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Some legends, it would seem, never truly die; they simply ‘…roll…’ with the proverbial changes, redefining and improving themselves as they age. Although the use of such a cliché may indeed seem contrived at best, it remains entirely appropriate when discussing improbably long-running Canadian Heavy Metal veterans Anvil. Having survived (relatively unscathed, no less) a veritable plethora of line-up changes and label turmoil that would have assuredly destroyed a lesser-dedicated act, the group now finds itself basking amid an Anvil! The Story Of Anvil-fueled renaissance. Fortunately for all parties involved, vocalist/guitarist Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow, historically a man of many words and interesting stories, was kind enough to speak with us regarding the quartet’s disturbingly enduring legacy…
Todd: In hindsight, what were the motivation(s) behind the decision to begin filming Anvil! The Story Of Anvil?
Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow: “We met the Director, Sacha Gervasi, in 1992 when we went to England to play The Monsters Of Rock festival in Donington. He showed up backstage at the Marquee (Club) in London and we became friends with him to the point where we found out he actually had relatives in Canada where we lived. He began visiting us here and eventually became our drum roadie. After he began doing that he had to go back and finish High School and all that, so we didn’t see him for about twenty years. He contacted me in 2005 after finding out that Anvil had never actually stopped. He found this to be an incredible inspiration and ended up making a movie about it. He ended up being a screenwriter for Steven Spielberg (laughs), so when he told me he was going to do it, I was like ‘Well, I guess that’s how we’ll make it’ (laughs). So I guess I was kinda right.”
Todd: In regards to the numerous line-up changes the group has undergone, has there been a common, or perhaps oft-reoccurring, factor that ultimately prompted the individual members to either leave or be dismissed?
Steve: “No, not really. …I’ve been playing with (drummer) Robb (Reiner) since 1973 (laughs). The guys that did our first albums with us were in the band for about ten or twelve years, all told. We recorded our first four albums together and then, because we didn’t make it really big, they left. It’s as simple as that (laughs). …Everyone has different motivations, ya know? Some people do it because they want the girls (laughs). (Former rhythm guitarist) Dave ‘Squirrely’ Allison was certainly one of those guys. And he lived it, ya know? He had a really fun time. He enjoyed it while the enjoyment was there to have, I guess. Then I think he just grew bored of it and decided to leave. He was the first guy to leave. This was in 1990. The bass player (Ian ‘Dix’ Dickson) left two years later. We eventually replaced both of them and had hired a guitar player, only to find out after we had hired the bass player, that we didn’t really need the guitar player (laughs). Eventually he quit. Actually, he didn’t quit, he just stopped showing up (laughs). But I didn’t go chasing him. I’m talking about Ivan Hurd, of course. …He just never really added anything. That’s what the problem was. Eventually, that eroded his reason for being there, even for himself. He was feelin’ pretty much like a fifth wheel, ya know? He stopped showing up for rehearsal, he never participated in writing… Robb was flippin’ out. He was like ‘Let’s just get rid of it. Let’s tell him to beat it. Why do we still have this?’ But I held onto it because it was comfortable (laughs). Eventually, comfort turned to even me questioning why he was there. When we came back from Japan, I just stopped calling. I used to have to call him every week to tell him to show up to rehearsal or to remind him that we had a gig or whatever and you’d still never see him. I got pretty damn sick and tired of it. When we went to record (2007’s independently released) This Is Thirteen in England…I had told him six months earlier that he had better be at the rehearsals so he could learn the songs. He didn’t and when we got there, he was like a stick in the mud. We went through it and finally ended up (on tour) in Japan. When we were getting off the plane, Robb ended up flipping out and told him that this was going to be his last gig. You could tell that he didn’t participate in anything. He just didn’t want to, ya know? So he got his wish.”
Todd: Taking everything into consideration, to what do you and Robb attribute the group’s continued ‘vitality’?
Steve: “It’s been one consistency that we’ve had in our lives that we know is ours. We’ve had a certain level of success and we’ve been able to make thirteen albums. We’ve been able to continue with it for as long as we’ve wanted to, so it was never a question of ‘Was it worthwhile doing?’ Of course it was worthwhile doing. We were creating music and recording it, which was perfect. You really couldn’t ask for much more. Everything else has come and gone, but for whatever reason, Anvil never did. It’s just stayed there for us. You take your friendships for granted. You figure ‘Well, we’re just buddies. What’s the problem?’, ya know? You don’t really think about why you’re here or why you’re still friends with the guy. You just don’t think that. There are moments when you might think like that, but they don’t last long. They’re usually moments of anger, but they usually don’t last much longer than that. It’s not really all that different than any family or relatives, ya know?”
