ANVIL Drummer Says 'Hope In Hell' Is 'An Incredible Evolution From The Last Album'

Geeks Of Doom recently conducted an interview with drummer Robb Reiner of Canadian metal legends ANVIL. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Geeks Of Doom: "Hope In Hell" will be album number 15 [for ANVIL] and I take it you're very happy with it?

Robb Reiner: Absolutely! It's an incredible evolution from the last album, even though it has the same feelings, perhaps, in some ways, except Lips [frontman Steve Kudlow] and me always felt like we came very, very close in getting it right on the last album, but we didn't get it completely right. With this album, I think we absolutely got it right this time. I love the album; the production is beyond stellar and the performances are incredible… Yeah, the real ANVIL fans are going to rejoice like I don't think they've rejoiced ever! The record is the complete true essence of real, real ANVIL. I mean, since those years [1981-1983], this record is the only one that's gonna make you feel like that.

Geeks of Doom: Like you said, stellar production by Bob Marlette again.

Robb Reiner: Yeah, Bob produced it. We had such a great time making the last album with Bob and he brought a lot of fresh stuff to the band… Lips and myself, we wrote the whole album, like we do all the albums, and it came together very quickly and organically. It was like it was already in us and we just had to get it out. There was no laboring on anything, it was just flowing. It's funny, I've talked to the guys in SAXON prior to making their latest release, and they were forced to go back and listen to some of their early records and then they were asked, What would you do next? I know BLACK SABBATH, Rick Rubin [producer for the upcoming album] did the same with them, sat them down and said, "Listen to your first album — now what would you do next?" Now having said that, we didn't need to do that, we just did that!…we just instinctively knew. We just came so damn close on the last album that now we know exactly which way to go. So it came together very, very quickly and honestly and organically and it was an amazing process really. Bob did a great job….it's more aggressive.

Geeks of Doom: Do you feel like the influence of the film [documentary "Anvil!: The Story Of Anvil"] is wearing off and now the music is speaking for itself?

Robb Reiner: Absolutely. The film is never gonna go away. For Lips and myself, it's always been about the music. We just went on a movie ride, as it were. We became kind of like movie stars out of it. That was not the game plan but there's two sides to ANVIL now; we're like rockers but we're also movie guys. It's not gonna go away and it's not gonna change… every time it plays, another ten thousand new ANVIL fans are born instantly and this just keeps going on and on… it's a timeless thing because the sentiment and the message of that movie is timeless. It just happens to be about these metalhead guys who are representing this story. Anybody can relate to it… It opens their eyes to it, then they go check out the records and they find out, Hey, these guys are really fucking good! It's just instead of being on the radio we're on the big screen! But it's only about the music for us.

Read the entire interview from Geeks Of Doom.

"Hope In Hell" teaser:

Photo credit: Grant Yoshino