![]() ![]() I can see success so vividly that it’s almost as if I make it happen because I’ve seen it already. My wife has pointed out that I have my own state of reality. I don’t live in the same world that everybody else does. GW Did you have any idea that the film was going to be as successful as it’s become? LIPS Sure, but it still takes a while to get used to it again after so many years. GW The band is no stranger to fame, though. It’s not an insane level of recognition, but it’s very cool. The movie brought us into the public eye, and people know who we are. In plain, simple terms, we’ve become famous. STEVE “LIPS” KULDOW Everything has changed. GUITAR WORLD What’s happened for Anvil since the film was released? Anvil have traveled over a long, hard road to finally arrive where they ultimately belong, but whatever you do, don’t call it a comeback. Kudlow and Reiner are doing well enough to quit their day jobs and focus exclusively on the band, and they’re currently working on their 14th album. This year the band opened a handful of stadium shows on AC/DC’s summer tour and appeared at the Download and Rocklahoma festivals. Thanks to the documentary’s success on the independent film circuit, Anvil have earned their long-overdue second chance and are finally drawing the good fortune and rewards they’ve deserved. Anvil! chronicles the period that starts just before Anvil entered the studio with Tsangarides and ends just after the completion of This Is Thirteen. In 2006, the band reunited with Metal on Metal producer Chris Tsangarides (Judas Priest, Yngwie Malmsteen, Thin Lizzy) to record the band’s 13th album, This Is Thirteen, which VH1 Classic Records released in September 2009. They continued to play shows and release albums, even though they had to scrape together studio funding on their own for most of the past decade. Unfortunately, management missteps and Anvil’s failure to sign to a major record label thwarted their progress.ĭespite these setbacks, which were followed by a revolving door of bass players and rhythm guitarists, original Anvil members Steve “Lips” Kudlow (lead vocals, guitar) and Robb Reiner (drums) never gave up. ![]() Touring as an opening act and appearing at festivals, Anvil enjoyed increasing success that peaked when they were billed alongside Whitesnake, the Scorpions, the Michael Schenker Group and Bon Jovi at the Super Rock Festival in Tokyo, Japan, in 1984. Contrary to the overblown testimonials, Anvil did not invent thrash, and they weren’t much different than dozens of metal bands of that era, such as Diamond Head, Saxon, Raven, Iron Maiden, Venom and Mötley Crüe.Īnvil arrived on the scene in 1981 with the release of Hard ’n’ Heavy, but their second album, Metal on Metal, was the breakthrough effort that made the band an underground metal sensation. Anvil may have been one of the better metal groups to emerge in the early Eighties, but they were just one of many spokes in a wheel that was quickly gaining momentum at the time. Many of the film’s sound bites-such as Lars Ulrich’s claim that Anvil “were going to turn the music world upside down,” ex-Anvil manager Johnny Z’s remark about how the band’s Metal on Metal album established the “basic formula for any heavy metal record made today” and pretty much everything coming from the mouth of the painfully nerdy Metal Hammer writer Malcolm Dome-are exaggerated and best ignored. ![]() The documentary film Anvil! The Story of Anvil, which was recently released on DVD, begins in a similar fashion, with rock stars and industry folks heaping heavy praise on the Canadian metal band like Larry the Cable Guy pumping cheese on his 7-Eleven nachos. Rex, Alice Cooper, Mott the Hoople, Slade and Sweet as well as timeless albums like the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street, Deep Purple’s Machine Head and ZZ Top’s Rio Grande Mud, and countless bands that were in peak form then, including the Who and Black Sabbath. In one sweeping, superlative-heavy statement, Bourdain totally ignored proto punks like the Stooges, MC5 and Lou Reed (and Link Wray for that matter), glam rockers like David Bowie (who was rocking Ziggy Stardust drag at the time), T. One typical example is Anthony Bourdain’s recent claim on his No Reservations Travel Channel show that the New York Dolls “pretty much created punk rock and hair metal,” and all other music in 1972 flat-out sucked. Rock music history is often viewed with squinting, unfocused eyes through narrow, rose-tinted glasses. Steve “Lips” Kudlow talks about the legendary Canadian metal band’s long-overdue second chance to score a hit of its own. After decades of getting hammered by the music industry, Anvil are learning what it’s like to wield the power.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |