The legendary Toronto-based metal band Anvil became a cause celebre in 2008 with the release of one of the more truthful, authentic and heart-warming rock and roll documentaries of all time – Anvil: The Story of Anvil.
An achingly revealing but ultimately uplifting story of a ragamuffin band battling the vagaries of a music industry that seemed to have left Anvil in the dust decades before, the film showed the pluck, tenacity and insistent, almost pyrrhic fortitude of band co-founders Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow (guitar, vocals, primary songwriter) and drummer Robb Reiner (and their bass player de jour at the time) as they struggled mightily to continue the dream begun in their suburban basements back in the early 1970s.
The film was full of heart and soul and not only garnered great acclaim for the filmmakers, but put the band back into the consciousness of rock and metal fans – especially those outside North America. Folks saw how influential Anvil was to an entire generation of metal bands and fans, and how their steadfast dedication to their music and their fans, saw them through a host of debacles, disappointments and depredations that would have sent many bands packing years earlier.
It also literally resuscitated the band’s flagging career, as the film helped the band land tour dates, record deals and – most significantly – meant they could quit their day jobs. Eight years on, Kudlow, Reiner and latest bassist Chris Robertson (who joined in 2014) are continuing to reap the rewards of their sympathetic cinematic portrayal as the band performs nearly 200 shows a year.
“We had a new renaissance with the movie because we now have a huge young crowd contingency whereas other bands of our era are not as relevant in the same way. First of all, they’re not writing the material that they could and should do. They’re just not doing it, whether they’re out of steam, out of nerve, or out of time. The movie was an incredible injection of inspiration to us personally and we remained relevant in the marketplace. We’re not looked at as an old band going through the motions; we’re looked at as an old band that has a history but that exists in the here and now with music that is as relevant as it’s ever been,” said Kudlow.
“And listen, I haven’t been back to doing deliveries since before the movie. I am now making a living from Anvil again. What did the movie do? Well it made it possible for me and Robb to do that. It hasn’t stopped and it hasn’t slowed down since the movie came out on any level. There are still lots of people who haven’t seen this band and who want to, so that means I am pretty much set as far as demand goes. I am 60 years old and I hope to be touring 10 years from now. I pretty confidently say that I will be if I physically can.”
Anvil will be doing a short tour of Ontario this summer before heading back to Europe. The band is at the St. John Pub in Arnprior on July 22, followed by a show in Oshawa on July 23 at The Music Hall. They’re at Norma Jean’s in London Aug. 12 and the Spot 1 Music Hall in Brampton on Aug. 19, before a date at the Brass Monkey in Ottawa on Sept. 10.
Even during the most difficult parts of their career, including the nearly 20 years leading up to the release of the movie, Europe was an integral market of Anvil – with the nations over there providing consistent, if limited, support for their recorded music and live shows. European audiences tend to be more ‘brand loyal’ to the bands they admire and fans across the pond rarely allow themselves to be buffeted by the fickle winds of changing tastes and trends, meaning bands who suffer the slings and arrows of commercial fortune in North America can still have a significant career on that continent.
And this has also proved to be true in the years since the documentary came out, as Anvil spends the vast majority of its time touring across the length and breadth of Europe to great acclaim.
“Europe Is the ultimate hot market, and always has been. That’s never going to change. It’s certainly not North America is it? The way it really works is if you’re a Canadian band and you get big in Canada, it’s more than likely that’s the only place anyone is going to know who you are. And then there’s the other type of scenario where you’ve got fame everywhere else but here. It doesn’t mean you don’t have a career, it just means that career is in another part of the world. A prime example is Twisted Sister who very seldom plays in the United States, but yet they headline a lot of festivals all over Europe and make big money,” said Kudlow.
“I can confidently say that North America represents about five per cent of what’s out there in this day and age. Let’s face it metal, particularly in America, hasn’t been a big thing in f***ing 20 years. So business is done elsewhere. With the European fans it’s all about making an impression on them, and once you make that impression on them, you can pretty much count on them being there so long as you don’t change what you’re doing. What I mean by that is there are many bands that do well in Europe and when they change to try to do well in the United States all of a sudden Europe turns its back on them. You can acquire a great audience in Europe, but they tend to stay true to who they are and expect you to do the same.
“They don’t care about what is trendy because, unlike North America, music is a huge part of their culture over there – people take the whole thing a lot more seriously. We have been carrying on for nearly 40 years with our European fan base and that’s what’s kept the band going and will continue to do so. Obviously with more than 90 per cent of my business in Europe that’s where I am going to tour the most and that’s where we’re probably going to end up recording the most.”
