sword. People weren't coming to the pub because it was cheaper to drink at home, but they weren't being protected.

"When you're here, it's my job to cut you off. But come the Dan Murphy's era - which was 2010, 2012 - all of a sudden you have 60 cans of beer for $80 and there's no one to say 'hey, did you have a good day?'"

Mulletfest was Laura's response to the void left by the exit of Kurri's' generational employer. In a clean elevator pitch, she describes it as "a tourism injection for Kurri" and "good, clean fun where people can come together and celebrate the iconic Australian haircut".

"At the end of the news, they want colour," she says. "They want good, clean fun and they want something to laugh at.

"Last year, with the winner, they gave us seven or eight minutes on ABC Breakfast. That's unheard of. They don't talk that much about the serious issues. But when people are talking about Mulletfest, they're talking about Kurri.

"It's not just helping the town, it's helping the whole region."

In 2019, Mulletfest was growing in international fame and infamy and the 2000-hectare site of the former Kurri smelter was undergoing demolition. When the 70-metre stacks, and 55-metre water tower, were detonated in May you could see them fall from the balcony of the Chelmsford Hotel.

Carly Forster is living the hardest days of her grief now. When her husband, Matt - a close friend of the Johnson family and of Mulletfest - was diagnosed with a tumour in 2011, it was as if the world had suddenly closed in.

"But that feeling was not as bad as this feeling," she tells me in the front bar of the Chelmsford on Sunday morning. "I had Matt with me. We were each other's support and I had him to hold. Now, I don't have my person."

Matt was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2011. He had suffered a seizure, and when the scans returned they revealed a tumour around six-centimetres by nine-centimetres by three-centimetres entwined in the brain tissue. When Carly describes the size, she balls her hand into a fist.

"It was really large," she says, "People thought we were talking about millimetres when we first told them."

Matt underwent surgery, and was later treated with radiation, but the insidiousness of the cancer makes it almost impossible to remove a brain tumour completely. It tangles and intertwines with the healthier tissue; it holds on.

When Matt showed strong signs of recovery, the couple decided to start a family. Their daughter, Imogen, was born the following year. Their son, Aidan, followed soon after.

"Matt always wanted two kids," Carly says, "We had the perfect pair."

Imogen has blonde hair like her mum, and big blue eyes. Carly describes Aidan as a little Matt.

"He's super cheeky and super funny, and as gorgeous as his daddy," she says. Aidan was two when his father passed away.

Carly's voice breaks, "He didn't want to die," she says, "He fought for so long and he just did not want this. He loved us and he just didn't want it.

"It's hard when the kids say, 'I miss daddy,' and I say I know.

"They see me crying and upset and they know exactly why, and all they can do is give me a cuddle. We have to get through the day."

Carly tells her children about their father as often as she can. In the final months of Matt's life, her days were spent at his bedside.

"We had heard he didn't have a long time," she says, "and we had booked to go on a cruise for my mum's 60th birthday. We left two years ago today. We knew he didn't have a long time, so we decided to go on the cruise and have a nice time and then face the rest when we got back."

Matt's condition worsened on the voyage. He suffered from swelling and was hospitalised in New Caledonia. The flight home was low and fast. Matt was medicated to help manage the journey, the pilot kept the plane at a lower altitude, and a medical team of two nurses and a doctor monitored his condition until they landed in Newcastle.

He died in hospital in the small hours of the night in March 2019. Carly was holding his hand. His last moments were of her telling him that she loved him, and that the children were going to be ok.

He was 36.

Mick 'Dundee' Sieders has worn his mullet for 11 years. He attended a private school until he was 15, where boys were not allowed to wear their hair longer than their collar. When he left school to take up work in his family's business - a dealership for the German heavy vehicle manufacturer MAN - he started growing out his hair.

"The Missus - well, she doesn't love it, but she can handle it," he laughs, "that's good enough for me."

Sieders is wearing two Hawaiian shirts that he bought from Lowes and took to an alterations tailor to have them cut in half and stitched back together in opposing patterns. At the end of each growing season, he trades his mechanic work for harvest contracting and working on farm machinery.

"I do really enjoy getting out in the bush and working," he says. "Everything is a lot older. It's not easy work. Trucks are getting more technical. Cars are the same. It's getting harder. Everything is made of plastic just about. It's cheaper to buy a new one than it is to try to repair it.

"I don't like that. It's rubbish, you know? Say a farmer spends three-quarters of a million dollars on a new header and uses it for half a season and something happens; well, he has to spend more money on it. It's covered by warranty, but it's all downtime. That's the way the world is going. Everything's like that now."

Claudio Kocher has ridden his bike from Sydney to Kurri to be at Mulletfest. He blew off a date in the Blue Mountains to be here.

"She was alright with it," he tells me, "I sent her a picture of my mullet and sent the link to Mulletfest and I was like, I'm so sorry but I have to go here. I tried to convince her to come, but she's a Sydney city girl. So, like, you know. Things didn't work out."

I ask if he thinks they will meet up after the weekend: "Oh, yeah, sure. Sure." he says, though he doesn't sound convinced. "Sure we will."

Claudio found Mulletfest online searching for pictures to show his friend back home in Switzerland, "I was Googling it to show him there's more people," he says, "I'm not the only weirdo with this haircut."

His mane is all loose brown curls with sparse and stark blonde highlights that don't quite make it to the roots.

"In the warehouse, I worked with a lot of Islanders," he says, "And I'm a skinny bloke and all these Islanders are units, you know, so I got absolutely hammered on Christmas Day and one of them said Chemist Warehouse is open, I think we need to put highlights in your hair.

"And I was like, yeah, that sounds like a good plan."

When Claudio arrived in Australia, he found work in Bundaberg picking pineapples and fell in love with an English girl doing the same. They travelled around the country for a while and landed later in Melbourne.

"I fell in love with her," he says, "Girls in Switzerland are quite strict. English girls like to go out on a Sunday. They don't take themselves too seriously. She loved my mullet. She actually cut it the first two times in quarantine."

They were together for around 18 months when Claudio travelled home to put together some money so he could return and go for permanent residency in Australia. They were apart for around a year and when he came back, the pandemic quickly descended behind him.

"We lived apart from each other for a year and then for nine months we were living on top of each other," he says, "There were different interests about having kids and getting married. All of that stuff came up. I just didn't feel like it was the right thing to do. Even though I liked her a lot, I couldn't make the commitment to get married and have kids. That's how it broke apart."

Claudio's mother does not know about his hair. He ties it back whenever he video calls home. I ask what he thinks she will say when she sees him again.

"I don't know what she would say," he says, "She already says, like, your time in Australia didn't work out for you. I know you want to stay but you have to come home. Everyone back home says they knew from the beginning it was not worth leaving the country again to chase after a girl. But people in Australia don't judge you too much.

"It's alright, you know? I've done worse things in my life, to be honest."

Mulletfest will return to Kurri Kurri in November 2021 culminating its first national tour.

A shortlist of host venues includes The Golden Dog Hotel at Glenreagh NSW, Monte's Lounge in Alice Springs NT, Jen's Hotel Mount Gambier SA and Noojee Hotel, Noojee VIC, with venues in QLD, WA, Tasmania and the ACT expected to be announced soon.

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