Todd: How seriously did you consider the offer(s) to join Motörhead as a replacement for ‘Fast’ Eddie Clark?
Steve: “I took it very seriously, but I couldn’t do it. We were in the middle of recording our third album (1983’s prototypical quasi-classic Forged In Fire), so it didn’t make sense to go take off. I had obligations, so I just couldn’t do it. …You can’t do everything that you want to do in life. You get one what you can and that’s all (laughs). That was one of those things that I just wasn’t able to be a part of because I was already a part of something. How do you explain something like that away? At the time, it looked like things were going to be really good for us, so I didn’t really think of it as ‘Well, here’s an opportunity that I don’t already have’. I was like ‘But I’m already in a recording band and we’re already getting somewhat famous, so why should I leave?’”
Todd: Overall, how would you describe the group’s tenure with Metal Blade Records? (‘89’s Strength Of Steel, ‘88’sPound For Pound and ‘89’s Past And Present -- Live In Concert). Was it a truly acrimonious departure?
Steve: “It was sort of a dark era for the band. It was after we had real support. …There wasn’t the support that we did have. What can I say? What do I remember of it? …What bothers me is that Metal Blade owes us all kinds of money and has never paid. I’d just as soon forget about them (laughs). But I think he does that with all the bands. I don’t think he’s ever paid out royalties ever to anybody. And if you ever want to collect from (Metal Blade Records Founder/President) Brian Slagel, you have to sue him. It’s just the way he does business. I guess if I had know that, I probably wouldn’t have done any business with him, but I didn’t, so I did business with him, he owes me money and I’ll probably never see it. The Goo Goo Dolls are probably a prime example. I think they sued him for a couple of million. Metal Blade is a Clearing House, basically. At this point, you would go there if it were your last choice (laughs). …I don’t even think I would do it as a last choice (laughs).”
Todd: Aside from the inclusion of the previously unreleased track “Thumb Hang”, what are the main differences between the VH1 Classic Records re-issue of This Is Thirteen and the original ‘…indie…’ pressing?
Steve: “It’s going to be a real release. We never actually had a real release because we were only selling it via our MySpace page and our official website, which is run by a fan. That’s not really a release (laughs). We also sold it at the cinemas and it sold a lot like that as well, but it wasn’t available in actual stores or anywhere else other than through us. It was a release, but it’s not (laughs). …You’re never going to get the reach that you could get. There’s no way. It’s just not possible. It’s a whole other job in itself and it takes a lot of money to properly release something. It’s not just the cost of the record, it’s the cost of the promotion and everything else. It’s a crapshoot, ya know? Any album that you put out, it could be (The Beatles classic) Sgt. Pepper’s (Lonely Hearts Club Band), but if you haven’t got a damn record deal, no one is really going to know about it.”
Todd: What are your current touring plans? It is safe to assume you’ll be touring as much as humanly possible?
Steve: “In November, we’re going to England to do a tour with Saxon, February is a tour of Australia and in January, we’ll be touring all throughout the United States. …I think we’ll be at the House Of Blues. The offers just keep coming, so who knows? It looks like an endless stream, but we’ve got to find some time to go in and record (laughs). …It still tends to be more old than new because for the time being at least, that’s all people know about us. We’re faced with what people know, so that’s the way it is. So you deal with it. It’s not a big deal. It doesn’t matter what I play as long as they’re my songs. You have to have a good attitude towards it. We can’t be bitter because people don’t know our newer material. It’s obvious that they don’t, but it’s not like it’s a surprise to me or a disappointment. It’s just the way things are. In time, when they get to know the material between the first three albums and where we are at right now, we’ll be able to play much, much more.”
Todd: What eventually led to the group opting to re-record previously released material (most notably “Winged Assassins” and “March Of The Crabs”)? Were you really that unhappy with the results of your ‘initial’ efforts?