The band’s 16th and most recent album, Anvil is Anvil, was recorded at Redhead 4 Studios near Cologne, Germany with producer Martin Pfeiffer and released worldwide through SPV/Steamhammer in February. It is a back-to-basics album that captures Anvil at its purest, rawest and most blunt and direct form since the band’s heyday in the early 1980s when Metal on Metal, the band’s second and arguably still most popular album, turned the metal world upside down, inspiring everyone from Slash to the nascent thrash metallers who would go on to form bands like Metallica and Anthrax.
“The new material has been seen in a very positive way, to the point where even our original guitar player, Dave Allison, loved it and has been in touch with us almost every day saying maybe he should come back, and he had pretty much been silent since he left the band [in 1989 after 11 years]. I would say it’s a big thing, in my opinion, for him to open his mouth at the point and say, ‘hey I like what you’re doing. That’s a really happening record, I am blown away.’ I think that’s a great indicator that our original fan base has embraced the album completely. So as far as that’s concerned, we definitely hit a home run,” Kudlow said, adding that they worked towards creating an album that truly represented the Anvil attitude and the music that endeared them to their hard-core followers back in the day.
“The essence of what we were back at the beginning over those first few albums was sort of a summation of what happened throughout the 1960s and 1970s when Robb and I grew up. The fans didn’t want us to move outside of that framework; they didn’t want us adapting and becoming like Megadeth and Anthrax and all of the speed metal and thrash metal that came after us. At one point we put out an album called Plugged in Permanent [1996] and we went over the top as far as being as brutally heavy as possible, as fast as possible, as intricate as possible and all of sudden people were wondering what happened to us. In my heart of hearts at that time I guess I was trying to keep up with the Jones’. ‘I am the one that basically invented this shit and I am going to give them hell.’ But I went too far. That’s not what people wanted to hear from Anvil.
“But we realized that we had to refocus on who we are, what we are, what have we been doing and how can we get back to where we belong. And for this new album I really felt, hey I know what Anvil is and needs to be and thus we decided on the title – Anvil is Anvil. It’s a complete realization and waking up to what we needed to be doing.”
What was most evocative and touching about Anvil: The Story of Anvil was seeing the raw, day-to-day interaction between lifelong friends and bandmates Lips and Robb Reiner. At times the bond between the two seemed to bend, but it never broke and is as strong today as it’s ever been.
“He’s my musical life partner. We started out literally as kids and we acquired our sound together and there is no way to run and no way have you wanted to run away when you get to that point. When you realize you’ve got something special you hold onto it. That’s what you do in life, if you’re not a loser, you know what I mean? You want to sustain things that are good as long as humanly possible if you can. And that’s basically the state that Robb and I live in and what we do,” Kudlow said.
“It’s going far better than my marriages have been going. What can I say? You’ve got two guys that basically come from the same background, the same lifestyle, the same status in life, both having identical goals and wanting the same things. That doesn’t get extinguished no matter how tough it gets. That’s easy to maintain when you’re committed to one another and when you have a common goal and a commonality in your philosophies. We actually take that aspect more for granted in a certain sense because it’s just unspoken – it’s the way it is and the way it always has been. It’s not a problem; it’s the rest of the world that’s got a problem. It’s us against the world and luckily I have a partner to fight the world with and vice versa, he has me.”
And part of what has made the musical partnership work so well is that Lips and Reiner are truly battle tested. Since the band formed in 1978, Anvil has played thousands of gigs in every sort of environment and configuration in dozens of nations around the world. They were natural showmen at the beginning and that showmanship has only got better like fine wine.
“That’s what years on the road teach you; it teaches you to perform on a stage and command an audience. Young bands haven’t got a hope to be able to do that. That’s not just something you simply get up and do – trust me, I tried. You end up screaming at the crowd rather than talking to them. To me the biggest misconception that most guys make when they first start out is that if you talk excitedly to the crowd, the crowd will get excited. Not quite. People think that’s out of place and they feel that they’re being yelled at,” he said.
“And there is less spontaneity today and that is something else that takes years to acquire – the ability to be improvisational and react to something on the spot to make the show better. Every room you play and stage you play on has a personality like every person you meet. You don’t talk to every person you meet exactly the same way, so you have to be somewhat pliable and be able to read the room and react.”
For more information on Anvil, and the band’s forthcoming tour dates, visit https://www.facebook.com/anvilmetal.
* Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com
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