Gary James' Interview With Steve "Lips" Kudlow Of
Anvil



They've been described as one of the most influential bands to ever come out of Toronto. Formed in 1978, they performed at many of the major festivals of the day. In 2008 they even had a film made about their career. The group we are talking about is Anvil, and we recently spoke with Anvil vocalist and guitarist Mr. Steve "Lips" Kudlow.

Q - You had a film made about Anvil released in 2008 called Anvil: The Story Of Anvil. Was that film a theatrical release or a cable TV documentary?

A - It was a theatrical release and it was actually one of the very, very rare, unheard of kind of things. It went over really well. Basically it was a really long climbing process. Nothing comes easy. You want to go get something, you've got to work for it and you have to have the connections and things in line to actually work towards people to get to. It's extremely difficult. I thought putting out albums is difficult. Putting out a movie is even that much more insane. The amount of promotion that was done for that movie was beyond anything I had ever done in my career. So, that just gives you some kind of indication as to what the difference is between a movie and an album.

Q - I never heard about that movie. Was it released world-wide?

A - Yeah. It was released world-wide. It was on VH-1. They actually won an Emmy Award for running it on TV. So I guess you were asleep for about a year or two. (laughs)

Q - Or I didn't watch VH-1 for a year or two.

A - Yeah, well that's where it was run from. It had a theatrical release all over the States and in fact we did numerous what we called "Anvil Experiences", where we appeared with the movie and we played a set after the movie finished. Have you seen the movie?

Q - I have not. Is it on YouTube?

A - No. You won't find it anywhere right now because they're gearing up for something that I can't even talk about. (laughs) So there's stuff going on and they removed it off the internet. You're not going to find it there. In time. It's on Sky TV in the U.K. right now, but that's about the only place it's running. For the time being, at least until the Spring of next year (2022), you're not going to be able to find much of the Anvil movie.

Q - When you started Anvil back in 1978, it was really on the tail end of Disco. This whole Heavy Metal, Hard Rock music scene didn't get going until about 1982. That being said, where did you guys perform in Toronto? Were there enough clubs around so you could play your music there?

A - Well, no. Generally speaking you don't play in Toronto. You never do. And I still don't. (laughs)

Q - Now, why is that?

A - It's just the way it is. Most of our shows in Canada throughout our entire career have been in the province of Quebec and French speaking Canada. That's where Metal thrives actually in North America. Always has. It's actually a phenomenon really. I think what it is, anything between Quebec and Mexico is virtually oblivious to Metal. It takes everything you can possibly do to promote it in those places, whereas in Mexico or Quebec, everybody's into Metal and everybody knows what's going on and everybody taps into the information. It's a completely different attitude. It's not like the information has to be sold to a populace, it's actually already been sold. They just want to keep buying it, right? That's what the difference is. It's not something that really needs to be advertised as much as the rest of North America. It's actually unbelievable. South America is also very hip to Metal, for whatever reason. I think there's a lot of distraction in the basic North American lifestyle. We have so much saturation of all different kinds of music and entertainment that everything competes with each other. So none of it really does as well as let's say when a Metal band is in Europe. It's not the same. It's like it's a different world. Let's put it this way, 90% of the bands that come from the United States all play in Europe. Virtually maybe 20% to maybe 40% play in the United States out of that big chunk. Most play in Europe because that's where the audience is and that's where you can get gigs. So, that's where you end up going. As I say, follow the money. (laughs) Basically, that's where all the labels are, or whatever is left of them. The music industry, as far as Hard Rock or Heavy Metal is concerned, is all in Europe. Yeah, there's some American labels, but you're much better off if you can sign with a label in Europe because you're going to be domestically put out in that part of the world. You don't want to be going into Europe as an import. That's not a good place to be. That makes all your records more expensive. So, you don't really want to do that. You want to get the most domestic release in Europe and then fundamentally you're a living, breathing Metal band. That's what you get to do. That's the way it is.