Steve: “They were going to have a movie soundtrack which would consist of what was in the movie as well as a number of the old songs. What happened was when they went to license the songs from the label that owns them here in Canada, a company called Unidisc, at the eleventh hour, they pulled out. They wanted a ridiculous amount of money to the point where it was actually cheaper to just re-record the songs. So we did re-record some of the songs, but in the meantime, they reevaluated the situation and we were running out of time. What ended up seeming like rightful justice was to re-release This Is Thirteen along with the album that we recorded during the duration of the movie. It seemed like more of the right thing to do, so that’s the direction that they took. That’s not to say a movie soundtrack won’t come out later, but at this point, we’re not going with that and we’re looking more towards the future as far as what our next studio recording is instead of going backwards. We want to move forward, I think a lot of people are really expecting that and that’s what they’re going to get.”
Todd: Aside from the timelines, what are the main differences between the originals and the new re-recordings?
Steve: “There was a confidence there that wasn’t in the original recordings, ya know? There’s a big difference between recording a song one time and going back and doing it again. When you go back and do it again, it’s a lot easier. It’s also way faster. If you could record albums like that, it would cost virtually nothing. …You’re not paving the road, ya know? You’re just kinda driving down it. It’s different, man. When you’re actually constructing something, it’s much more tedious because you’re like ‘Well, let’s try this and let’s try that’, ya know? You work within the parameters until you find the exact spot for it. Those songs have never had the one hundred percent confidence that you might have twenty years later. It couldn’t. There’s no way. Mentally speaking, which is what drives the music, you’ve done it a thousand times, so you just have to do it again. It’s a completely different approach. It’s easier, it comes across much more confident and in a lot of ways, it outdoes the original, but that’s not a judgment for me to make. …That’s for everyone else who’ll listen to it, I suppose.”
Todd: Have these setbacks permanently derailed the possibilities of a legitimate soundtrack ever being released?
Steve: “There will be a time, I suppose, when there will be a soundtrack, but it will also include the work of David Norland and what he did as far as the actual soundtrack is concerned, which is all of the in-between music that isn’t Rock music. There was even some talk of using some of the actual scenes…sound bites, but it never really got put together, so I don’t know exactly where it’s gonna go, ya know? These were all ideas that were being talked about, but were never acted upon. I don’t think I’m really disappointed at this point. In fact, I’m happy with the way it’s turned out. It’s what I envisioned during the time when I thought This Is Thirteen was going to serve as the soundtrack and it looks like it has, so I’m quite happy about it all. It’s all good, man.”
Todd: In retrospect, did you find it easy to co-author the group’s autobiography (2009’s Anvil: The Story Of Anvil)? Did you enjoy the process of once again reliving and reevaluating so many aspects of the group’s past?
Steve: “Easy? No. There’s a lot of things that you have to revisit in your mind and there were some depressing times through it (laughs). When you have to do an actual account for how things happened, sometime reliving it isn’t the most pleasant thing (laughs). It was about a three or four week process, talking constantly, hours and hours a day, giving the ghostwriter all of the information so he could put in a book form. …It’s really thick and deep. But that’s what a lifetime usually is, ya know? There were a number of elements that had to be in place for this to anywhere near as successful as it has. Part of it, right to begin with, is the fifteen year old kid that we met in 1982 that grew up to become Steven Spielberg’s screenwriter that came back and decided to make movie about us. That’s pretty thick in itself, in a way. There’s a story within the story. It’s not like a movie company got this idea and did this. It was a fan of the band, so it’s a very pure story. Now, the other elements that helped this along are how everything played itself out. The band had made enough of an impact where it had impressed some very serious people. Not just run of the mill people, but superstars, ya know? So we had that element that might not be there for other bands. You would have had to put out an album that meant something in order for something like that to happen. Whether it’s one album, two albums, five albums or one song, if you’ve inspired and made a difference, then you’ve scored a goal, so to speak. This was an important element for this to have worked in any way. On top of that, you would of course have needed an incredibly long history and a lot of records without recognition. There’s multiple reasons for that lack of recognition. It’s not necessarily the quality or non-quality of what was being produced. It has to do with there being no management and no support. That you’re doing it completely on your own and on your own terms. It’s a much different way to sail a ship. You’re basically taking on the oceans in a rowboat (laughs). But it needed that flavor to it in order for people to grasp what most musicians go through to get their music heard. It doesn’t just speak for Anvil, it speaks for a whole world of musicians. It’s quite traumatic on that level, really. All of the elements that were conveyed in the film have touched some of the most famous people in the world in the most profound way. I think the heart of it all is the determination and focus that is needed to succeed in anything, ya know? It’s not just necessarily music. It could be acting. We’ve had a number of very famous actors actually come to watch the movie an it’s quite fascinating because in the Anvil! The Story Of Anvil, these are all scenes created from reality, so an actor is watching it all from an actor’s perspective and they’re going ‘My God, look at the emotion that’s being displayed. How do I go bout doing that?’ There’s that level of intrigue and then there’s the other aspect where every one of those guys has gone through hell to get where they are. Not one person that was ever famous was born famous. They have to work for it and claw and scratch their way to wherever they got to. It takes an incredible amount of luck and I really believe that the real truth of the entertainment business is that talent is only ten percent of it and the rest is luck and being in the right place at the right time. That’s probably much more relevant to why people actually make it. I really truly believe that, but in that ten percent, you’ve got to be at the top of that ten percent and create something that no one else but you can do. That’s your fighting chance. My ace in the hole has always been my friendship with Robb. We have something that is special and unique unto ourselves and we haven’t let it go regardless of whatever opinions we may have heard. We knew what we knew about ourselves inside and I think that’s much more powerful at the end of the day. To me, going after this means that all I have to do is be like a guy going to casino and keep betting until I win. …Eventually, I’m going to win and then I’m going to walk away (laughs).”
