Anvil

If you’re a fan of heavy metal music, Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow and Robb Reiner probably need no introduction. The creative forces behind legendary metal group Anvil, their tale is as famous – even more so – than their music.

It was the 1980s; Anvil seemingly had it all …. Well, everything but a good manager or clear direction as to where they were heading. And just as quickly as they hit the top, Anvil’s slide back down came even quicker. Hollywood Screenwriter (He penned the Tom Hanks movie “The Terminal”) cum filmmaker Sacha Gervasi thought the band’s story would make a good movie – he was wrong… “Anvil : The Story of Anvil” makes a great movie. Over a few beers, CLINT MORRIS caught up with Kudlow to discuss the movie, the music, the misfortunes of bad management, and the madness of being part pf  Anvil 2.0.

First coming rather than second coming?

L: Yes.

R: This is happening, for real. And we’re enjoying it. I’m celebrating.

If you’d hit it big back in the early ‘80s…

R: We wouldn’t be here, probably. We probably would have self-destructed because of all that typical shit. Being obscure made us play better. We played with integrity all that time.

L: You’re never gonna break through unless you have everything other than the music in line. Even if it was Sergeant Pepper’s, you need to have a record company letting everyone know that it’s there and a real manager to ensure you’re playing stadiums. It’s all about how you’re perceived when it comes to how rapidly things can happen. To get everything in line is miraculous. Being good or bad is almost beside the fact.

Did you know you were held in high esteem by other bands?

R: Yes, absolutely.

L: Because these people came to our gigs throughout the years. By the same token, in the same way, we love obscure bands. Bands that maybe a lot of people haven’t heard of really turn our crank. It’s the same thing for them – we were one of their favourites because we were obscure. It’s just sort of the way it works.

R: They’ve always told us, and now they’ve told the world.

L: Like I said, until you get everything in line – real publicity, real distribution – it doesn’t matter what your songs are.

How has it been selling records yourselves – on the internet?

R: It’s gone well. It’s been a very cool experience keeping it in-house but we’re ready to move outside of that. No one can fault us for that.

There’s a big interest in your back catalogue now, I imagine?

L: I think there is a lot of interest but not a lot is being done about it yet. The first three albums are inaccessible – we can’t get them distributed because they’re owned by somebody else. It’s up to them.

R: They’re available online.

Tell me about the origins of the film

L: Sacha was just inspired by the fact that we never gave up.

R: I’d say it was more of the latter. He had full access; he filmed 320 hours of madness. And there are times when I asked myself ‘What kind of fuckin’ movie are these guys making?’ I mean, he filmed everything! But we trusted him because his intention was to help us. And in the best possible way, he did.

You guys seem to have a good bond…

L: We get angry with each other.

R: We work out shit that happens, like anybody, and then we get on with it.

L: Nothing’s perfect. Nothing ever is. And there are good days and bad days, just like with anybody else.

R: We’ve only ever had a few really nasty fights.

L: By chance it could have fallen apart, by chance it didn’t. Life is very random in a lot of ways, especially when it comes to human emotions. You never know what’s going to happen. I was with the same girl from the age of 15 till I was 33, and I would never have thought that we’d break up. But we did. You never know what’s going to happen. In the same way, we have one consistency – the band. ‘Hey, this is my buddy and we make great rock’n’roll! Let’s keep goin’!’ That we knew, and that’s the way it still is.

Will Australia get to see the ‘Anvil Experience’?

R: It’s awesome. We want to bring it out here. It’s an amazing experience for people to come and see the movie and we play there right in front of them once the movie finishes.

L: It catches you off guard because the lights come up and we’re standing there in the aisle playing!

R: It could go to Vegas. We hope it goes that far. To do a week at the MGM Grand, that would be awesome. Because of the wide demographic that’s into the movie, it’s possible. The movie is turning thousands of people onto metal, which is very cool.

People won’t believe it, but Anvil is nothing like Some Kind of Monster (The Metallica movie), is it?

L: It’s kind of the opposite! Here’s this band with everything going for it, and they’re miserable as hell. And here’s another band that seems to have nothing going for it and they’re the most happy-go-lucky guys you’ve ever seen in your life. You’re going ‘What’s wrong with this picture? It doesn’t make sense!’ We’ve had a hell of a lot more fun than those guys. Because they’ve had to do it the way other people expect them to and we just do it the way we’ve always wanted to. There’s a big difference between those two things.

Are you happy with the movie – and the consequences of having done iot?

L: I expected everything that has happened, and it’s now beginning to fulfil my expectations. I know that seems like an odd thing to say but my expectations were that this thing is going all the way. It’s a miracle. There’s no such thing as half a miracle. The miracle began with us making friends with this 15-year-old kid who grew up to be not only a screenwriter but a screenwriter for Steven Spielberg. And he comes back into our lives 20 years later to make this movie? It’s my moment. I knew it from the second it began.

Did you give Sacha full-access?

L: The way I am as a person, well, look at me. Do I shut up? I’ll tell you everything you want to know and everything you don’t want to know! Sacha could have done another band but then he wouldn’t have had me. I’m not patting myself on the back but you do need someone who’s going to wear their heart on their sleeve and tell people what’s really up. I don’t look at it as an act of bravery as much as it’s just me. Other musicians might think it’s really brave that I cry on film or let the camera see empty clubs. We were showing the world the truth. Generally when people make movies it’s to glorify themselves or put themselves on a pedestal; this did the exact opposite.

L: You go into EMI Canada and of course they’re gonna say no. But we wanted to show the world that this is what happens when you go into a major label. And this guy played it like it was scripted. After the movie, he was all over us! And he was all over Sacha: ‘How do we build a bridge to Anvil?’ Well, the landscape has changed.

Family’s important shit, man – of all the messages in the movie, I think that’s the one that hits home the most.

L: That was such a tender moment. Everyone in the room was pretty much crying.

L: Certainly to my younger brother Gary, the accountant. As much as he would like to think he has been a positive force in my life, he hasn’t been. He owns a number of properties and he’s been bothering me for years to help him run them, and I’ve been saying ‘No, I’m in this’. And it wasn’t until he saw the film that he came to realise who his brother really is. Now he’s calling me every day, hyping me up. It’s extraordinary. And I don’t feel resentful about him not believing in me before – he just didn’t see it. And how could I explain it to him? It’s something you have to see. Once he saw it, he understood that I’d made the decision as a kid that I wasn’t going to do anything else with my life.

R: I have no relationship with my sister. She probably can’t take what’s going on. But I don’t really care.