Q - You're telling me then they're not listening to Hard Rock or Heavy Metal. They're listening to...

A - Whatever is today. What are they listening too? They're listening to Drake. They're listening to Justin Bieber. They're listening to Billie Eilish. They're listening to whatever is in style right now in North America. That's what they're listening to. They're not listening to Iron Maiden. You won't hear them on the radio anymore, not with something that happened in a blink in the '80s. When I say a blink, I really mean it. I mean, there was like two or three years of it. In all my years of living here, there's two or three years of Hard Rock actually making it to the radio. And that was about it. Believe it or not, at this point in day and time they still play those same records from the '70s to the '80s. If Iron Maiden puts out a new album today they will not play it. If April Wine puts out a new album today they won't play it, which is absolutely ludicrous. How many hit singles has April Wine had in Canada? A Canadian band. And yet the Canadian industry itself is cannibalistic. It eats itself. It's just completely self destructive. It's actually very, very sad when you think about it. That bothers me more than anything else. I'm friends with the guys in April Wine and I hear the material and go, "That' great! I wonder when they're going to put it on the radio?" It reminds me, "Hey, they'll never play my music on the radio!" I'm going, "What?" And he goes, "Yeah, they'll only play my old stuff. That's it." And that's what the radio is stuck on. And that's what people are listening to generally. And if they're not listening to that, they're listening to what's up and happening now on whatever radio stations those might me, right? Which I'm not really aware of because I don't listen to radio anymore. I haven't really listened to radio ever other than the news radio stations and the traffic reports and weather. There is nothing more I need to get from radio, that's for sure. If I can find an oldie but goodie station, I'll tune into that. I'd rather listen to music from the '50s and '60s than anything beyond that if I have the choice. (laughs) I'm certainly not going to be listening to K.C. And The Sunshine Band. You know what I mean?

Q - Well Steve, I've interviewed Hard Rock/Heavy Metal guys who listen to all types of music.

A - For me, it's my own private thing. That's my personal thing. I listen to all kinds of music, and when I say all kinds of music I'm talking about music that for the most part is old. That includes Big Bands, Swing Music like Artie Shaw or Benny Goodman. Glenn Miller. That era. The '40s. I love it. That era of music is probably the best written music ever, really. What is music? It's a combination of melody against a rhythm and what you do with that harmoniously and how memorable a piece of music is. I would have to say the greatest majority of the great music has come and gone. Anything coming up now is only going to be redundancy in a certain sense. I don't think there's going to be; that's it's going to be possible to go any further than just to create another song. You're not going to create a new genre. Those kinds of things are just not going to happen. I think the only way to create a new revolution in music is to find a new instrument and have everything based off that, like the guitar did. After the Big Band Swing era, of course we all know that Rock 'n' Roll came into play. What that was is, as soon as they discovered you could amplify a guitar and realized a guitar is capable of playing chords, which is a big difference. It's a big difference between a trumpet and a guitar. A trumpet plays single notes. So it needs accompaniment to make chords and configurations to sing to. In other words, with wind instruments you need a number of people to play. With guitar you need one guy and all of a sudden, now you've got Folk music and you've got Jazz and you've got Blues. That started to explode, the electric guitar. Everybody and his brother owned one. Everybody's starting to learn. And it was an inexpensive commodity and it spread like wildfire and fed the fire of renaissance of music that we've lived through for the last fifty years. And where are we today? Everything's been discovered. Everything's been pushed to its limits as far as could be done. Everything from even synthesized guitar, to colleges that guitar players could go to, to learn methods of guitar playing never perceived before its time, so they're all learning these basically, fundamentally violin music transposed onto guitar. So, now guys are playing a billion miles an hour, which is what it all aspired to get to. Let's see who far guitar can be played, how fast it can be played, what can be created from guitar music? It filled the jars. It filled the suitcases. It filled the drawers. There's nothing more. There's nothing left to put in. Everything now has just come down to, "Make a good song." And that's all it is now. Make another song. You're never, ever, ever going to find 100% pure, never heard this before. It's not going to exist. Just about everything has been done. So, in some shape or form there's going to be something that you're going to draw similarities to, no matter what you play or do. What I've done in my own world is I've shut everything off. I only listen to out of genre music at this point. So, what do I mean by that? I've been listening to, for the last few weeks, I've been on a bender on Glenn Miller. (laughs) It's just phenomenal the stuff that I came to realize just by watching the videos. This is another thing about today's world is that we've got the ability to sit and watch videos from all different eras and actually see the performances and see what they were actually doing. And some of the stuff I've actually seen and learned about, I just go "Wow! Here I am, I'm 65 years old and I'm finally learning about what the Marx Brothers were." (laughs) C'mon!

