Anvil: Winning Friends And Influencing People

During their initial rise to fame in the '80s, Anvil went from surviving on Kraft Dinner and salami to sharing a stage with Bon Jovi and Whitesnake.

It seemed they were going to make it big — and fast. Life had its way with the Toronto headbangers, however, and because of poor management and crappy timing, Anvil teetered over fame's razor edge and spent the next three decades playing in clubs for small pockets of fans. To the outside world, Anvil had had their 15 minutes of fame.

But it wasn't time yet for original guitarist Steve "Lips" Kudlow, drummer Robb Reiner, and current bassist Glenn "G5" Gyorffy to pack it in. It took passion, dedication, and a serendipitous meeting with a former roadie/British kid-turned-Hollywood director [Sacha Gervasi, The Terminal] to forever change the trajectory of Anvil's existence.

Lips spoke to CHARTattack about the band's "overnight" success since Gervasi filmed an award-winning documentary about the band, how his life has (and hasn't) changed, and all the fascinating people they've met. Call it karma, destiny, or justice; but whatever you do, don't blame this underdog story on luck alone.

CHARTattack: After the success of [Gervasi's] Anvil! The Story Of Anvil documentary I'm assuming you had a payday. What was the first thing you bought for yourself?
Steve "Lips" Kudlow: A payday? Ha-ha. Yeah, a payday for everybody else but the band.

Are you serious?
To a great degree. It's the price of doing business. The first positive thing I did was quit my day job. But am I getting rich? Am I buying things? No. I'm sustaining my life. It's not all sunshine and mansions.

Money issues notwithstanding, do you ever think to yourself, "Holy shit! Look at what has happened to me over the past two years!"?
I expected it. Let's face it, when a director from Hollywood who's worked with [Steven] Spielberg tells you he's gonna make a movie [about you], what would you think? It's probably going to be a success.

What are you still waiting to see happen?
The money part. (laughs) That has yet to be seen.

That's gonna be the outcome of probably the next album — how well the album [This Is Thirteen] that we just put out does. I take every day at a time and I'm levelheaded.

Yeah, I could go and start spending money and not know what's coming tomorrow, but I'm not going to do that. At the moment, any money that I am getting I'm holding on to with dear life because I'm afraid that there won't be any tomorrow. I live very, very, very carefully — nothing has changed on that level.

I'm not making money from people going to see the movie. There's an incredible amount of money to recoup before I'd ever see anything on that level. And to be quite honest with you, and really frank about it, the movie industry is probably more brutal than the music industry as far as being able to turn a profit.

Are we gonna be able to go play? How much are we going to be able to play for? Where are we going? How much are our bills going to be when [we] go out and play? It's a feeding frenzy.

If, indeed, I could do it all on my own, then maybe I would've already seen money and dividends, including making the movie and doing everything on my own. But there are people standing in line.

Hopefully, as we move forward, it will begin to happen. It would certainly take the sting out of being worried all the time.

As you're doing all this publicity, you've been meeting some well-known people. I heard the story about you meeting Jay-Z and Chris Martin, not recognizing that they were fellow musicians. Have you met any other celebrities you didn't recognize at first?
Chris Jericho. I didn't know who he was! [There was a] presentation of the movie trailer at the Apple store in New York City. We did a Q & A afterwards. Chris stood up, and he began asking questions about our past that only a diehard fan could possibly know. We were like, "Who are you? Have you come to our gigs?"

Afterwards, he came up to me and he introduced himself and he says, "I'm Chris Jericho, I'm a wrestler," and I go, "Oh yeah? What kind of wrestling?" He said, "You know the stuff they show on TV and shit?" I said, "Oh, my bass player would probably know exactly who you are."

When I got home and told [G5] that I met Chris Jericho, he flipped out! Chris is a nice guy, and the stuff that we talked about is amazing! He's apparently a singer for his own band [the Florida-based Fozzy], and he's been an Anvil fan since the '80s.

