Anvil! - The
Story of Anvil
This biopic shows how tough it
is for a rock band to maintain aspirations to a global success that they almost grasped early in their career.
Anvil are a heavy metal band who lost out to the so-called “big four” of thrash metal (Anthrax,
Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer) when
they divided up the market for this, arguably, most acquired of musical tastes
during the 1980s. The skills of their drummer, Robb Reiner, were influential
to many when he first appeared on the scene, according to Lars Ulrich, who
makes an appearance as a talking head along with Slash and other high profile metal
performers. Anvil’s leader singer, Steve “Lips” Kudlow, encapsulates the traditional
party-hard qualities of the rock front man, simply loving to perform. The
pair’s long-term relationship has kept Anvil going for the last 30 or so years
(or, is it the other way around?) during which time they produced twelve
albums. We join them in 2005, as they plan to produce what they desperately hope
will be the long-awaited breakthrough album, This is Thirteen.
Anvil! - The Story of Anvil is produced in the substantial shadow
of This is Spinal Tap (referenced
briefly when we see the band’s chosen producer for This is Thirteen, Chris Tsangarides, turn a dial in his studio to the
fabled “eleven”). While the subject here are issues surrounding the search for elusive
rock success, the recent documentary film about Metallica, Some Kind of Monster, shows the problems of maintaining rock
success once achieved. One might think that those issues are the kind of
problems that Lips and Robb would love to have.
Documentaries are typically
unscripted. Simplistically, a microphone and camera are placed in front of the
subject for long enough for their character to emerge. Lips and Robb are not
great at speaking to camera, it must be said, although it is possible that,
like many professional sportspeople, their cliched speech is their way of fulfilling
their commitment to be interviewed while guarding their feelings. On several
occasions, though, emotions run high and cannot be repressed. During one of the
frequent confrontations between the Anvil drummer and singer (for Lips is not
the kind of guy who, ahem, bites his lip and bottles it up) we learn that
everyone tells Robb that he has everything going for him, and indeed he appears
to be more comfortable, psychologically and materially, than the singer, who
complains of the stress of being the band’s leader, it’s go-to guy.
The director, who wrote the screenplay of The Terminal, was a childhood fan of the
band and roadied for them during his school holidays. I believe it’s Lips who,
sailing dangerously close to vacuity as usual, meditates on the fragility of
material success compared with the more valuable things of life, which he
describes as friendship and experience. While there is likely some reason that
the music of Anvil that didn’t spark the imagination of heavy metal fans earlier
in their career, (perhaps their similarity to pre-existing English bands), the
success of this documentary, has raised the profile of Anvil and in the current
era of media-managed routes to the top of the charts, this film will probably
bring them success after a fashion, proving to Lips, and all of us, just how
valuable personal relationships can be.