Q - That is the beauty of video. Once a kid becomes interested in music and wants to know how it all started, it's all there for him to find out. It happens with every generation.

A - Yeah. I finally realized why my father called my music "noise." (laughs)

Q - The music of Anvil has been described as Heavy Metal, Speed Metal, and Thrash Metal. Why not call Anvil a Rock group? Don't all these names just drive you crazy?

A - Well, it's actually ridiculous. They called us Thrash Metal and Speed Metal and I've got to be honest with you, I didn't do anything Thrash until probably '92. That was the first time I used Thrash beats in any of my music. So, it's pretty out there and fucked up that people are going, "Anvil was a Thrash band." I'm telling you, I didn't even attempt to do Thrash until ten years after we put out our first album. (laughs) So no, we're not a Thrash band, not in my opinion.

Q - You should know. You're the man doing the music.

A - To be completely accurate, Anvil was a Rock band, a Hard Rock band. That's what we were and that's the era we came out of. I'd been playing with Robb Reiner (Anvil's drummer) since 1973 and there was no such thing as Heavy Metal. We called it Hard Rock. When I checked back, that's what we called it. So, what is Anvil? It predominantly existed through the '70s and '80s, but c'mon now! I've been playing with the drummer since 1973. So, it's really Rock music. It's attached to Rock music. My influences are predominantly from Rock music, not what would be called Heavy Metal. You wouldn't really call Jimi Hendrix "Heavy Metal." You wouldn't call The Rolling Stones, "Heavy Metal." You wouldn't call The Beatles "Heavy Metal." And I could keep going. You wouldn't call Montrose, "Heavy Metal." I can go on and on and on about all the bands I listened to like Humble Pie, Black Sabbath. People call Black Sabbath "Heavy Metal", but I don't think they're particularly happy about that. Their roots are all Blues based. That's what they were originally, a Blues band, like Cream. Like everything that was in the U.K. in the '70s, late '60s. That's what you did. That's what Led Zeppelin was. But where did the bear cross the stream? That's the question. (laughs) When did it all of a sudden become Heavy Metal? It became Heavy Metal some time around 1980. They named it and you're right. It's a stupid thing. It's just a name. I'm more correct in my assertions about the history of guitar, which is at the center of all of it and what it's been about all along. You can call it everything you want under the sun, but it still comes down to one thing. It's electric guitar music. That's what it is.

Q - It's been reported that Anvil influenced Metallica, Magadeth, Slayer and Anthrax. Do you hear the influence in their music?

