The Rich Roll Podcast - Never Quit Before The Miracle: The Story of Anvil

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

Meet the masters of resilience. 80’s metal trailblazers: Anvil. For those of you who bristle at the thought of heavy metal, set aside that resistance. Give this one a shot with an open mind and heart. And thank me later—because the story of Anvil—and the filmmaker who captured their tale—is nothing short of remarkable. At 14, Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow and Robb Reiner made a pact to rock together forever. In 1982 they birthed a highly influential album that would inspire the likes of Anthrax and Metallica—and then proceeded to drop off the map, toiling in obscurity for decades while the bands they impacted rose to superstardom. Then, in 2006, filmmaker (and former Anvil roadie) Sacha Gervasi set out to find out what happened, discovering to his astonishment that 25 years later the band was still making music and remained steadfastly committed to the most impossible of dreams: making it big. Now this is a story, he thought. So Sacha grabbed a small camera crew and proceeded to follow the band as they persevered through obstacles, navigated a botched European tour, and recorded a thirteenth album. Despite rejection that would devastate the strongest among us, Anvil refused to give up on their dream—and never lost hope. Today we tell this surprisingly touching and remarkably inspirational story. And now, 50 years since the band debuted and 13 years after the rockumentary first premiered in 2008, the film is being re-released in 200 theaters across the US this week and later in theatres across Europe and beyond—a response to a new generation of enthusiastic young people who discovered and fell in love with the movie during Covid. Watch: YouTube. Read: Show notes. Lips and Robb hold an unwavering conviction and extraordinary amount of courage that is nothing short of superhuman. They are inspiring examples of perseverance in the face of adversity, and I’m delighted to share their story. I hope you find it as touching and compelling as I did. Enjoy! Peace + Plants, Rich

I think that the whole movie, Anvil, is about empathy. And I knew that this film had the potential to reach people way beyond metal, beyond music, and it was about the human spirit. And what we discovered from the film was that it was about not giving up. You know, it was about friendship, it was about family, it was about not giving up on a dream.

And, like, what could be more universal than that? And I think that's why here we are 13 years later, releasing the film again. It's because of those themes. Everybody's closing down their shop because they're burnt out and they have no heart left to do it. And they're quitting.

And it's like, if you're a real artist, you should be here till you're pushing up daisies. And that's the end of it. But, you know, I'm not going to quit on myself. Yeah. What for? Like, I can't cope with that notion. Yeah, why didn't you quit?

Hey, you quit what you hate. Right, not what you love. Not what you love. The Rich Roll Podcast. What does it take to pursue an audacious goal, to never give up on your dream, no matter the odds, no matter the obstacles? Well, there's lots of answers to that question, but a couple of them that come to mind are unwavering conviction and superhuman courage, which are topics explored in today's conversation with my friend, Sasha Gervasi. Sasha is a writer, he's a filmmaker, and he's a documentarian behind a film called Anvil, The Story of Anvil,

which is this incredibly unlikely, can you even believe this is real, sort of spinal tap movie about an unlikely 80s metal band who never quite made it, but refused to give up. And the protagonists of that film join us with Sasha today. Their names are Lips Kudlow and Rob Reiner. This self-financed indie, much like the band it portrays,

was almost never even seen by anybody, but against all odds, it became this cult classic. It inspired millions, and it's now lauded as one of the greatest rock and roll documentaries of all time. And it gave the band the break they've been longing for. In another twist of unlikely favor, extending on this theme of never giving up, during the pandemic, the documentary was discovered by a whole new generation of young people, and in unprecedented fashion, is now being re-released 13 years after it first premiered

in 200 theaters across the United States this week and later rolling out across Europe and beyond. Even if you have absolutely zero interest in metal music, I'm telling you, you're going to love this film. I encourage all of you to check it out in the theater. And I think you're gonna love this conversation as well because Sasha, who by the way, is appearing for his third appearance on the show, check my archive if you missed those episodes, is a very entertaining individual. He's a truly gifted storyteller.

His Anvil protagonists, Lips and Rob, are also unbelievably endearing. They're incredibly earnest and, dare I go so far as to say that Lips just might be the self-help guru you never knew you needed. And together, they are inspiring examples of perseverance in the face of extraordinary obstacles. So, after a brief word from the fine sponsors that make this show possible, please enjoy. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved

my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem, a problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal

designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers Thank you. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do.

And they have treatment options for you. Life and recovery is wonderful and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. All right, here's me, Sasha, and the guys from New York.

This is a celebration. The gang is here. We got Sasha, we got Rob. We got Lips. Everybody is in the house. My intention for this is that I'm going to be so bold as to say that this will be the definitive Anvil podcast. What do you think, Sasha? I'm so thrilled about that prospect. I'm just so happy because these guys just flew in from Toronto late last night. And we've been hanging out all morning. And as always is with us us it's just like going back to when i was 15 nothing has changed right we were talking about the original anvil road crew a few minutes ago which was me uh brick vegas spider jethro and me my anvil nickname was t-bag and

strange and strange strange was another guy who i'm going to talk later i haven't last time i saw him was on a tour of canadian hockey arenas in 1985 but i'm gonna facetime with strange later so it's just this history that just continues to evolve it never seems to stop well i think we need to contextualize all of this so i think it would be great if we just start at the beginning with sasha your kind of first introduction to these guys and kind of how everything unfolded from well the first introduction to these guys and kind of how everything unfolded from there. Well, the first introduction to these guys was literally on, there was a magazine similar to Rolling Stone in the UK called Sounds.

And Sounds was the rock, heavy metal kind of music paper. NME was the kind of poncy, fancy kind of poses paper, but Sounds was like the real people, Red Sounds. And I think it was April the 6th, 1982, I went to my local newsagent

in St. John's Wood on Abbey Road and I saw the cover of Sounds. And I think it was April the 6th, 1982, I went to my local newsagent in St. John's Wood on Abbey Road, and I saw the cover of Sounds. And it said, it literally was a photo of a man dressed head to toe in bondage gear, holding a chainsaw and clutching a dildo between his teeth. And it said, Anvil is coming. And I thought, I have no idea who this fucking band is. I like this band. And the reason I liked them was, this is really going to piss off my mother. This is just going to really upset her. Because my mother had gone to Juilliard and was a concert pianist and a classical pianist

and wanted me to play piano. And we were kind of arguing. And I thought, yeah, I'm going to get into metal. And anyway, so I bought- You're 15. I was 14 and a half, 15. Yeah, at this point. And I'd already gone out to shows, you know, like most teenagers,

you know, the parents have no idea what they were doing, but I was like going, I was like leaving at 13 and a half. I would go downtown to the Marquee on Wardle Street. That club was very famous because Hendrix and the Doors and all these different people had played at the Marquee in the 60s. But by the early 80s, it was like the center of something called the new wave of British heavy metal, which had a beautiful acronym, NWOBM. That was what it was.

