By: Ryan
Sparks
Chances are
pretty good that unless you’ve been living under a rock for the
past two years, you’ve probably gotten whiff of the buzz that
has been surrounding the underdog veteran Canadian metal band
Anvil and their smash hit documentary film Anvil! The Story of
Anvil. Since its premiere at The Sundance Festival at the
beginning of 2008, both critics and music fans alike have been
praising the film and marveling at the unlikely story of a band
that has been slogging it out for over thirty years in the hopes
of finally hitting the big time. The film which was directed by
long time friend, and one time roadie for the band Sacha Gervasi,
is a compelling and revealing look at the endless struggles and
hardships the band has endured, but more importantly it’s the
heartwarming tale of an unbreakable bond between two best
friends who made a pact a long time ago to either reach the
metal summit or die trying.
The seeds
for Anvil were sown in Toronto in the early 70’s when child
hood friends Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow and Robb Reiner first began
jamming together as teenagers. By the late70’s the MK1 lineup of
which in addition to Lips on guitar and vocals, and Reiner on
drums, also featured Dave Allison on rhythm guitar / vocals, and
Ian Dickson on bass, was beginning to create a stir on the local
scene. With this lineup the band signed with an independent
label and ended up recording three highly influential speed /
thrash metal albums. The trilogy of Hard ‘N Heavy (1981),
Metal on Metal (1982) and Forged In Fire (1983)
set the standard and laid the groundwork for the thrash movement
in 80’s. Unfortunately their influence didn’t translate into
staggering sales figures and by the time their legal wrangling
with the Attic Records was finally over and done with in the mid
80’s their window of opportunity was closing fast. After two
albums for Metal Blade Records to close out the ‘me’ decade, the
original band splintered leaving Lips and Reiner to soldier on
,which is exactly what they’ve been doing ever since, through a
variety of different lineups.
When
Gervasi reconnected with Lips in 2005 he did so as a successful
screenwriter who had worked with famed director Stephen
Spielberg. He shot hundreds of hours of film between 2005 and
2007 which captured the band on a European tour from hell,
showed the duo slaving away at their 9-5 day jobs just to pay
the bills, as well as having to find a way to come with the cash
to record their thirteenth album appropriately enough titled
This Is Thirteen.
Listening
back to those early records now they do sound somewhat primitive
and perhaps even a bit dated but one can’t help but crack a
smile at some of their early songs which were nothing more than
juvenile anthems celebrating…well, sex. I can distinctly recall
how as a teenager I saw pictures of Lips in the British magazine
Sounds in full bondage regalia with a vibrator placed firmly
between his teeth as if it were a carrot. I dutifully wore out
my vinyl copies of Hard ‘N Heavy and the Backwaxed
compilation, which in addition to the racy title track also
included such sleazy nuggets as “Steamin”, “Jackhammer” and one
of my all time favorites “Butter-Bust Jerky”.
As the film
unfolds both Reiner and Lips come across as extremely likeable
characters in large part due to the fact that they’re genuine,
honest, and straight up human beings. Lips is the extrovert who
wears his emotions on his sleeve, while Reiner is the introvert
who appears to struggle sometimes for the right words to express
himself. At first glance it would be easy to write them both off
as two fifty something year old burnouts, but when I spoke to
Lips on the phone from Los Angeles I found an extremely
articulate and humble man on the other end of the line. Although
I had a mile of questions I wanted to ask, a scheduling mix up
meant our interview ended up running a bit shorter than I had
originally expected. The focus of our chat was centered on the
film and how the whole project came to be.
Ryan: The
premiere of the movie at Sundance at the start of 2008 was the
really the beginning of the Anvil resurgence. The past thirty
years have been one hell of a roller coaster ride for both Robb
and yourself. How can you put into words what a whirlwind the
past year and a half has been like?
Lips: It's
actually very difficult to put into words. It feels very
comfortable. I know that sounds like a weird thing to say but it
does feel very comfortable in a way, because I've worked so hard
and for so long that it's valued and it feels like it belongs.
So that's why there's a level of comfort. It's not like if it
happened to a couple of seventeen or eighteen year olds and it
happened over night, then it would be kind of uncomfortable
because you wouldn't have worked for it and you'd be looking for
ways to justify it. In our case, because of the long journey it
feels comfortable because I've worked for it and I value it.
There's a much greater and deeper level of appreciation for
everything that's going on.
Ryan: Some
bands or artists never even get their fifteen minutes of fame
but with all this mad Anvil love going around it’s like Anvil
now has thirty minutes in the bank you know what I mean?
Lips: Yeah
I do know exactly what you mean. It's quite remarkable, it's as
if I've put my whole life into RRSP’s and I've just cashed in
[laughs].