A - It's rungs on a ladder. That's the best way to really describe it. Everybody gets on everybody else's back and in doing so the take a little bit from everything. When you take from me, you've taken from Tony Iommi, you've taken from Ritchie Blackmore, you've taken from Johnny Winter, you've taken from Ted Nugent. Everybody has pieces of everybody else in 'em. Their predecessors. Whether you want to admit it or not, it is the truth. You can only get the music that was made yesterday, today. As you grow up, the stuff that was made just yesterday is the stuff that's going to be the most powerful for you for the rest of your life. So, that yesterday turns into ten years ago, but you're still listening to that same album. That's what I grew up with. When I listen to my "Best Of Cream" album, I enjoy it the same way I did when I was twelve years old when I bought it, and I'm sixty-five. The same way when I put on the first Black Sabbath album, it reminds me of Grade Seven when I was thirteen or fourteen and I'm listening to the rain storm at the beginning of the song "Black Sabbath", going, "Oh wow! This is so cool!" The heaviest thing I'd ever heard in my life. I didn't call it Heavy Metal. It was a path to guitar, following distorted guitar particularly. Once Hendrix happened it was like "Wow!" It really exploded the whole sound spectrum of music in its day. The Jimi Hendrix Experience for the first album was so changing. It changed everything for guitar. I mean, that's the best way to really describe it. All of a sudden, oh, your guitar needs to be distorted. That's how you get that sound. It became common knowledge among guitar players that you needed to have a distorted guitar in order to get that wall of sound tone. The learning curve took a vast change after Hendrix and that's where your Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, your Black Sabbath, your Ten Years After, The Who. I mean, yes, The Who existed previous to Hendrix, but when Hendrix broke through it was a phenomenon. They never thought do the things he did. Not to the level that he was. He took it to that next level. Certainly they discovered distortion earlier of course. Obviously. C'mon! We can talk about the fuzz bass tone in "Think For Yourself" on the "Rubber Soul" album, The Beatles. "Have You Seen Your Mother Baby"" by The Rolling Stones. There was distortion, but not like "Purple Haze". (laughs)

Q - We are never going to see another era that produced the likes of a Jimi Hendrix or a Beatles.

A - No one can ever write like The Beatles ever again. You're not going to have that combination again. They're one time deals. That's the whole thing about music. It's one time deals. There's only been one Buddy Rich. One. (laughs) Never, ever to be surpassed. There's still, after all these years, never been a drummer even close. Not even close. Hey, there's only been one Mozart. There's never been another one. And there never will be. I believe that things that are meant to be, innovations or whatever, they're actually there forever. It's one of the only things humanity actually makes that doesn't wear out and break down and end up in the garbage. At every point in some point in the future with music or art, someone will listen to the piece of music again. It never goes away. It's just like artwork. The Mona Lisa is still in France in the Louvre, and it's there. Da Vinci's work is still there for the world to see. The way that it's encased in glass, it probably will be as long as we don't have a disaster and it gets lost. Generally speaking, it's going to be there forever. And it's not to be replaced. You could try to replicate it. You can try to clone it, but you're never going to beat it, particularly with music because whatever makes a musician write what he does is completely connected to what that independent and unique musician listened to in his lifetime. Those things are the building blocks of his songs. That's his songs. You ask another musician and there are different building blocks and making just as unique sound as the other guy. They could both be in the same era, but nonetheless two different genres, but still nonetheless as important as each other. Certainly you have a Bob Dylan at the same time you have a John Lennon. They're really two different things. They're both extraordinarily unique and unmatchable in the sense that you can't get something to outdo it because it's one of a kind.

Q - What you're saying brings to mind an interview I did with songwriter L. Russell Brown. He wrote "Tie A Yellow Ribbon". He's walking down 58th Street in New York City and sees Paul McCartney. He stopped him and told him who he was and then said, "You're the Mozart of our time," and then shook his hand and told him what a thrill it was to shake his hand. McCartney took ten steps, turned around and said, "I don't know about the Mozart of our time thing, but it's a thrill to shake your hand." I'm not sure Paul McCartney understood then or now how good he really is.

A - No, because of self-awareness. They just don't see it. You wake up, "I'm just me." That's why. Paul McCartney is a regular guy, man. He's not going to view himself as a god. It's not natural to do that. I think you've got to be crazy if that's what you're thinking, and he's not crazy. So, the way he perceives himself is, he has his idols and the stuff he aspires to be like and try to be like and the stuff he grew up with, the stuff in his heart. To him, he hasn't surpassed it.