And so I was a young fan who would go down and I would see Iron Maiden and I would see Def Leppard and all these bands. Like I remember seeing Randy California from Spirit and all these crazy bands. And I would slip out at night. My mom had no idea I was going there. Anyway, so in the Sounds interview,

I suddenly learned about this heavy Canadian band from Toronto. And ironically, my mother's family had been from Toronto. So there was already an instant connection. And they had this record that was already a legend before anyone had even heard it. It was called Metal on Metal. And it was literally, the front cover was a buzzsaw sawing an anvil in half. I thought, could it be more metal? And it was called Metal

on Metal. And I just absolutely had to get the album. I got the album. It was astonishing. It was so heavy. There was stuff I hadn't really heard before. Particularly, there was a song called March of the Crabs. There was a song called 666, where it was really the first time I had heard thrash metal played at such a ferociously intense volume and rate. And the musicianship was extraordinary. Lips' voice was growling. And like, for me, the thing that really stuck out,

because I was an aspiring drummer, because, you know, my mother said, you know, you should learn classical piano. And I was, but I thought, you know, what was really going to piss her off is I'm going to be a heavy metal drummer. So then Rob Reiner came into my life and I would listen to Rob play these things. And I just could not, I was just like blown away by his drumming. I'd never heard any drummer as heavy as Rob.

I'd heard a lot of amazing people like Ginger Baker and Carmine Appesee and all these great, you know, fantastic drummers, Steve Gadd, obviously genius, but no one with the heaviness of Rob Reiner. And so when I discovered that they were going to play at the Marquis in September 1982, so I got the sounds in April, I bought the record that month, and through the whole of the summer of 1982, Anvil's Metal on was like blaring at top volume through my house my mother was going out of her mind and this is a moment in which i suspect most of your peers are into bowie oh yeah yeah i mean that was the other thing it was like i was at a school where everyone was like into the doors and bowie and the stooges and like i'm the loser walking across

schoolyard in like black leg warmers with like my rush waistcoat and like just i was everyone gave me so much shit and then i thought you know what fuck them man i'm the punk i'm the guy getting all the abuse and i was like and then i said to my friend who was like um jake who was like into kind of punk and the clash and everything right i said you're you all dress the same you've all got the bondage trousers and the same fucking hair and i fuck you i'm, I'm the punk. So like, the more they attacked me, the more metal I became. And I would start going to these shows. And I went to a, you know, a boarding, a sort of public boarding school in England called Westminster. And so I was very much like the, the ugly duckling at that school by a very, very long way. And so the more defiantly kind of attacked I was, the more defiantly metal I became. And I discovered that Anvil was playing at the Marquis.

And so I decided to go. And I was so fucking lucky because I went to see the band and literally lips flew out of the changing room at the back, clutching a dildo. And he played his Flying V. And I mean, like, you can understand, with a bunch of teenage boys,

we'd never seen or heard anything like this right he had the chainsaw rob was like you couldn't even see his face his hair was like he would do this move which i call tumbling boulders where you just couldn't even see how his hands were moving i was just like it was like any person who remembers their first show where their face was melted off it was like my whole head was melted off i was like anyway i was like and that place was packed and later years later i discovered so many bands that became bands were also there that night so many really interesting people like members of deaf leopard like jonas ackland the video director and you know every you know members of the tigers of pantang and

uh that moment was a huge moment in my life. And it was also a huge moment for Anvil. And I was desperate to meet them. And so what happened was, I went in the long line, and there were these two security guys, right? And anyway, this guy called Gary Barden was the lead singer of the Michael Schenker group. And he was in an argument with the bouncer with his girlfriend to get his girlfriend backstage to meet anvil right and um i just took advantage of the moment and i slipped in so they security guy was trying to get michael shenker's singer to stay away and i just kind of got in behind them and i literally walked in and there were members of iron maiden members of death

leopard like all my heroes were in that room congratulating this band. And I was just like, fuck, I'm the youngest person in here by like at least five to 10 years. And I went right up to Anvil. I went right up to Rob and to Lips and I said, I am your number one fan in England. My name is Sasha. And I am just,

and I started asking Rob questions about the drums and I just was so... We were both going like, it's a kid, and he knows everything. He knows more than anybody else in this here. Yeah, he had a special magic about him, is what I remember. And we invited him in.

I said, like, on tag team, between the middle eight and the verse, when you do this flip thing, I was talking to Rob technically about what he was doing. And I was, I had millions of questions. I was like, how do you do that? And are you using both feet or are you doing whatever? And then I was asking Lips about, you know,

how they work together as a band. And so I had tons of questions. Now, the first thing I noticed about Anvil was I'm some 15-year-old no one kid, right? And they were talking to me and there were Joe Elliott and whoever of Def Leppard. There was members of Motorhead, Fast Eddie Clark. They're like massive mega people. And these two guys were interested in what their fan had to say. And I was just like, wow, I couldn't believe it.

The truth was that none of these people, none of the other people even knew our songs. They don't know our records. They don't know the songs they just heard. They're just, they're ligging the moment. Right. And you're like, we're going to talk to this kid. This kid's into it. And it's like a crazy sliding doors moment. Like had you not done the runaround with the bouncer? Yeah. Oh yeah. I was so happy that Gary Barden was in love with this woman and had to get her in or he wasn't coming in. But it was every rock star, every metal and hard rock person at that time was at that show and was absolutely blown away and i was just the lucky one who got in and as it turned out i said you know look i just want to let you know i'm i'm

offering my services i'll be your tour guide i don't care they were laughing and they were like well i i said how many times you've been to london and they said well we've never been here before and i said great i'm going to show you around. So I agreed to meet him. He asked us where we were at, where we were, and he showed up. So the next day I took them to the Houses of Parliament, the Tate Gallery, introduced them to Turner. I took them all over the sites of London, and it was so fun.

I remember being on the tube, getting off the tube with all of you. And the tube driver was an Anvil fan. Do you remember? And he like, I remember he honked the car and he was like, metal. And I was like, Anvil was like happening in London. And I felt so privileged that I'm like their fan. Right.

I happened to meet them. So I take them everywhere. The best part was I took them back to number 54 Abbey Road where I grew up in London. I took them back and my mother answered the door and she saw me it was like no it was like the nightmare scenario because I'd played that album all summer and she told me to take it away and she was just like she was going out of her mind so when I showed up with Anvil she looked at me she looked at them and then she said you've

got 10 minutes and And she disappeared upstairs. And I was like, I brought them into my room. And it was really weird because I was, you know, the biggest Anvil fan. And then they walked into my bedroom. I got posters of Metal on Metal all over my walls and everything. And so they were so sweet with me. And I just felt like how lucky it is to be able to meet your heroes and then to have time with them. And they actually even gave a shit to listen to right it was like really notable and then anyway so at the end of the couple days and

they were staying at the columbia hotel and i went to hang out with them and then i got to know the guys from twisted sister who i also know the those guys and d snyder and aj perro and all those guys and um at the end of the two or three days we we kind of really, well, you know, I was like, so happy that they, you know, were being nice to me. And Lips and Rob said, Hey, hey, what are you doing next summer? And I said, Well, you know, I'm at school, and then I'll probably be on school holidays. I was like 14 and a half at that point or 15. And they said, Do you want to come and be a roadie on our tour? And I was like, are you fucking kidding me? So basically, my mom and my father split up and my dad was living in New York, he worked at the United Nations. And I said to my mother, look, I really want to go see my dad for this summer.

