ANVIL Frontman Says 'A Lot Of Magic Happened' During Making Of Documentary

Tim Jonze of Guardian.co.uk recently conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist Steve "Lips" Kudlow of Canadian heavy metal legends ANVIL. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Guardian.co.uk: So how is life in ANVIL following the documentary?

Lips: Absolutely incredible, man. Basically it's a miracle. That's the thing about life anything CAN happen. Looking back, the seeds were planted in 1982 when Sacha [Gervasi, "Story Of Anvil" director] came backstage at the Marquee Club in London and introduced himself as a 15-year-old fan. An extraordinary kid. He immediately perked our interest so we said: "Come and hang out with us! Why don't you come visit? Why don't you come on tour?" We gave him the time of his life! We weren't thinking we wanted anything out of it. We were just thinking: "If we were 15, we'd wish we were you."

Guardian.co.uk: Who is your audience now? Surely not just metalheads

Lips: We get everyone from elderly people to kids saying "I gotta follow my dreams" coming to our shows. The film has completely blown our audience demographic out of the water. It's an odd situation, because the heavy metal aspect of the movie is just the backdrop. We could have been two pyramid builders and you're watching us drop that last brick on the top and we need the support of the people to help us get there the movie would still have been a hit. Basically it was a human interest story, all about perseverance, friendship, family, everything people have in common. Most of the time we all look for things that make us different but the truth is we're all really the same, with dreams and aspirations and desires. So when you watch that movie you start realizing either you can relate to what Rob and I are doing or wish that you could be Rob or I and have the bollocks to go fight the world for what you love.

Guardian.co.uk: Were you pleased or insulted that people billed you as a "real-life SPINAL TAP?"

Lips: No way, we embraced that! The idea of making a movie about a metal band I LOVE that movie. Come on, man. It's like asking a hockey player if they like "Slap Shot". It's taking the piss out of yourself. We knew there was no way around it, it was going to get compared to SPINAL TAP, so let's put little innuendoes and connections in and go with it. We had amps going up to 11, we had me yelling "Hello Cleveland!", a number of things like that.

Guardian.co.uk: Did you think the movie was going to be this big?

Lips: In my soul I knew. I got an email from Sasha, who I hadn't heard from in 25-27 years. He'd come up from LA and told me he was going to make a movie. I broke up crying. This isn't just some old fan with a handheld video camera. This dear kid has grown into a Hollywood screenwriter for Steven Spielberg and is going to make a movie and VALIDATE my 30 years of insanity! What happens? Of course the film starts going. What am I going to do? I gotta get shit done! At first I was like: "No tour bus? Taking trains? What do you mean?" Then I thought: "Excellent! You want drama, you GOT it." It was all completely hands on, like the way we used to do Canada in our 20s. And I thought that this would make for an INCREDIBLE movie. So it was a great experience. We were driving and getting to locations on our own. Now we're reading maps, driving all over Europe and experiencing it for real. A lot of magic happened.

Read the entire interview from Guardian.co.uk.