Last month, writer and childhood friend of the band Nelson Groom released Belly of the Beast: On the Road With Sticky Fingers, a book that chronicles the band’s past while weaving through an account of their 2019 tour of Australia and New Zealand, of which Groom was present for the Australian leg.
Where Frost is about as divisive a frontman as they come, Groom paints him as a quiet yet self-destructive man who sprouted into stardom from a troubled childhood in New Zealand and later Australia.
During his youth in Auckland, Frost’s mother owned a nightclub where Frost found his ear for music riding his tricycle around the club out of business hours.
Frost’s Māori heritage is through his father’s side, though he was raised alone by his mother who went through various jobs and houses and changes of fortune, according to Groom.
At seven-years-old, he stole his first guitar from a garage sale, explaining to his mother that he didn’t want but needed it, who then returned to the scene of the crime to make an honest transaction of it.
His mother later closed the nightclub to open an investment company, and Frost was sent to boarding school in Hamilton where he was chosen to lead the school choir at age 9.
Though he lost contact with his father when his mother began a new relationship, he maintained links to his father’s Māori culture through the weekly Rumaki Reo classes.
At age 12, he started busking at shopping centres. By this time his mother’s venture into finance was over and Dylan returned with her to Auckland.
They took residence in the social housing complex at Greys Ave in Auckland, once labelled a slum and notorious for reports of gang activity, stinking rubbish, dangerous flooring, as well as a number of security concerns.
Groom writes that Frost hated high school where he was bullied for his mother’s same-sex relationship, and soon found himself in hot water for selling marijuana to classmates.
Sticky Fingers have a knack for making headlines for moments unrelated to its music. Photo / Supplied
At that time, his mother decided to relocate to Australia for a fresh start.
“Diz [sic] hates talking about his past and rarely does... He famously does not handle interviews well but when it comes to touching on that trauma, he won’t go there at all,” wrote Groom.
“But where he came from always mattered less to Dylan than where he was going. He poured his troubled soul into music.”
Throughout the touring sections of the book, Groom paints a troubled portrait of Frost - “an antisocial butterfly” - he was known to disappear for long periods of time, and was frequently difficult to locate prior to shows.
Groom wrote that some years back, Frost began experiencing “the tingles of psychosis” with marijuana, leading him to give up the drug and lean toward alcohol as a social buffer.
However, he eventually checked himself into rehab, and upon exit he had a new addiction to the party-drug GHB.
A softspoken and enigmatic figure off stage, the rare interviews Frost has given in the past have done little to reveal the man behind the façade.
Sticky Fingers Band lead singer Dylan Frost meets Mount Maunganui local Dusty Roper, 12.
In 2016, allegations of abuse were levelled at Frost by indigenous band Dispossessed, who accused Frost on social media of “shirt-fronting” them during a gig, and later indigenous songwriter Thelma Plum, who accused Frost of verbally abusing her and her then boyfriend at a Sydney pub.
The band apologised for his behaviour in a social media post while simultaneously announcing an indefinite hiatus, citing Frost had checked into a rehabilitation facility after a bipolar schizophrenia diagnosis.
The book further details that Frost was checked into rehab following an episode of self-harm.
In 2018, an interview with Australian Triple J Dj Tom Tilley turned the band into a wretched figurehead of a cultural watershed in the Australian music industry when Frost haphazardly explained his violent episodes with: “boys will be boys.”
In the wake of further public scrutiny in 2019, Frost sought solace in New Zealand and set up a base in the Bay of Plenty to work on his debut solo EP, Lush Linguistic, produced by kiwi artist Tiki Tane.
The book ends with Groom offering Frost the first manuscript of the book for a once-over.