And she was like, shocked. Like, why do you want to see your father? I was like, well, you know, I think it's time we need to talk anyway. So I totally bullshitted an excuse to get a ticket to New York. And I flew to New York the following summer. And I said to my dad, look, if I'm being we need to talk anyway so i totally bullshitted an excuse to get a ticket to new york and i flew to new york the following summer and i said to my dad look if i'm being really honest the reason i'm here is because anvil this mega heavy canadian thrash metal band has asked me to come on tour as as the drum roadie um and so my dad who you know was you know he worked for john f kennedy you know he was an economist he taught at oxford you know he was, you know, he worked for John F. Kennedy. You know, he was an economist. He toured to Oxford.

You know, he was like, I showed him the photos. He was like fucking horrified. I said, Dad, it's really important to me. Please, can I just please go on tour with Anvil? And he said, I have to meet them. I'll only do it. And so he drove me up to Albany where I joined the tour. And he said, I'm going to go and talk to Lips and Rob.

And he was wearing his three-piece suit, you know. And he talked to Lips and Rob. And I don't quite know what was said. I think it was something along the lines of just keep him awake. You're going to watch out for my son. And keep him awake. He doesn't get in trouble here. And you guys are not. He's been like a concerned parent.

Right. Yeah. But you ought to understand. My father is looking at lips and rob at you know and you know i'm turning my son over to the welfare yeah and it's and he's like an oxford academic and it's like you know but whatever happened between them my dad came out and he said i actually think they're okay and you can go for three weeks and i was just i was so overwhelmed with joy that i was able to go on the road with these guys.

Yeah, and you remember that encounter? Yeah, and I thought it was so weird that this- Yeah, this parent thing was happening. The way that, I mean, it wasn't the first interaction that we had with Sasha's parents that we obviously knew his mom too. And when he says they knew my mom, what happened was I just-

When he showed up at the hotel in England, the phone rings in our room and she goes, I pick up the phone and she goes, hello, I'm Sasha Gervasi's mother. Is my son there? And I go, yes, hold on. It's for you. And it was my mom had tracked me down. And the first thing Sasha i go how did you find me what had happened was i'd called a minicab company and she found and tracked where they

were and then she called me and then she came anyway so she came to the hotel room and just like said stay right there and she literally pulled me out by my ear and said you are not hanging out with these people i could hear her screaming down the hall. She was screaming. She was like, you've got to stay away from these people. They're bad news and you're a well-educated good boy and you can't hang out with a guy who wears bondage harnesses and plays his guitar with a dildo. It's outrageous.

And, you know, it was a real scene that happened all the time. Anyway, so yeah. So then my dad was the other parent who, but my dad, I think whatever, for whatever reason, he really loved it. He just thought, okay, these guys are cool. And I think he made you promise to keep away from alcohol and drugs. Yeah, he said, tell me, just make sure that he doesn't go near anything

that's going to get him in trouble. I said, don't worry about it. As far as I'm concerned, he's not going to see any wrongdoings while he's on my watch. And then cut to the tour, and that's often why I was locked into the tour bus, so I was also locked on the tour bus. Well, there were things going on.

He never saw. You never saw. You did protect him. Yeah, no, totally. Oh, yeah. But you know what? When I was a kid, you don't let a kid walk into a middle of some squirrely having an orgy.

No, I don't think so. Dave Allison, who was, yeah. But what happened was my dad came back and he said, those guys gave me their word and I believe them. So you can go for three weeks. And I just had, it was like, it was an extraordinary experience to be out on the road with this band. You know, I sat behind Rob Reiner every night.

I helped build his drum kit. I watched him play. As he was playing, like, you know, Mothra or Metal on Metal or 666 or whatever, he would do some crazy lick that I'd asked about when we first met. And he would turn around to me and go, you will never be able to do that. It was like, but I would pick up as many. You know that look that he would do? It was so but i would pick up as many yeah that look oh yeah

and i used to enjoy doing that go okay sasha here's one that you're fucking this one's a good one watch this and then i give that look like see and i was right behind him and you got to understand that at that time there were all these young you know metal fans like me right you know and who i would run into the show you a guy called Scott Ian, who later went on to form Anthrax, and Lars Ulrich, who was a 15-year-old Danish tennis prodigy who was just getting interested in music. And so many other people that were kind of around and just even pre-band were just thinking about what to do.

I mean, millions of people. And Jonas was in that Swedish metal band Bar Three, and then all these different well that had a whole that's another sort of thing that happened at the marquee at that particular time and point in the history

is two members of this band called Candlemass from Sweden were also at the show with their friend from Bathory which is Jonas Ackerlund. So they came to see us. Jonas takes a picture of me with the two guys, and here we are as young kids, whatever.

Years later, I mean, like years later, just previous to actually reconnecting with Sasha, we go to do this festival in Italy, and we're sitting in a bus camper, a little camper bus kind of thing, and there's a knock at the door, and there's these two freaky guys, and we're the guitar player and bass player from the band Candlemass. We met you in 1982.

Around the same time. And I'm going, wait a minute. These are those Swedish guys that we met on Carnaby Street. And they're going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then all of a sudden I started saying, and I start telling them about Sasha. And I go, and I haven't seen this guy in years, but that was, you were with us when you took us to get the bullet belts on Carnaby Street. We bumped into these two guys from Sweden who became in the massive- Yeah, for people that don't,

Jonas Ackerlund becomes this super successful music video director and then feature film director. That's right. In the same place. So we all end up at the marquee and we're all- So here we are in Los Angeles after the movie. I'm sitting there and all of a sudden I see this big tall guy with black hair coming, long black hair comes walking up to me, goes, hi, I'm Jonas Ackerman. I was at your show and at the Marquis and in.

With so many other people. And I go, he says, yeah, it was with the guys in Candlemouse. I go, are you kidding me? What? Well, wait a minute. That means that you know Sasha. You should know Sasha. You were all there at the same time. So I ran

and got Sasha. I go, you've got to meet this guy. He was at the show too. And I didn't know that Jonas Ackerlund was this massive video director. He was, to me, he was the guy that took the picture of the guy.

It was more of a wow, look at, this guy was at the marquee too that I'm, it was more of a, of a, wow, look at, this guy was at the marquee too that I'm introducing. And the other person that we're not mentioning that we should

was a guy called the Right Honorable Philip Harvey. He was known as the Lord of Metal. He was an English aristocrat who would go on safari in Kenya,

take his Land Rover, come back to London and he, I met him through these guys because Phil Harvey was like, when we did the Donington Festival, we finished the Donington Festival. There's a freak guy standing there with a denim jacket with more patches than you can fit on it. And he's in front of a safari van.

It's like, and he comes over to us. He goes, hi there, you've got some pretty serious denims. A really, really fucking cool older guy, right? And he introduces, we were hanging out with him. As it turns out, this is the same guy that Jimi Hendrix spent the last night with. Last night. And he had this house in Clark's Muse.

Phil Harvey had this party house, which was behind Marlboro High Street. Near Baker Street. Baker Street. And I was invited to go to this house. And I literally met the world, like members of, I'll tell you several stories, but he was, Monica Dannemann, who was Hendrix's last girlfriend, was there. There were all these incredible, I mean, I remember City, he invited me over Sunday lunch one day. I'm 15 and a half at the time, right? And I'm sitting there at this table, and suddenly this camper van comes into the Muse, right? And I'm sitting there at this table and suddenly this camper van comes into the muse, right?

And the door slides open and this massive cloud of weed like comes out, comes into the back door. And he said, oh, this is my mate, you know? And so he opened the back door and this guy sat down and was smoking dope. And like he parts his hair to smoke the dope and it's Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin.

Wow. And I'm sitting there at 15 like meeting all these extraordinary people, not just Anvil, but like everyone and then Monica and then all these crazy artists and he knew like Dali back in the day

and so Phil was a character who connected us and those parties were legendary with like Twisted Sister and Maiden and Motorhead. Oh, it was unbelievable. This guy, you know when they say served on a silver platter? I mean served on a silver platter.

He came out with a silver platter. A silver platter filled with every drug in the universe. Would you like some, sir? It's like, oh. Psychedelics. And I made sure

that my mother did not track me down. Oh my God. So that was the world. It was so unexpected and crazy. And then flash forward to many years later, after the movie came out, when these guys went to the classic rock awards,

and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin came up to both of those guys and said, thank you for doing what you do because you keep me inspired doing what you do. And that was the- You give us all hope. Yeah, you give us all hope. That's what Jimmy Page said to these guys. I was shocked when I heard all that.

That's unbelievable. I was just standing there going, did I just hear that? From Jimmy Page? From Jimmy Page? Like, you know what? Yeah, like so many- And he went out of his way,

came right up to both of us. I was like, wow, that is- Yeah, the Anvil movie really somehow had an effect on many people. I mean, that had to be surreal after everything that you guys have endured in the decades. Oh, yeah. Really? The last bunch of years. I mean, I can't tell you.

That particular night at the Classic Rock Awards was, for me, most earth-moving moment of my of my life there there wasn't anybody there that didn't actually somehow come up and congratulate me and but i'm not talking about people i'm talking about the most famous musicians in the world and i'm like going? I mean, when we had our premiere in New York, I remember we were- It was all just surreal because we didn't know, you know. We were talking to Jack Bruce for Christ, come on, man. And Paul McCartney as well. No, no, no.

That's somewhere else. That's somewhere else. Oh yeah, somewhere else, somewhere else. But anyway, but so I was at the, we were at the Bowery Hotel and thank you to Sean McPherson who owns the Bowery hotel because he literally loved the movie and he was like just screen it all the time and we had everyone from like david burn of talking heads and all these incredible people coming and just loving it and meeting the band and and doing all this stuff and one night we

were there and lips comes out from having a smoke on the terrace and he said there's this english guy and this black guy out there and they really want want to meet you. And anyway, so I go out and they're like the Uber Anvil fans. And it's like Chris Martin and Jay-Z and Lips had absolutely no idea who they were. There's an English guy and a black guy, man. They love the Anvil movie. They had me sit down and bought me a drink and everything. You've got to meet these guys. And that would just go on all the time. And then I remember in LA, do you remember that whole, oh, the Dustin Hoffman thing was incredible.

That was great. So Dustin was so good. Dustin Hoffman went to see the movie like three or four times. He brought all of his kids to see it. And then he came to the premiere with Ryan Gosling and all these people, right? And he came up to them afterwards and said, was talking about the the jewish aspect of the story which is a huge part of the film for those who haven't seen it and he was talking about how

he related and anyway so he was in floods of tears and i was trying to get to them and so lips and rob were talking and you know talking about because for those of you who haven't seen the film you know an important thing that was revealed actually while we were shooting was that Rob told me that his grandfather had unfortunately passed away at Auschwitz and his father as a 15-year-old had escaped. And so when Rob wanted to be a heavy metal drummer, his dad was like, great, let's do it. He paid for the first hour.

It was an extraordinary story. And so Dustin was really relating to that. But the best part of it was when rob like was listening to him dustin's crying and rob's going yes like that and then rob rob sides to me and he goes is that the guy from papillon and the thing was that he wasn't quite sure and it was just dust completely in tears and that was what was great is that is that rob didn't know who these people were. Yeah. But that just makes it all the sweeter. Yeah.

It was very charming. A lot of charm. We were doing a photo session here somewhere. And the guy, there was a Canadian photographer. He was freaking out that we were there. He goes, and he's at that particular moment,

he was working with Sandra Bullock and he comes running. And he grabs Rob and I, takes us into where Sandra's getting her, her makeup done. And she meets us and all this. And then Rob comes out and goes, Rob and I, takes us into where Sandra's getting her makeup done and she meets us and all this, and then Rob comes out and goes, that's a pretty hot chick, who is she? You know, that was just usual.

Anyway, that went on. It was, you know, it was not that, it was the things, I think, that have resonated for people, what it's really about and why. As you know, why we're doing this is because the movie is being re-released after 13 years which is quite unusual and so i think it's you know what it's really about it's really that's really something yeah it resonates and it's continuing to find new audiences and younger

audiences because of the heart right it's this beautiful story of what it means to pursue your passion and not give up no matter what in the face of all of these obstacles. And I think audience members, myself included, like fall in love with you guys because you're so earnest and because it's just about the doing of it. Like, yes, you have this dream, we're gonna be rock stars, but irrespective of outcomes or anything like that, like you're showing up every day,

you're putting out albums, you're doing shows, and you're getting by in order to just do the thing. And I think that that's super inspiring because all of us, no matter who we are, we all have a dream or something that we'd like to manifest in our life. And some of us meet obstacles and stop. 99% of life is being there.

Sure, of course. But the showing up no matter what, you matter what is really what it's about. But we can proudly say that the band has really now become our shitty day job. Careful what you wish for, Rob. No, I couldn't be any more happy. He didn't have to be careful. He's very happy with where it is. It still couldn't be enough more happy. He didn't have to be careful. He's very happy with where it is. I'm just saying.

It still couldn't be enough. Yeah, exactly. But you know, I knew it. I always say that because, you know, it's like... There's always room for improvement. You're always doing what you love. Yeah. Not for reasons of money, but for reasons because you love it.

I knew something special was happening. Like when we were first thinking about doing the movie and i went to i took i said to lips come to my uncle marty's house in forest hill on ava road in in in toronto and i said look i just have this instinct i've got to make this film and lips broke down into tears and i was like why is he crying because he knew before anything happened what was going to happen and i was i was really? Because he knew before anything happened, what was going to happen. And I was, I was, I was really certain immediately.

He knew. I knew, I knew. My boat just came in. Hello. Where do you think that comes from? What was that about? That certainty?

Well, what was that about? Part of it is because the failures for no reason, I felt all along that there had to be some kind of counter to it. That even though we have all this bad luck and all this stuff, there's some reason. At the end of the day, this is going to turn around, and I don't know why. I just was completely convinced. Don't know why. I just, I was completely convinced.

And what I was also convinced of, it was going to be somebody that we met and was a fan from a young age, was going to grow up and get into a proper position. And that's when we're going to get our second chance. That's what I really, because we missed the first chance. The first chance came and we got involved with the wrong people. And at the worst time, at the worst time, 1983, everything is starting to blossom for heavy metal.

And now we fall out. We don't do a record for four years. You're done, man. You're roasted. That killed all the momentum. It's like starting over again. And starting over again with way less going for you because everything else has grown up so tall. How are you going to compare and how are you going to contend now that everything and everybody stole everything you did blind to the point where everybody is doing it.

So you're not going to come across as being the special thing anymore. You're done. It's done. It did its thing. There's a famous line in a movie, Slash says it, right? Yeah, but those things were the realities. But the way that I looked at it is that,

okay, we missed our first opportunity, so what's going to happen? It's going to happen. Somebody where we made a huge impression on at a young age is going to grow up to the point and get into a position of power, whether it's going to be owning a record company. I thought it was going to be owning a record company or something. That was always in my mind.