Todd: Financially, how have you been able to assure the group’s continued existence without the consistent support of a label? Am I correct in understanding that many of the group’s endeavors have been self-financed?
Steve: “So I could have the longevity, I never put the responsibility of making money on the band. I always found other ways to make money and to exist. If the band made money that was fine and if the band didn’t make money, that was fine as well. Even if it cost me a bit, I knew that if I kept the band together, everything that I put into it would all come back. In every case, I can honestly say that’s what happened. When we did our sixth (1988’s oft-overlooked Pound For Pound) album, there was no record company, so we did the album with money out of our own pockets and we got back every cent. In most cases, that’s the way it always worked. In a certain sense, the band never actually cost me any money. It ran itself. There were always enough fans. That’s why I look at it like a very, very unique success story because I’ve gotten to exist in this band for over thirty years now. There’s not very many bands that can say that. I think that’s a success in itself. I doesn’t matter what level it’s at because it’s always been maintained and that maintenance has always been because we have an underground following. We always have because it’s Metal music and Metal is forever. The people that grew up with us still listen to us and there are new people now that are learning about us and they’ll be listening to us for years to come. The music that we strive to create…we are looking for it to be timeless. That’s the almighty goal. It’s not necessarily looking for a hit single, it’s looking for a sound that’s timeless. No matter when you listen to the records, you still enjoy them. Whether you are an old listener or a new listener, it has the same effect. For me, that’s a thing to strive for and what I’ve been doing in my own way. People base success on how many records they sell, but that’s not necessarily the whole big picture, ya know? At least it isn’t to me. Some of that has to do with loving music that was never commercial. My favorite bands are bands that most people have never heard of. …These are some of the reasons why (Metallica drummer) Lars (Ulrich) has such wonderful things to say about us. We’re one of those bands that’s there for the sake of being there, not for the sake of writing mega-hit albums. ...We’re doing it for the shear love of it and the shear art of it. Musicians are drawn to that and because it’s underground, it’s a great place to draw influence from. Most people are never going to understand where they got their ideas from because they’re never going to hear where they got them from. It’s a great melting pot of ideas and we’re part of that and have been a part of that. It’s come to get recognized, but not because of commerciality, but because of influence. For me, as a musician, it’s pretty much the top of the game. It’s one thing to be praised for commercial success, but it’s another thing to be praised for inspiring. It’s a far different sort of achievement that usually has nothing to do with the other.”
Select Discography
This Is Thirteen (2009) ******
Anvil! The Story Of Anvil (Film) (2009)
Back To Basics (2004) ****
Still Going Strong (2002) ****
Plenty Of Power (2001) ****
Anthology Of Anvil (1999) **
Speed Of Sound (1999) ****
Absolutely No Alternative (1997) ****
Plugged In Permanent (1996) ****
Anvil: Live (1994) **
Worth The Weight (1992) ***
Past And Present -- Live In Concert (1989) **
Angry And Acoustic At Carnegie Hall (Authorized Bootleg) (1988)
Pound For Pound (1988) **
Strength Of Steel (1987) **
Backwaxed (1985) *
Forged In Fire (1983) *
Metal On Metal (1982) *
Hard ‘N’ Heavy (1981) *
* released via Attic Records
** released via Metal Blade Records
*** released via Mausoleum Records
**** released via Massacre Records
***** distributed via Abramorama Entertainment
****** released via VH1 Classic Records