By Annette Basile

Sometimes documentaries can change the course of their subjects’ lives – just ask the accidental celebrities from Michael Apted’s Up series. Or Randall Adams, who was falsely convicted as a cop killer, but avoided the electric chair thanks to Errol Morris’ detective work in The Thin Blue Line. Or perhaps ask Steve “Lips” Kudlow, lead singer and guitarist of the Canadian heavy metal band, Anvil. On course to be a forgotten footnote in rock history, the documentary, Anvil! The Story Of Anvil, has now altered the band’s trajectory. “We’re famous now,” fifty-something Lips laughs down the line from Toronto. “We’re an overnight sensation after thirty years.” Anvil formed in 1973, and for a micro-second in the early eighties, it looked as though they’d join metal’s elite. But it didn’t quite happen that way…

A succession of famous talking heads early in the doco quickly establishes the band’s credentials as an influential act. Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, former Guns ‘N’ Roses guitar-slinger Slash and Motorhead’s late and lamented main-man Lemmy are amongst those giving references. Says Lemmy: “You have to be in the right place at the right time; that’s the whole thing.”

Lips concurs. “Out of all the rock musicians and everybody that I’ve ever met in my entire career, Lemmy has probably got the most wisdom of all. You really do have to be in the right place at the right time – and if you’re not, you’ll never do it. When you haven’t got every little detail in place, it can very easily slip through the cracks, and then you’re gone. In the past, we got involved with a management company that derailed the whole thing. So that’s it, right there – as soon as you hit your first stumbling block, it can be over.”

Steve "Lips" Kudlow rocks out in Anvil! The Story Of Anvil
Steve “Lips” Kudlow rocks out in Anvil! The Story Of Anvil

The doco, which is as much about people as it is about music, shows Anvil’s struggle to pull a crowd. Lips is working delivering food for a school catering company, and is very much the frustrated rock star. His compadre-in-arms, drummer and Anvil co-founding member Robb Reiner, is the quieter of the two key players, but he’s just as committed. The pair – both sons of Jewish immigrant parents (Reiner’s father is an Auschwitz survivor) – have played music together since high school. Lips says that they’re “more than brothers”, and just as regular siblings have heated moments, so do they, and they’re all captured on film.

Centred on a trouble-plagued European tour, and replete with Spinal Tap references played for laughs, this wonderfully entertaining and often brutally funny documentary reveals Lips as a larger-than-life character – one who’s been known to play slide guitar with a vibrator, and who has the requisite heavy metal demonic grin. The band may be at an all-time low, but Anvil has its diehard fans – one of which is actually behind this documentary.

Sacha Gervasi was a teenage metal enthusiast, living in England in the days of post-punk. When Anvil played London’s legendary Marquee Club in 1982, metal-mad Gervasi made his way backstage. He and Anvil became friends, and Gervasi, a drummer, later became their drum roadie. Gervasi then went on to become a Hollywood scribe, co-penning Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal. In 2005, he re-established contact with Lips. “Sacha invited me to come down and visit him in Los Angeles,” Lips explains, “and I showed him all the albums that he hadn’t realised that I’d recorded. He came to realise very quickly that this was an inspirational story, and came up with the idea about a week or two later to make a movie. I thought it was amazing. It seemed like everything that I went through was so this could happen. It was my destiny. It was all about the idea that everything happens for a reason.”

Anvil on stage in Anvil! The Story Of Anvil
Anvil on stage in Anvil! The Story Of Anvil

Gervasi (who would go on to direct 2012’s Hitchcock, with Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren), however, found his film to be something of a hard sell. The documentary couldn’t find a distributor, despite its success on the film festival circuit. Music channel VH1 eventually gave Gervasi a break…and that resulted in none other than AC/DC giving Anvil a break. “We’ve got three shows with AC/DC, which is absolutely amazing,” Lips enthuses. “I believe that [AC/DC guitarist] Angus [Young] saw the movie, and they wanted to be the first ones to step up and help Anvil out. It’s quite fascinating when you consider that you’ve got Slash, [Metallica’s] Lars [Ulrich], and Tom Araya from Slayer in the film, yet not one of those people, who said all the nice wonderful things about Anvil, has been able to put the gig where their mouth is, so to speak [laughs].”

Lips believes that the documentary’s appeal lies in the fact that “it’s so bloody honest. Most bands would be embarrassed, but the truth is that this represents the vast majority of what’s out there as far as bands and musicians are concerned.” But amongst the almost-highs and lows, it’s Anvil’s tenacity that impresses. “The whole experience is something akin to a poker game,” says Lips. “The ace in our hand was our ability and what we are as musicians…we just had to wait and keep betting.”

Anvil! The Story Of Anvil is screening as part of GOMA’s “Get What You Want: Music Cinema” programme, which runs from September 2-October 2. To buy tickets to Anvil! The Story Of Anvil, click here. This article was first published in 2008.

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