But when I came back from that festival in Italy, after talking to the Candlemask guys, I get an email from Sasha, who, like I said, I hadn't spoken for 20 years. Yeah, it's like, you know, the last time I spoke to him is 1985, and it's 2005. It's like, hello, like, where have you been? Yeah, but all those years, we were always wondering where Sasha went. So, from my side, what had happened was, and going back to the original story we were telling, was that I was into metal and then 17, 18, 19, I got into Bowie, I got into the Stooges.

I kind of grew up a little bit, but always loved anvil and always loved metal, but I just expanded as well. So I loved other things. And I kind of went off on my journey and I found myself some years later in Hollywood. Well, before that though, you were a drummer. You were the original drummer in Bush.

That is correct. So you had a moment. Yeah, so Gavin Rostale and I had gone to school together, to two schools, Northbridge House and Westminster. And then, yeah, I'd been a founding member of that band, which at that time was called Future Primitive. Still a good name. And I played on a lot of those songs

and all the original material from the first Bush album, which was huge. You know, I started off with them. I was the first real drummer to play those songs. And it was, you know, and there was also other stuff going on in my personal life. For whatever reason, I kind of left that band. And I kind of then got my life sorted out and decided to, I always wanted to be a writer. So I became a journalist.

And then I was like, well, actually, I really want to make movies. And then I found myself in UCLA film school. And then I got lucky and had a film made. Anyway, so I had developed something of a Hollywood career and had had just a big movie made. And I was sort of in 2004 or 5, I was kind of like, had this moment. I remember I was at, you know, I had this beach house, you know, and I was sitting in like had this moment I remember I was at you know I had this beach house

you know and I was sitting in this beach house and I was like I got into this movie movie business I was sort of quote unquote successful whatever that means I was successful

now my agents were like you have to go and meet Adam Sandler and you have to do all this stuff and you're going to be paid all this money and I was like when did the Terminal come out? that was made in 2004 yeah so I had I made a movie with Spielberg and Hanks and yeah. So I'd done that and you know, there was lots of opportunity, but the opportunity to me was to make,

was to make money, you know, and I was not happy. I was like, is this what it is? Like, this is not really, because there was so many pressures to kind of go and do stuff that I didn't really feel. And I was having this really low moment when most people would have said, you know, you should be thrilled. And I was at a certain level, but I was also like, I got into this business to tell stories

that were really personal and that meant something to me. And I was thinking about how the hell am I going to do that rather than being part of this giant corporate machine because my agents were saying, you know, you can get XXX amount of money to do this big studio thing and work with such and such a star and i just realized my god it's a business and i just was like i was a bit of a i was a bit like at a crossroads and for whatever reason anvil came into my mind and i was like fuck what happened to anvil man because i knew you know metall you know, Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax,

all those bands who'd been influenced by Anvil and by, you know, that whole group of bands, you know, had gone on to become mega bands. But what had happened to Anvil? So I went online and I discovered this rinky-dink website. Please don't be insulted if I call it rinky-dink. But it was, you know... That's okay, man.

It's a fan site. It's a fan site. One of the first ones I had. It's a fan site. It was a fan site. It's a fan site. One of the first ones. It's a fan site. It was a fan site. It was a fan site since 1996. It was a fan site. It was early, man.

Anyway, so I went on and I discovered this fan site and I discovered that Anvil had just played like at a pub in Quebec, right? Just that weekend. And then I discovered, oh my God, they've done like nine other albums that I don't know. Anyway, so I wrote to the website and I remember writing and I wrote to, end and then i discovered oh my god they've done like nine other albums that i don't know anyway so i wrote to the website and i remember writing and i wrote to to lips and i said uh dear lips i don't

know if you remember me uh my anvil name was tea bag this is tea bag you know blah blah blah i would love to just speak to you and catch up so i just, they kept going, but they're not famous and they just kept going. And within an hour, I got an email back from Lips saying, T-Bag, we thought you died or became a lawyer. And I did. Both of those things had happened. I had had an overdose and I had gone to law school. So I was like, yeah, it's roughly accurate.

So I had just like, you know, gone through some crazy times. And I said to Lips, I said, accurate so I had just like you know gone through some some crazy times and I said to Lips I said dude I gotta see you I just had this feeling talking to him again it was like 20 years was nothing it was like two minutes and I said I'm gonna fly you out to LA this weekend would you come if I bought you a ticket and so I bought him a ticket and I'll never forget I pulled up in my car at LAX and Lips came out and he was wearing the same Scorpions t-shirt that he had been wearing 20 years before when I had last seen him.

And he was so happy. And I was like, dude, what's happening, man? And I was thinking, God, this has been really hard because all the bands like have gone on to be mega and Anvil's like playing a pub in Quebec and I'm sure it's great, but you know, this is tough. And Lips was like, no man, we're doing the new album

and we're doing this and we've got this tour and it was just like, at first, if I'm really honest, my thought was, fuck man, this is like a bit sad. Like, you should just give this up. But you know, what happened was,

as he started to explain, I was so lifted by his enthusiasm and his passion and his commitment. And it was just like, I need this person in my life right now. Here I am with all this quote unquote success. And I'm miserable. As most people, when they get on the other side of the curtain, discover. Well, to me, he missed all these albums.

He's saying we don't exist. To you, we didn't exist. But to me, I've been here all along. And then he's like, you've got to listen to this. And how about that? And then so we started. Anyway, so what happened was I was so like, I just was so happy to see him.

And we called Rob. And I was just so, I felt like that old feeling of my friends. And I felt this incredible feeling like, this has come into my life for some reason right now. I don't quite know what the reason is, but this has come into my life and I felt so inspired. And I took lips to meet, you know, the best man at my wedding, my mentor, you know,

Steve Zalian, who had, you know, written Schindler's List amongst many other things. And I took lips down to Malibu to meet Steve and Elizabeth. you know, Steve Zalian, who had, you know, written Schindler's List, amongst many other things. And I took Lips down to Malibu to meet Steve and Elizabeth. And I remember making coffee with Steve and watching Lips kind of explain Anvil to Elizabeth, who was somewhat bemused through the window. And Steve said, who is this guy? And I said, this is my friend Lips. And he was in this band. And I told him the whole story. and Steve went online and started looking up lyrics and was like they have a song called show me your tits and I said yes they do but it's really like funny and they have a sense of humor anyway and I told him the story that they're still going and all the bands they and he said you know what there may be a

there may be a film here and I said really he said just think about it so that hadn't even occurred to you that was not part of the motivation or anything at that point. It was sort of like I had an instinct, but in a strange way, Steve crystallized that instinct. He was like, okay, what I'm thinking is that, but he kind of brought it out because I was so enthusiastic and excited. And it was immediately,

it was a story about just not giving up no matter what. When most rational sane people would have stopped long ago. The indomitable spirit of being committed to your art and being committed to your friend. Because remember, like Lips and Rob met when they were 13, 14 years old and they decided to rock together forever. And literally, as we sit here today, it's 50 years later. They're 65 and they're still doing it.

Like how unusual and unique was that? And that was already going on. Without making millions of dollars. Sure. We're not talking about Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. Doing it for the passion. Two guys who did it for the, and ultimately it's the same reasoning. Yeah.

