John Sekerka
Japan’s seminal 1984 Super Rock Festival featured breakout acts Scorpions, Whitesnake and Bon Jovi. All of these spandexed, eye-linered bands bands went on to sell millions of records, except one. So starts the delicious documentary on real life Spinal Tap-pers, Anvil. More than just a fable of persistence in a cruel, cruel business, Anvil! The Story of Anvil is a touching buddy-buddy tale of two Torontonians who turn out to be the Bob and Doug McKenzie of metal.
In the midst of a cross-country promotional tour, guitarist and songwriter Steve “Lips” Kudlow, famous for shredding his flying V with a vibrator for some thirty years now, talks about the comeback from a Washington D.C. hotel lobby, interrupted sporadically by a rabid, autograph-seeking fan, and a noisy vacuum cleaner.
“Comeback? Comeback? We didn’t just put the band together. We’ve been going since 1978. We’ve put out thirteen albums. Right now we’re playing movie theatres right after the film plays. We’re having the time of our lives. We’ve been rock and rollers fulltime for the first time in our lives. No more delivering food (Lips’ former day job).”
When prodded about the history of the band, Lips counters with a recollection of the local region.
“Let’s talk about the Chaudiere, the British Hotel, Roxanne’s, or Barrymore’s. We have a long history in Ottawa, not to mention playing the Civic Centre with Iron Maiden.”
So who came first in the annals of Canadian bands: Anvil or Rush?
“I started playing with Robb
in ’73 so maybe we were first. We were originally called Lips, but our label (Attic) didn’t want any association with disco and Lipps Inc. – they did Funky Town. Anvil was Robb’s idea. The first album was Hard ‘n Heavy. We’ve gone with the alliteration titles ever since: Metal on Metal, Forged in Fire… Metal on Metal was very influential, a blue print for what happened to that genre of music, from speed metal to the commercial aspects of Bon Jovi.”
The movie ends with the making of This is Thirteen, their, uh, thirteenth album, and leaves on an ambiguous note as to the future of Canada’s longest standing rock band. Something Lips quickly puts to rest.
“We’ve been touring the world non-stop. We’ve been to a lot of film festivals. We’ve recorded Thumb Hang (legendary unrecorded song) for the soundtrack. We’re doing the Download Festival in England, playing to 60,000 people. The movie is the highest grossing rock doc in British history, now it’s spreading out across North America and gaining momentum.”
Lips may have to start tuxedo fittings for the Oscars. Director Sacha Gervasi’s film is the real deal, and as good as a story it is, his alliance with Lips is almost as fetching.
“When we came to England back in ’82 to play the Monsters of Rock Festival, we also had a gig at the Marquee Club. This fifteen year old kid made it backstage after the show, along with Def Leppard, U.F.O. and Motorhead. He was telling us what we wanted to hear: the fan’s impression of the band, and what was going on in the scene. We became very good friends, very quickly. He offered to take us around London. He lived across from Abbey Road studios, and he took us to Carnaby Street where we bought leather jackets and bullet belts. We found out his mother was from Toronto, and he would visit his uncle every now and then. So when he came to Canada we invited him to come out on tour with us as the drum roadie. We took him to Quebec where he had some of his first sexual encounters. He kinda got broken in. We really changed his life. As time went on, he had to finish school, and he kind of disappeared from our lives.”
“Then, in the summer of 2005, he contacted me and invited me to visit L.A. He paid for my ticket! I was baffled as to where he got his money from. He picked me up at the airport in a little Jaguar that was originally owned by Sean Connery. I hopped in and he told me that he was a screenwriter for Steven Spielberg. When we got back to his apartment I unloaded the ten albums he had no idea we had recorded, and I began telling him that I felt Anvil was going to somehow break through. He found that absolutely extraordinary and inspiring.”
“A week later he showed up in Toronto. I picked him up at the airport and took him over to his uncle Marty’s. He sat me down in the living room and told me he was going to make a movie about me. And that’s how this whole thing came to pass. That’s why it happened for us and not the other bands: the people that Robb and I are. The fact that we never gave up, and we continued recording album after album, year after year, always having our guns loaded, being ready to rock. So when the opportunity came, we were there and walked through the door.”
“The moment Sacha told me he was going to do the movie I burst out crying. I saw the success immediately. A Steven Spielberg writer doing a movie about Anvil, one of the longest lasting bands of all time, and me as the front man – what I could deliver as a human being. The openness I possess. That’s my optimism; I can’t help but see the light. None of this is of any surprise to me. It’s a wonderful place to be. I owe it all to the fans, who have financed my career and made it possible to exist as Anvil all this time. At the end of the day it was a fan who helped us. Not a record company, not a movie company, but a fan, … and a friend. That speaks volumes.”
The heavy metal subculture is a strange phenomena. One that can support acts with virtually no radio play. Inexplicably three-chord hammering, long-haired, leather clad bands can sell a hell of a lot of records just by word of mouth. Perhaps Anvil would not have survived all these years in another genre of music.
“Probably not. Metal never goes away. There’s a world-wide underground following that will never die. It’s not a trend. It’s a lifestyle. It transcends language, colour and creed. It’s an amazing force and I think it’s underestimated by the world at large. In places like Japan and Germany, the fans have not waned one iota. One further fact about North America: the Mecca of metal is in Quebec. When I toured there in ’77 they were playing the heaviest music that existed in that era, in Quebec City. We were astonished to hear the same music in a club, that we were listening to in our basements as kids. It was astounding: early Scorpions – stuff that would rip the paint off your walls. It was so heavy for it’s time. I can remember partying with Iron Maiden on the balcony of the Electric Circle in the early eighties, and that music was new to Canada, but old tradition in Quebec.”
So if places like Japan and Germany are so feverishly supportive of metal, why not relocate?
“Oh no no no no no. I wouldn’t live anywhere else but Toronto. I happen to be a very proud Canadian. I may not have had the support of my fellow Canadians because maybe they were a bit laid back or shy, but the bottom line is I am a true Canadian.”
Thirty years of metal is astounding, but surely that can’t go on much longer. Can it?
“Of course it can. That’s my life, it’s what I do. I am utterly focused, have no desire to do anything but, so I will do it till I die.”
The music is one thing, but how can anyone keep the long coiffed hair? Surely there will come a time to cut it off.
“I may not have to, it might all fall out. My mom was always after me to cut my hair, finish school, make something out of myself … la ti da da, la ti dad da. But I’m very obstinent, stubborn individual. I do it my way or it’s the highway.”
The obvious parallels to cult classic rock mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap surface during conversation, as Lips brings up the inevitable comparisons.
“It’s bloody obvious. How are you gonna get around it? My drummer’s name is Robb Reiner (Director of Spinal Tap was also named Rob Reiner). We visit Stonehenge when in England. Our producer C.T. has a power amplifier that goes up to eleven, so of course we’re gonna film it. I’m walking down a corridor towards the stage, of course I’m gonna yell, ‘Hello Cleveland.'”
Asking what’s in the future from the beaming optimism elicits the obvious response: “Everything.”
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
@ Mayfair Theatre
May 29 to June 1
Believe it or not, Anvil is not alone in the Canadian Rock and Roll Longevity Hall of Fame. Here are some other bands spawned in the same era:
GODDO, 1975-1992
Led by flamboyant bad boy bassist Greg Godovitz, Goddo seemed destined for greatness with their 1979 album An Act of Goddo, but their catchiest song (Cock On) ensured radio anonymity. After finally hanging it up, Godovitz scribbled his crazy rock-and-roll adventures of debauchery and excess in a wonderful book (Travels With My Amp).
HELIX, 1974-present
This Kitchener outfit may have started earlier than Anvil, but their revolving door of players (a staggering 29 former members) means an asterisk is behind their landmark longevity record. Nevertheless, you’ve got to give it up to a band that had a bassist who wore a tux on stage, and had a song (It’s Too Late) featured in the classic Iron Eagle movie.
TRIUMPH, 1975-present
Again an asterisk is next to this record, as Triumph went without feather-haired frontman Rik Emmett for almost a decade. Still, the power trio to end all power trios had its moments, peaking with the anthemic oldies staple Lay It on the Line.
THOR, 1978-present
The world had never seen anything like John Mikl Thor when he stormed onto the metal scene with the landmark Keep the Dogs at Bay album. Here was a screaming bodybuilder who would punctuate his live shows with feats of strength, like bending mike stands in his teeth and blowing up (literally) hot water bottles with his mighty lungs. Like Anvil, Thor has had a recent resurgence in popularity and is back on the circuit. Could an all-Canadian double bill be in the future? Of course.