Q - At one time you were asked to join Motorhead, and you didn't do it. Is that because you were in Anvil and had no interest in joining Motorhead?

A - Well, no. It had nothing to do with if I was interested. It had everything to do with business. I was in the middle of recording the "Forged In Fire" album. I'm under contract to a label. I've been with a band at that point for twelve or thirteen years and I didn't want to abandon my band. It wasn't the right thing timing, plain and simple. I couldn't do it from a business perspective, not that I didn't want to as a human being. Of course I wanted to. I couldn't do it. I wasn't in a position to be able to. So, that's why. I was friends with Lemmy all through the years. I saw a lot of things through the same perspective.

Q - As I understand it, you had a management deal with Leber-Krebs and David Krebs wasn't able to get you a record deal. Is that true?

A - Pretty much. Well, it's not that he couldn't. It's what the labels were asking for. That should be very, very underlined. Yeah, he couldn't get us a record deal in the sense that he couldn't get paid for the first three albums. That's pretty fuckin' serious. The labels would not buy the first three albums or pay for them. In other words, when you're going to put something out in your territory, you're given a royalty advance, okay? The labels in the Unites States were refusing to release the first three Anvil albums. They wanted them for free. "Give them to us for nothing and we'll pay you when they sell." You can't do business like that, man. Nah, nah, nah, nah. (laughs)

Q - Didn't David Krebs put his foot down after the first album?

A - We didn't meet David Krebs until we finished our third album. What happened was, he went to the labels in the Unites States and they went, "We're not paying for it. We'll take them for free," which is insane. You can't do that. So, to this day my friend, the first three Anvil albums are not domestically released in the U.S.A.

Q - They're sitting on a shelf.

A - Well, you can buy them in Canada. (laughs)

Q - Which doesn't help anybody in the U.S. or anywhere else if they want to hear your music.

A - We've had, not those three albums, but we've had all of our releases somehow trickle through the United States. The United States is a really, really difficult place to get a grip on and make it work. It's extremely diversified in the way that stuff is promoted. It's a really, really, really serious undertaking to try and make it in the United States. And there's really only one proper way and if you don't ever get that, you will not make it big. It really comes down to that kind of equation, when it really comes down to it. And it's not just about having a movie on VH-1 and touring all the clubs. You could do that forever. You're going to be making a living and that's what you're going to get out of it, which is fine. I don't have a problem with that, but a lot of musicians and bands do it because they have this view that, "I'm going to make it big." Well, good fuckin' luck! What I mean is, the way you ultimately make it big is getting on a huge tour package. If you don't get that you will not get big. There's only two ways you're going to get on that package, with a lot of money or with a lot of record sales. Now, if you already have a lot of records sales you're already there, aren't you? So, how do you get that? That's the question. Those days are long behind us really because there is no money in records. A Gold Record today is 25,000 records. It's not a million. So, you got a number one record today, you sell 25,000 records. (laughs) That's what an old distribution would put 25,000 records in America, 25,000 record stores and you put one in every record store. That's what that means, or what it used to mean. But now, 25,000 records, there's maybe 5,000 records stores in America now because record stores don't exist anymore. Now, the only record store is Wal-Mart. That's why I'm saying how are you going to make it today? How's anyone going to make it today? How do you make it? You've got to get on that big tour and then you can sell lots of merchandise because you're not going to sell lots of records because there aren't many records to be sold because you don't need to when people are listening to you on Spotify, listening to you on YouTube and listening to you on all the streaming services. There's no point in even owning a hard copy. You can download it probably for free if you look around. It's a different world today. You don't make money from music. You make money from the merchandise and ticket sales. Can you sell tickets to your shows? This is what it all is today. It's a different working model.

Official Website: The Anvil Home Page

© Gary James. All rights reserved.



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