Ryan: You
were almost there at one point a long time ago and now you're
back.
Lips: Yeah
somewhat. The first shot at it wasn't even a fraction of what
this is. The first shot was sort of the foundation for what has
happened now, and that is the reality of it. The first three
albums barely sold a hundred thousand copies, so we're not
talking about we were there and we sold six million records and
then went into obscurity. We were on our way to almost getting
there [laughs]. Then the rug got pulled out from under us. We
were involved with a Canadian record label Attic at the time who
wouldn't license our records in the States, so right there your
opportunity is gone. There's a window of time where it's
acceptable and that's precisely what happened. Around that time
we got a major break in that we'd gotten a great manager at that
point in our career but unfortunately he couldn't do anything
because he couldn't get the first three albums [laughs].
Ryan: This
was Leber and Krebs correct?
Lips:
That's right. When you combine those two things that pretty much
explains why. Then there was our absence from the entire scene
for like four years in the early 80's, which were probably the
most important years. Between '83 and '87 we didn't put out any
records.
Ryan:
Watching you guys rock out to “Metal on Metal” on The Tonight
Show was positively surreal, yet it felt right at the same time.
I imagine it must have felt the same way for you and playing on
network television must have been like icing on the cake.
Lips: Yeah
it was man and it was thirty years to get there. It's quite
amazing, all for ten minutes [laughing]. In those ten minutes
what was so astounding... [pauses] it's hard to explain. We went
from kind of being heard of to now everybody has practically
heard about us. It's pretty bizarre that in those ten minutes
you can go from ten thousand people to millions of people, that
part of the psyche was astounding. The fact that more people saw
me in those ten minutes than in my entire career is really,
really surreal.
Ryan:
Before I get into the film itself I’d like to go back to the
very beginning of this project. Tell me how you reconnected with
Sacha and describe what your first reaction was when he told you
that he wanted to make a film out of Anvil’s story.
Lips: Well
what's quite interesting is that we had met Sacha back in 1982
when we went to England to play Donnington at the Monsters of
Rock Festival. Along with that show we played two nights at the
famous Marquee Club in London. On the first night Sacha made his
way into the club, he was this underage fifteen year old, and on
top of that he made it backstage where he immediately stuck up a
conversation with Robb because Sacha is a drummer as well. So
here's this kid who is super enthusiastic, incredibly
charismatic and we made friends with him very quickly. In fact
the following day we hung out with him the whole day and he took
us all around London. We found out that he had relatives in
Toronto and so he started coming to his uncle’s place in Toronto
and calling us and showing up on our doorstep, so we just
decided "You know what? You're a drummer, you're going to come
out on the road with us and help us set up the drums". What we
were really enjoying about this at the time was the fact that
the things that we wished would have happened to us, we were
giving to somebody else. Robb and I use to go to the gigs and
hang out at the backdoors just to try and meet the bands. We did
the same things that Sacha did but of course none of them ever
asked us out on the road with them.
Ryan: You
could relate to him because you started out as fans and did the
same things.
Lips:
Absolutely. We turned that sense of favor to this kid and he
became very close to us, he was like a little brother.
Eventually of course he moved on and we lost touch with each
other. He was going to University and doing whatever
screenwriters do, but this was unknown to us. In the spring of
2005 after returning from Italy, which was really bizarre
because I had a re-encounter with two guys who I met as fifteen
year old kids when they came to London England to see us at The
Marquee at the same time as Sacha did. They ended up being the
guitar and bass player in this band called Candlemass from
Sweden. So what happened was at this festival in Italy they made
their way into our changing room and began asking us if we
remembered meeting them on Carnaby Street. I said "Yeah I do
remember. I know exactly who you guys are", but I didn't know
they were in Candlemass. At the same time I started telling them
about Sacha. When I returned home after the festival there was
an e-mail from Sacha. I started flipping out and asking myself
what was going on because everything was pointing in one
direction. Sacha invites me down to L.A. and I'm flipping out
asking him "Why did you call me, what is this about?" He said "I
was listening to some Metallica and I thought about you guys".