It is the same reasoning at heart. There's no different. Rocking the rock. They got super successful doing it. I didn't get so successful doing it. But you still did it. But I still did it, and I still do it for the same reason. I love music.

That's why I do it. You take money as a souvenir. That's about it. But generally, you're doing it because you really love to do this. You're driven to do it. My thing that drives me most is I've got to put together a song that's going to satisfy this motherfucker. If it can satisfy him, because the way that part of your growing up relationship, if you understand what I mean, you have a buddy that goes out and buys everybody's record and is like is like the

the the the the dictionary of of information you know what I'm saying that's who that's who I'm working with is somebody who has knowledge of everything that everybody did and so when when I go and bring something to the table he goes I know exactly what we could do i got examples from this song this song this song and then before you know it because of those arrangement ideas and with that kind of volume of knowledge you've got songs in matters of minutes so so i had so i had this instinct about that's what makes our writing work so well i had this instinct about i gotta i gotta make this film and i i and I gotta test out this thing because I thought initially it was gonna be like a dramatic

film like I would have actors and it would be inspired and anyway so finally I got to the place where like what am I doing and at the same time actually Ozzy Osbourne had called me to see if I would do his movie at Paramount and I was thinking about that and I was like why would you hire an actor to play

Ozzy? He's, you can't beat that. Well, like, why would you do it? So I was thinking, hmm. And then basically, I called my friend Rebecca Yeldum, who's a fantastic producer. And Rebecca had produced the Motorcycle Diaries and the Kite Runner and all these incredible movies. She'd been a programmer at Sundance. And I called her up and I said, let me tell you a story. And so I took her to dinner and told her the story of Anvil, of this friendship with the guys who hadn't given up and they're still going or whatever.

And she said, I hate heavy metal and I have to make this movie with you. It's absolutely great. And so Rebecca, who literally was not, you know, just came on board. And I went then to, and Rebecca and Lips and Rob and I all met in Toronto. She was there, I can't remember, with the movie. And we all to and Rebecca and Lips and Rob and I all met in Toronto she was there I can't remember with a movie

and we all met and Rebecca said I'm going to take you out to this restaurant and you know you got emotional at the restaurant and Rebecca said to you you know what's going on and you said

I delivered fish to this restaurant for eight years and this is the first time I've eaten here and she just suddenly was like okay i understand what this film is this is a film about everyone who has to do what they've got to do to do the thing they love and she was just suddenly got really on board and i was like look i'm never going to sell this movie to anyone i'm going to have to finance it and then there was the big decision i got to get a crew together. And I went to this terrific cameraman called Chris Seuss, who's absolutely brilliant. And I hired Chris and I hired Matt Dennis for sound.

And we put this thing and I just flew to Eastern Europe because they were going to do a tour. And I just thought, this is now is the moment. And I didn't know what I was doing. I funded the whole thing myself. It was nearly destroyed me financially, if I'm being really honest. And multiple times we were told, just give this up, just give it up, stop it.

And then we made the film and I started editing. I had fantastic editors, Andrew Dickler and Jeff Renfrow, who were absolutely brilliant. We edited it on my dining room table. It was all self-funded and we had no idea what we were doing. And we all stood in a circle i remember when we had the first cut of the movie and we were all in my house at montcalm and we just kissed the dvd we would send it to sundance hoping that something would happen and they they let us yeah well the the funniest thing was it going okay we gotta now let's see if we get into

sundance i go what do you mean get in? You knew all along. What do you mean get in? This thing's going all the way. You're going to take the DVD over to the people there. And I go, well, I thought, what, they haven't seen it? Yeah, there's a whole thing there. I thought it's a shoe-in. What do you mean?

There were like 25,000 films looking for like 20 places. Yeah, and then I went, oh, really? Oh. Coming back for more, but first. What I remember about that time, I mean, first of all, I remember being at the barbecue that you had at your beach house when Lips first came to LA. And I remember meeting, I'm sure you don't remember that, but I vividly remember that. And I thought, what is going on here?

I didn't understand. All of my friends were like, who is this guy? Well, because it was a very bougie situation. And then there's, you know, Lips is here. And I was like, you were like the person I didn't know. And you're like, this is my friend Lips. And you told the story. And I was like, well, that's interesting. We'll see what is here. And I was like, you were like the person I didn't know. And you're like, this is my friend Lips. And you told the story. And I was like, well, that's interesting. We'll see what happens here. But I didn't even have the idea for the movie then. I was just like,

this is my friend. And then Lips told me some stuff and we talked about Robbo and the band and what had happened and all the different things. And it was like, there was just this reconnection between all of us that was so surprising oh yeah some some such hilarious i had i had a interview that was sent to me from from france and we start doing this interview he says i'm bored with doing these interviews can you answer for me so i wrote all his answers for the French interview. And it was like, I wrote the most. I was literally in, we were literally in tears from the, like, there was, we were giving a fictitious story about what happened.

How did we, how did Anvil get together and all this stuff. And there was such unbelievable stories about Squirrelly working in a cemetery. So they asked what the former member's doing, and I said he's a grave-digging assistant at a certain cemetery. He likes Leonard Cohen. I just, we just fucking laughed.

We're just making it up as we go. I was like in tears from, just hilarious. But I remember, first, before you go on, sorry. I remember when you returned from that trip to eastern europe and i know that was a very difficult trip and there was like a lot of issues and you were freaking out because you're financing this whole thing and it's teetering on disaster but all i remember about that was your just glee and enthusiasm at showing you you were like you have to see this footage and you were like well sit down and let me show you what's going on so i had no doubt that this would

ultimately become something because you were so invested in it like you had so much passion poured into like making this great but every time this guy would start the fucking camera shit was going on man you just go what okay let me give you an example of what happened our first day of shooting in prague we shot and it was just madness no we're not getting fucking paid where's the fucking club owner you are too late if i was too late i wouldn't have fucking played pal you're gonna fucking pay me i did my work i want to get paid the promoter tried to pay the band in goulash. That's nice. I guess he figures if he gives me a bit of goulash, I'll forget about it.

There was a physical fight. You should have told us you weren't paying us before we fucking played. You fucking piece of shit. You fucking pay me. You're going to fuck us for the world. I'm going to fucking kick your fucking teeth. I'm crazy, man. I don't want to fuck you. Yeah, I am fucking crazy. I just worked my ass off and you won't fucking pay me. You're a motherfucker. It was just madness, man? Yeah, I am fucking crazy. I just worked my ass off and you won't fucking pay me. You're a motherfucker.

It was just madness, right? So my cameraman, who is absolutely brilliant, Chris Seuss, at the end of the shoot said, okay, look, I need to talk to you, right? And he was very serious. And I thought, fuck, man. I just thought he'd got some news, like a family member was dying or something.

I thought he was going to have to leave. So he says, let's go back to the hotel. We go in the elevator. I was like, do you want to talk? He said, just hold on. We go into his hotel room. He turns around. I'm standing in the little living area

of his hotel suite in Prague. He locks the door and he turns around to me and he says, I need to know, are they actors? My own crew did not believe what was happening. They thought that I had hired... The whole thing was a hoax. I was doing like a Michel Gondry-style meta joke on the crew. And I was like, dude, no, this is Anvil.