Have you had any phone calls from any of your peers? Rush, Lemmy, Bachman... have you heard from any of those guys?
No, quite sadly. As far as fellow Canadians being congratulative [sic]... Bif Naked, she's a wonderful person. She's really happy for us. Sebastian Bach, obviously. He's an old friend, very happy for us. I know the guys in Rush have received the DVD. The guys in Sum 41 loved it.

Then there's The Offspring. Those guys saw the movie and actually invited us to their gig in New York.

The Cult. Ian Astbury's an amazing guy, man. You know what he told me? I still can't believe it. After we went to see The Cult in New York, we ended up at the airport, and there Astbury is! He starts telling us that the tour that they were on wouldn't have happened if he hadn't seen the Anvil movie. He said that it made him pull up his socks, look in the mirror and go, "What the hell are you doing with your life?" Wow, that's powerful. It's so incredible.

We were at the Classic Rock Awards in England — it's like the royalty of rock music — just hanging out. Jimmy Page comes up to me and he shakes my hand and he goes, "Lips, keep the band going, man. Keep it going, man. It gives us all hope." I couldn't believe it! Chrissie Hynde comes running up to me and starts hugging me, and it's like, "Oh, my God!"

Some moments, my jaw drops, I don't believe what just happened. Standing in front of the Bowery Hotel in New York City where we stayed, I see this blonde girl with a guy walking towards me. I [thought], "Shit, you look so familiar! Who is she? Do I know her?" Her eyes all light up [and she said], "Lips! Lips! How's it going? I've watched your movie 10 times — I watch it before going into the studio!" It was Kurt Cobain's wife! As she was walking away she said, "Oh, I'm Courtney Love! It's nice to meet you!"

I was completely speechless. It took a second or two to recognize her. It was too late. What am I gonna say? "Duh, I didn't recognize you, sorry." You can't say that. You act really cool. I'm very careful that way, because a lot of times I'm just caught off guard. I'm not expecting it.

Do you think you're ever going to get over that?
No. It's really weird, because it's like that constantly.

You know the guys that pull the carts, or ride the bicycles with the carts? We get out of the cab in New York in Fifth Avenue, and this guy's on one of those carts. He starts weaving through all the traffic yelling, "Lips! Reiner! Lips! Reiner!" We're going, "Who is this fucking guy?" He recognized us from the movie.

Same thing happened in Japan. The guy's weaving through all the crazy traffic and people, trying to get to us. It was crazy. We're not used to it and it's quite amazing. Quite gratifying.

Who has been the most unlikely Anvil fan so far?
Dustin Hoffman. He came to the premiere of the movie in Los Angeles, and we did what we've coined "The Anvil Experience." That's the band playing immediately after the movie.

I'm standing there looking out at the audience and I thought, "Who's.. what?" I see Dustin Hoffman singing "Metal On Metal" with his fist in the air, doing the devil horns. When I saw him, I basically hugged him. It was a really bizarre, warm feeling. He was a really down-to-earth, nice person. And it wasn't enough that he saw our show the first night, but then he came to the Newark theatre the following night. It's incredible, man.

Has anyone approached you to do a collaboration?
Interestingly, there's a [TV] program called Sons Of Anarchy that we did a recording for of the song "Slip Kid," originally by The Who. We did the musical track, and Frankie Perez was the singer. It came out amazing.

I just sang on "Frosty The Snowman." Wendy Dio, Ronnie James Dio's wife, does these Christmas albums every year and it was for that. The guitarist Bumblefoot [Ron Thal of Guns N' Roses] plays guitar on it.

Have you heard from Dio?
I'm good friends with [Dio's] personal road manager Steve Mignardi, and he told me he's gonna be OK. [Dio has stomach cancer.] So I gotta go on that.

We've also become friends with Carmine Appice as a result of the movie. He was telling me that his brother [Heaven And Hell drummer and former Black Sabbath and Dio member] Vinny just got out of the hospital the other day with some kind of shoulder problem. And Tony Iommi just had an operation on his wrist or something.