We ended up going to his friend’s place, this guy Steve Zaillian
who was the screenwriter for Schindler's List, a really renowned
guy and close friends with Sacha. I'm sitting out in the back
with Steve's wife Elizabeth just talking about all kinds of
stuff. Meanwhile Sacha and Steve are back inside the house
talking about me, you know "This guy has put out twelve albums
and he still thinks he's going to be a rock star". They thought
it was an amazing story and maybe there was something to it. A
week after I'd gotten back home from visiting Sacha he told me
to come and pick him up at the airport in Toronto and to take
him over to his uncle Marty's place. He sits me down on the
couch at Uncle Marty's and tells me he's going to make a movie,
and in that very split second it was as if I saw my entire life
flash before my eyes. It was an incredible epiphany and I could
see that everything that I'd been through added up to this
moment, and where that was going to lead. I burst out crying
because I saw the finish line. Because for whatever reason when
you see how everything leads up to something you can see where
it's going. It might seem a little enthusiastic but from my
perspective here's a guy who's worked with Steven Spielberg and
he's going to make a movie about Anvil and it's going to be the
greatest rock documentary ever made.
Ryan: So
you believed in it right away.
Lips: I
knew right away, I really did. I got incredibly emotional
because it's a miracle really, but it's a miracle that can only
happen in a very natural sense. Now the elements for this to
work properly were all there, everything was in place. You had
to have made enough of an impact as you were saying at the
beginning in the early 80's, you would have had to have made
enough of an impact that it would influence very influential
people, so that when the time came for interviews somebody would
be there to say "Hey these guys were great but for whatever
reason it didn't work”. It was very natural, all the guys who
were interviewed for the film have been friends with us all
along, but because of our stature and where we sat in the
business, we're not a really viable radio act that will make
people say "These guys are going to draw ten thousand people
tonight let’s get them on the bill. We weren’t that kind of
band, we're the kind of band that's going to go into a club and
it will fill up to two to three hundred people. We're an
underground sensation and successful on that level. The initial
impact was not only good enough to have influenced the musicians
at that time, I mean let’s face it part of the whole beauty of
heavy metal or any rock music is the underground. There's
thousands of underground bands looking for one famous one,
they're all doing the same thing but whether it's random or luck
or being in the right place at the right time, the right people
getting involved and all the stars aligning, it’s a miracle
whoever makes it and how they make it.
Ryan: I
think Lemmy's comment in the film sums it up best; you have to
be in the right place at the right time.
Lips: He
did, that man is full of wisdom. On a personal level he's always
been there for me to talk to and to look up to like a big
brother, as the guy who went and did it before I did. He's
exactly ten years older, so everything he's lived through I'm
living through sort of behind him. It's funny because you could
have said the same thing about Lemmy's career ten years ago,
luckily he got involved doing the stuff with the pro wrestling
and he got Motorhead back into the limelight again. There are
up's and down's and if you're there and ready, that's a key part
of it, is being ready and always being in the midst of
something. That's really the key to all success.
Ryan: From
the onset the reviews of the film have been incredibly positive
and the ironic thing is most of these critics probably weren’t
really aware of Anvil prior. However, I think that speaks to
why the movie has been able to get across to so many people,
sure the underlying theme is about metal and playing in a band
but more importantly it’s about the friendship between the two
of you and you’re tireless dedication to not give up and to hang
on to your dream. That certainly comes through loud and clear in
the film.
Lips:
That's in all of us. There isn't a person that doesn't feel
those things. It struck a common chord for everybody, it doesn’t
matter what you do. Everybody has a dream and a lot of people
don’t live for it, and because you don’t live for it you don’t
get to live it.
Ryan: I
don’t know if everybody would hang onto it as long as you have
though. Some of the strongest scenes in the film are the ones
where, for example the scene when Robb and you are sitting at
the table and you're saying that he believes in you and you're
going to see it through and make it happen no matter what. It’s
pretty powerful stuff.
Lips: Yeah…
[pauses] you have to have that determination if you're ever
going to succeed at anything though, I do believe that. How can
you expect anybody to believe in you if you don’t have the self
determination to cultivate it and make it come true?
Ryan:
Describe how you both felt when you saw the finished product for
the first time, was it a weird feeling seeing yourselves up on
the screen? Did you have moments where you thought “What was I
doing or what was I thinking?”
Lips: No I
was aware of everything that had been recorded. It wasn't like
it was a surprise to me, it was more of a surprise to see it in
an order that was cohesive and that meant something. Its one
thing to see a scene by itself but you don’t know how it fits
in. You remember the occurrence and how it came to be, but how
it's depicted or displayed in the movie is sort of guided so
that it has the proper impact. There's no point in showing a
breakdown unless you see the reasons for it [laughs]. It's
really quite fascinating how you can take three hundred and
twenty hours of footage and make it into a ninety minute movie.
Ryan: Back
in the day you guys gave Sacha the nickname of ‘Teabag’. He says
it was given to him because he’s British, but I think it has a
deeper meaning if you know what I mean?
Lips: No it
was because English people drink tea, it’s as simple as that. He
was like our main connection to Britain so he was 'Teabag'. No
dirt, sorry [laughs].
www.anvilthemovie.com