He said, I don't believe you. I said, go online, man. Look it up. And he looked up 25 years of history. And he was like, have you... Like, he could not believe that it was real and that's when i knew we had something because it was impossible still to this day people think it's a mockumentary some people think that they don't believe it's a real film and they like in galway in ireland when

we when we i've been accused of being an actor yeah so these irish girls came up to rob reiner and they were like dude you're not rob not Rob Reiner. That's the director of Spinal Tap. He goes, you want to see my passport? So he shows these passports. No, you Hollywood types can get anything printed. Any,

he, they did not believe him showing his passport. These girls thought it was a prop. I'm like, no, it's, it's real. People still don't,

but it's real. So I knew that was something. And then the second thing that happens, when we finally got the film together, and we did get into Sundance, we screened it. And it was incredible. Like, all these people showed up to support us. And I was like, you know,

I had literally mortgaged my house for this film. And I was like, if this doesn't work, it's like a disaster. But I was like so pleased I'd done it anyway. And I was thinking to myself, as the movie was beginning, like, if it all goes horribly wrong, like, I still am proud of this film I just don't care and then people started laughing and then the audience started to get involved and then they got

emotional and at the end of the film there was such an incredible response standing ovations it was a genuine response you know at film festivals film festivals, sometimes the air is, you know, everyone's a little bit high, but you could tell it was really extraordinary. And Anvil then went out afterwards to the, it was snowing in Sundance, and they had this van and they were selling t-shirts and copies of the album, This Is 13. And there was a line, like almost everyone from the theater, which was like 700 people, was trying to buy stuff. It was madness. 700 people, was trying to buy stuff. It was madness. And I remember there was this 78-year-old woman who was in line and who came back with three This Is 13 CDs and a T-shirt. And I was like, what does this, like it was like Angela Lansbury.

Well, like, what is she doing? And I stopped her. I said, madam, I hope you don't mind. I'm just asking, like, who are you? And she was a history teacher at a high school in Park City, retired. You know, she was basically a high school teacher. And I said, well, why did you buy three of these records?

And she held them up and she said, I will never listen to these, but I just want to help. And I knew then that this film had the potential to reach people way beyond metal, beyond music. And it was about the human spirit. And it contained, and again, when you're making a film, you have no idea what you're doing. You just hope that something happens. And in this case, I just hoped. And what we discovered from the film was that it was about not giving up. You know, it was about friendship. It was about family. It was about

not giving up on a dream and like what could be more universal than that sure and i think that's why here we are 13 years later releasing the film again it's because of those themes you know and it's also becomes timeless yeah it's this meta story because the film is crazy successful and that breathes life into your career and then you get this you know new third act or second act depending on how you look at it where suddenly you have these opportunities really came in and it couldn't have come in at a better time and i mean life life has got a lot of different things that you realize when everybody else's is is closing down their shop i just opened up

right which is a great thing because when you're closing down, everybody's closing down their shop because they're burnt out and they have no heart left to do it. And they're quitting. And it's like, I find that, how do you, if you're a real artist, you should be here till you're pushing up daisies. And that's the end of it. And we had so many moments, like, ironically, you know,

someone said that, you know, in one sense, this that's the end of it. And we had so many moments, like, ironically, you know, someone said that, you know, in one sense, this film is a portrait of failure. But the irony being that it led to the band's incredible success to this day. And I remember so many moments,

but one of them was ACDC asked Anvil to open for them at Giant Stadium. Yeah, I remember that. And I remember standing on the side of the stage and me and Lips were like, I was just,

I got so, you know, it was really emotional, man, because you had 50,000 people screaming for Anvil and this was this little movie that we all kind of made in my kitchen and edited on my dining room table. And it was just like overwhelming

and that has continued even in the years, the films, you know, in the last 13 years and just so many unexpected crazy things. So the movie opens with all these luminaries and legends like Slash and Scott Ian and Lars Ulrich talking about how influential Anvil was and how much they love the band. And it sort of smash cuts to you delivering food to schools

and you get this portrait of current day Anvil and what your lives are like. So while these other bands who were influenced and kind of behind you leapfrog, you become crazy successful. You guys are still back in Toronto, kind of doing your thing. How did you not become like bitter or resentful

or were there moments of that? Like, I just see you guys as as just very grounded and lips i mean you're you're this person who has this huge capacity for positivity it depends on how you want to look exactly exactly that's you know it's a real big thing if you measure everything oh i gotta be a millionaire to be considered successful. You're an idiot. It's like owning a hardware store. I want to be Home Depot. You don't have to be Home Depot. You can be the small hardware store on Main Street

and do just fine and make a living and be known to everybody in the town just the same way as Home Depot. You know you're not making the millions that Home Depot is. You don't have a place that can hold it. But it doesn't matter because you're doing what you love. You have passion. You love being that small shop.

And that's exactly what Anvil is. It's not a story about a band that wasn't successful. You don't call a band who's done 12 albums at that point unsuccessful. They got 12 albums out. Being unsuccessful would be something, okay, they did an album and they don't exist anymore for 20, 30 years. No, we did an album every couple of years,

generally speaking, for our entire- You have like 18 albums now? Yeah, so it's like- 19. That's not unsuccessful at all. And also the re-release of the film is coordinated. It's yet more success. But instead of having a one-hit album in 1980 and then being retired in 1982 and being here at 65 with nothing to do and all my money's gone,

I'm having the time of my life at a time when I can't do physical labor. Everything worked out perfectly as far as I'm concerned for my life. When I had the physicality and the abilities to go do physical labor, it kept me in top, top physical condition. Here I am at 65. I'm not 300 pounds. I still weigh 150 pounds, whatever. And the thing about that tour that you see in the film

is like, this is the attitude. Like they would go out and play to someone in a rocking chair. They played the same show they played at Giant Stadium to 50,000 people. They live it. They do it. And I just found that so like,

well, that's what it is. Why are you doing this? You have to ask yourself why you're doing it. You're doing it because it's fulfilling your soul. That's what you is. Why are you doing this? You have to ask yourself why you're doing it. You're doing it because it's fulfilling your soul. That's what you're driven to do. That's what I do. I am not driven, I got a top single hit. I'm not interested, never was.

I wanted to be the band that existed on an underground level for 40 years. And then on their 50th year, when they're just about finished, they put out a top 10 hit album, and it sells like crazy. Now you're retired. At 75 years old, like proper. But it's like, I'll give you an example.

As you mentioned, all the luminaries like Lars Ulrich, you know, who of course knew the band, who I think we met back way, way, way back in the day. You know, Lars called me after he said, you know, we, Metallica, watched Anvil on our jet drinking champagne in tears because that could have been us. And there was just something so,

like you were talking about sliding doors earlier. Right. You know. Well, Steve Harrison from the same thing said that exactly i could be you you could be me because to a great degree uh rock and roll is really to a great degree 99 chance and being like let me say yeah there's luck there's timing there's signing the wrong contract there's having the wrong manager at the wrong time, all that kind of stuff. So there's great, Dave Grohl said that to us.

You make your own luck, but you gotta connect with it. In certain respects, you can make the argument that you guys are way ahead of your time because it was always just about connecting with your audience directly, right? And just putting out these albums for the people that love you. And now we're finally in this economy

where artists musicians can do that they can sidestep these gatekeepers and these record companies i mean for a long time during the formative years when all these bands were getting huge it was the record company making a decision this is the band we're going to invest in they're in cahoots with the radio stations this is what gets played this is the producer We're going to buy them songs. We're going to have musicians play their parts because they can't play them well enough. We're going to get makeup artists so that they don't look so ugly. Everything that they do and did and probably still continue to do and groom pop.

