Lips - Anvil: The Story of Anvil

I grew up in the LA of the early eighties. It was a pretty exciting place back then. Punk had killed off the dinosaur bands of the seventies with their bombastic stage shows and concept albums. Rock music, which my friends and I were into, had changed because of it, and just like American kids had in the sixties, the new generation was looking across the pond to England for what the new wave of music was going to be. We all loved the Sex Pistols, but when bands like Motrhead started to break, we were completely absorbed. They were fast, furious and raw. Totally brilliant stuff.

So the last thing we were expecting was an album by four completely unknown young dudes from Toronto, Canada to blow us all away. But it did. We'd never heard of Anvil before 1982, but when my friends and I heard Metal On Metal for the first time, we all got goosebumps. Here was the intensity and speed that we loved from those new British bands, but there was also this crazy blend of melody and heaviness it was the first time any of us had heard that rat-a-tat-a-tat-a rhythm kick drums and bass guitar firing eighth notes in unison like some sick thunderous machine gun!

Anvil's music would turn out to be the bridge between that first wave of British metal and the new wave of American speed or thrash metal that would spawn bands such as Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer.

At the time, we all just assumed Anvil were going to be huge stars. And not just because Robb Reiner's drumming and Steve 'Lips' Kudlow's guitar playing were harder and faster than anything we'd ever heard before. The band also had this sick name what could be more heavy metal than 'Anvil'? and their live shows were legendary. Lips would appear onstage in a bondage harness playing his Flying V with a dildo and singing these insane lyrics. At an Anvil show you were always laughing as hard as you were banging your head. That was what was completely refreshing about them and completely different to anything we had ever seen before.

Though Metal On Metal was a huge influence on anyone who picked up a guitar at that time and inspired numerous bands, in the end a lot of people ripped off Anvil's licks as well as the way they dressed and their stage antics and made them their own. That's how it goes, of course, sometimes. But somewhere along the way Anvil got left behind in all the dust those other bands kicked up. I always thought they really should have made it a lot bigger than they did and I could never understand why they didn't. Sometimes it's just down to dumb luck or being in the right place at the right time. Either way, I don't think Robb and Lips ever really got the respect they deserved. It taught me that talent and a huge statement aren't always enough to guarantee that an influential band will be remembered.

For years I wondered what had happened to Anvil. And then my English friend in LA, Sacha Gervasi, told me Anvil were still going, still recording albums and touring. I was amazed. When Sacha told me he wanted to make a movie about them he'd known them since he was a kid I decided I wanted to be part of it. It wasn't just because of my respect for their music, but because of the struggle I realized Lips and Robb had endured for more than thirty years. It's pretty amazing when you think about it. Every year some new hot band appears on the scene and sells millions of records, but how many of them can say they'll stay together for one or two years, let alone thirty?

You've got to give Lips and Robb credit. Keeping that bond going, getting through the ups and the downs, dealing with the egos, the loss of band members, the stress from their families and everything else that the music industry throws at you, no matter how many or how few records you sell, is in my opinion the ultimate proof of integrity and commitment to a dream, to the pact they made as kids to rock together for ever.

It's hard enough to keep up the passion and the interest when you're doing really well. Even then, a simple argument can be enough to split a band, but Robb and Lips didn't quit, even though they never had the chance to experience the pleasures of multi-platinum success like so many of the bands they had influenced.

They decided that, no matter what, they had to keep playing, keep coming up with new material and keep making new albums. They always believed that if they did, one day Anvil would achieve the recognition that had eluded them for so long. It wasn't an easy road. But these guys just hung in there, stuck to what they believed in and simply refused to admit defeat, even in the face of a sometimes disinterested world. When they were sitting on the edge of the precipice, they leaned on each other instead of pushing each other over the edge. They truly kept the fire going. That's a lot harder than it looks, trust me.

To me, Robb's and Lips's tale of unending devotion is deeply humbling and I hope it inspires anyone in any profession, let alone rock music. I hope they stick it out for another thirty years. But more than that, I hope they get the credit they've been denied for so long and emerge as one of the most successful metal bands ever. After all these years, that would be truly awesome.

Long live Anvil!

Slash
Los Angeles, 14 February 2009