Audio By Carbonatix
Anvil just may be the most stubborn heavy metal band in history.
After 30 years of recording and touring, its name is still unknown
to most rock fans. But, nonetheless, the once-briefly famous group
still grabs club owners by their shirt collars in order to get paid,
still misses trains on European tours and still gets shot down by
major-label A&R guys because the “landscape has changed.”
It’s all there in the documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil,
which opens on Friday night at the Magnolia Theatre, with a performance
from the band itself after the 9:30 p.m. screening.
Obscure, Canadian and led by two family men in their 50s who borrow
obscene amounts of money to hire famous producers for albums that will
never get distribution, Anvil simply refuses to quit playing music,
which could have made them perfect subjects for another Behind
the Music episode or, worse, a real-life This Is Spinal
Tap.
Instead, Anvil! is one of the sweetest rock and roll
stories ever produced.
And, partially, that’s because there is so much comedy in the band’s
tragedies. Director Sacha Gervasi has the camera rolling for
every Anvil blunder—and there are many, from the group performing
for 174 people at a venue that holds 10,000 to listening as the
drummer, Robb Reiner, casually relays the fact that singer Steve
“Lips” Kudlow regularly rips his gold drumstick necklace from around
his neck in fits of anger. Gervasi has a wealth of punch lines to
choose from, but he’s judicious in using them, editing them in subtly
for maximum impact.
And he doesn’t go the predictable route of skewering this cult band
for continuing three decades after its 15 minutes of fame ended.
Instead, he offers a more universal narrative: Anvil! touches on
the difficulty of giving up on a dream you’ve invested with your life.
It’s an identifiable sentiment, regardless of whether your props come,
as Anvil’s have, from an overly made-up member of Twisted
Sister at a music festival.
The film begins by giving viewers the band’s context. It shows the
group playing a huge concert in the ’80s alongside household names such
as The Scorpions and Bon Jovi. There are interviews with
heavy-metal gods discussing Anvil’s importance—the
Toronto act’s early recordings, including 1982’s Metal on
Metal, apparently hold high places in metal history. But after the
band’s third record, it fell off the radar, for reasons no one in the
film can really explain. Lips now makes a living working for an
elementary school catering company, while Reiner works in
construction.
It takes a pretty strong self-image to be the everyman in your day
job and the invisible rock star at night. But Lips and Reiner are such
teddy bears, so naïve in their drive, that you wonder how they’ve
managed to keep the tiny Anvil bubble afloat without the cold, cruel
world coming in for a pop. One answer: These men are total metal
lifers, as seen when Lips is backstage at a festival Anvil plays,
giddily sprinting after childhood idols to gush about his affection for
their work.
The group’s strength also stems from the deep bond between Lips and
Reiner. They met as adolescents—and, inspired by a history class
on the Spanish Inquisition, wrote their first song together, “Thumb
Hang.” Now on the other side of 50, the two men talk about one another
like brothers—and fight as though they’re still 14. They
repeatedly get into the same arguments; Lips is a powder keg of
reactive frustration and cries often, whereas Reiner gets sick of the
drama and of being broke. He calmly threatens to walk away, Lips
sniffles out a sincere apology and they go on, like war veterans whose
love for one another surpasses anything romantic or familial.
But unlike the whine sessions in Some Kind
of Monster, where Metallica’s group therapy made the
musicians seem really obnoxious, Anvil’s figureheads project nothing
but the deepest sincerity in their breakdowns. Despite the fights,
there’s a real kindness in the way they treat one another. Add in the
band’s underdog status, and these tiffs become strangely
moving—when, of course, they aren’t totally hilarious, which is
often the case.
Let’s face it, though: Anvil’s songs are dated. There are better
metal bands out there. But watching Anvil! makes you root
for these guys nonetheless—if not for the music, then for their
indomitable fighting spirit, and the humility with which they’ve taken
their lot. (Lips in particular finds the good in everything, including
a booking agent who botches their European tour.)
In an era where young bands act jaded after one round of blog buzz,
it’s refreshing to hear from musicians who spend their entire lives
taking nothing for granted. Thirty years of playing metal ain’t nothing
to laugh at—even if, as Anvil! proves, it
provides plenty of moments to laugh with.