So the only guy in Black Sabbath [Heaven And Hell] that isn't out of commission at the moment is Geezer Butler. I'm sorry to hear about it, really. That's my almighty favourite band. Tony, Geezer, and Dio, man. They're gods.

It was amazing hanging out with Carmine. Even though he's a hero, now he's become a friend... what a great guy. A really, really good person. It's nice to be able to say that.

At the Classic Rock Awards, [former Cream/Blind Faith drummer] Ginger Baker was there. I'm a drum freak. I love drums. There was Ginger Baker, and I flip out. I run up to him like I usually do... and he turned his back on me and walked away!

That's probably the biggest disappointment of a rock star that I've ever met in my life! I'll never forget that. I'm going, "I've been such a fan. I love your playing! Thank you so much!" I shake his hand, and as I'm shaking his hand, he walks away! He wouldn't even say anything.

As he's walking away, I said, "Hey Ginger, you had more influence on me than The Beatles! Come on, man."

He just kept walking! He wouldn't even acknowledge it. Nothing. I'm sitting here with Carmine and I'm telling him about this, because this happened the week before. I go, "Have you ever met Ginger Baker? Carmine goes, "He's a fuckin' dick!" Then we started laughing.

What about some of the other big metal names that have spoken words of support for you?
I'm not absolutely certain as to why [Metallica's] Lars Ulrich had to say so many beautiful things about the band. What could he have possibly felt there was to gain by it? Does that seem like an out of line question? Everybody wants to know, "What am I getting out of it?"

My question, most inquisitively, would go to Lars: "Why, man?" From really not knowing somebody, for them to get up and do that, you can't help but wonder why. OK, he's a fan, but he had absolutely nothing to gain. Just to show his gratitude, I suppose. That's beautiful.

[Slayer vocalist/bassist] Tom Araya, he's a friend, and we've known each other for many years. But certain guys like Slash, I've never met you, man. I have now. Slash is a great guy.

As it turns out, he had just become friends with Sacha, and they got talking about Anvil one day, and Slash goes, "I love that band!" Sacha goes, "Really? I'm doing a documentary about them." Slash is going, "I've been a fan from the early '80s! Lips is a maniac, man!" Sacha said, "Well, let's get this on film, then." That fell into place. Quite magical.

Why are you not angry about the people who messed around with your career in the '80s with contracts and labels, and who maybe are the reason why Anvil didn't get everything they deserved right away?
Because that's the nature of the business and I knew that going in, so I'm not surprised by it or brought down by it. You can't take me down. Everybody has taken advantage of me, and that's probably why I've survived.

If you can't be taken advantage of, then you won't survive. Not in the music business. You've gotta be really immune to being taken advantage of. You sign to managers who never come to your gigs. Managers are basically silent partners — they have an agent who books all the shows, and he makes himself pockets full of money, probably more than you do. Club owners tell them there was only x amount of dollars brought into the club, and they cut you a quarter of what you should be getting... it's endless. Endless!

If you're not willing to put up with it, then you quit, which is what most people do. They go, "I'm sick of getting ripped off. I'm sick of it." Well, don't get sick of it. Don't get yourself into a knot about it, expect it and then move on. That's where I'm at. I expect to be burned, and that's what's going to probably happen. Having said that, while that's happening I'm also benefitting.

When you did a licensing deal in the earlier days, you would get an advance of the sales. Well, that's cool. That pays for the recording, great! What happens when it recoups? It never recoups. And even if it did they're never going to tell you, because that would mean they would have to give you more money, and they're not going to do that.

Whatever you get paid is all you're going to get paid. You gotta resign yourself to that, and don't stop. That's the essence of the business. My number one rule has been [to do that] all along, and in a real honest way. My attitude's been the same all along. It's art, and art lasts forever. Maybe the debt does, too.