But you've remained true. You have your loyal fan base. You've always served them and you have that connection and you're fulfilled in doing that yes that's right but it's actually over the last since the movie it's been expanding sure that's actually part of a great reality yeah it's it's not it's we always have new people all the time by the way when we're making the movie we had no idea what was going to happen at all like I remember Robbo during the filming

there was some crazy stuff he pulled me aside and he said you better edit this right because this could be really bad and I was like dude you've got to

trust me man I love you guys I'm your fan I want all of this to work for the band and I was very and I said to them when I showed them

the film for the first time I said if there's anything you really hate or anything that you don't feel is authentic or true I will take it out I'm not in the business of trying to upset my friends I want all of this struggle to be shown so that people will understand what you guys have been through to be able to do this I'm fucking sick of it I can't fucking deal with it. You know, we're going to come apart at the seams. I don't know what's going to happen. I'm fucking, I'm so fucking fed up. Like we got to get a drummer. I mean, I don't know what to say. He's fired. I mean, what can I say? Yeah. And I think your strength as a, as a writer and a filmmaker, Sasha is understanding that emotional piece and knowing how to tap into the heart center of what the story

is really about so come on the guy the guy fills us in the middle of a heated brutal argument you fucking listen to me you fucking asshole look you smile you're smiling at a fucking loser that you're a fucking loser that's what you are he's got a big smile on his face like what the but at that point i waited two years he's gonna make sure that the audience is in love with gold from heaven you know what i mean because here's the thing like and you said it earlier like it's not about like when rebecca said like i don't like metal but i need to tell this story it's like you don't have to care about metal at all and i you know i think getting people past that like getting them to understand that which perhaps is a barrier to getting people past that, getting them to understand that, which perhaps

is a barrier to getting people to see the movie, it's not really about that. It's about this lifelong friendship and what these guys have endured over these many years and this passion that they've shared to pursue this thing that they love no matter what. First thing I want to say is I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Do you understand that? I'm under a hell of a lot of stress, okay? If I lose my temper, if anybody knows, you know. I'm tired of being the fall guy. I understand.

I'm tired of it, man. I'm sorry. You're my fucking brother, man. Who else can I fucking cry on their shoulder and fucking say shit to? Who else? Who's the closest person I got in the world? Think about that. But you know what's interesting is, as you say, it's right.

It started off as a kind of metal rock thing. But in terms of music, it's now expanded to country. I know that there are rappers who have Anvil on their tour bus as opposed to other films. It's just gone through whole of music, and then it's gone a little bit through sport,

and then it's gone a little bit corporate. Like, I know that the movie was shown at a corporate retreat for a massive Fortune 500 company. You know, just in terms of like... Yeah, it's just, it's short in schools. I know. Like, you know, it's short in schools. We've done Q&As at universities and stuff.

Yeah, yeah, they're short in schools. We did one in Ireland. Yeah, a big university. It's just be, and you could never have imagined. And what's beautiful about it is that it continues to keep going, like out of the blue. And I know unexpectedly, you know,

and Lips and Rob have received, you know, hundreds of emails over the years from people who are really suffering. And, you know, in some cases, terminally ill. Yeah, I mean, this is like what I want to know about, like, because there is a whole like inspirational kind of, you know, self-help piece to this in that people are finding inspiration through your story

and are seeking you out for, you know, a little piece of that. Yeah, yeah, it's been going on. They thank you, they thank us a lot, right? Yeah, for some reason it gives people hope when they watch that. Because we're so hopeless. We give people hope. I don't know.

Jimmy Page said, you give us all hope. Well, it's okay. It's honest because this is the truth. Yeah. This is the truth. And I think that was the thing because of our relationship that goes back for 40 years. Actually, when the film comes out, it'll be 40 years that since we first met, you know, there's something pure and they, these guys had to trust me and I had to tell them, listen, I am going to have to show stuff that's going to be

funny. First of all, you guys are fucking funny, right? And second of all, I'm going to take the audience on a journey. And if I encourage the audience to kind of laugh at the anvil stuff, which is funny, trust me, it will turn. And by the end, the people that they thought were funny in 15 minutes in are going to be, hopefully, if it works, really moved by and connect with in an unexpected way. And that's everything, as you point to. A theme of my work is like people who are on the outskirts or, you know, different, whether it's Herve Villachez or, you know, Alfred Hitchcock or Tom Hanks stuck in an airport, you know, these are all people that are not mainstream society and bringing you into their emotional world and making you realize that we are all basically the same, you know, and it doesn't matter whether you wear a bullet belt and a,

you know, and a beanie and what kind of music you're playing, you know, we're all human beings. And that's what I think was the intention of the film. And I think what's really good is that it's reached people in a human way. So it started off in a music thing and now it's just gone to people. Right. Some of the most remarkable stuff for me is talking to cancer patients and people who have lost, are about to lose everything. And it actually gives me an appreciation for how lucky I am in so many ways.

It's actually, I don't realize what I've done for somebody else but i know what they're doing for me it's making me feel it was remarkable um to the point where uh i've been actually involved in doing um zoom sessions with people who are terminally ill um and with other musicians that are famous, and fulfilling their dream of meeting somebody that's famous. Oh, that's cool. And although it seems very frivolous and nothing to me, to just sit here and go, hey, it's nice to meet you, man. I'm really sorry to hear about your sickness, but you know what?

Every minute counts. So let's have a good time right now, and let's just talk about all kinds of things. And you don't necessarily talk about Anvil's music or anything like that. You end up talking about just life in general, about how much they love their children and different aspects of other people's lives.

And you're going, wow, look at that. And I'm thinking, look, you'd never think that in a million years that somebody who plays a guitar with a vibrator means that much to somebody who's dying. It's like, what? But that's what's really important. And that's what matters in life, right? So I think there's, you know,

to your point of taking audiences on a journey and, you know, having them really connect, I think we're all in search of finding something that's real. And there's an earnestness with the way that you guys live your lives and conduct yourselves. And just this unbridled, like, authenticity. Can I also say a kindness? Because yeah, anything that's getting to that been sweet to me, right? I mean, what I the first thing I

around because of that experience, what I noticed the first thing, as I said, I noticed about Anvil was they spoke to me their fan in exactly the same way that they spoke to Steve Harris of Iron Maiden or whoever it was, right? There was no difference for them. They were kind. I'm not the first fan, by the way, that Anvil has invited on the road. A lot of their roadies are fans who get to get up close and personal.

So their attitude, their whole attitude towards people and fans, you know, had they been, you know, I got into that changing room at the Marquee Club in September 1982, and they were like, I'm busy talking to the guy from Iron Maiden. You know, none of this would have happened.

It was who they were. And there's something very instructive about that, you know, in terms of like how you live your life and how you treat other people. Oh, well, we don't know. To us, it was more remarkable. I don't know. More remarkable that when he walked into the changing room, it was much more remarkable. I don't know. More remarkable that when he walked into the changer,

it was much more remarkable in the sense that he knew the music so inside out and he wasn't from the same country. And this was our first time overseas. This is the first time we've actually met a fan who has been introduced and knows us by our music from far away. He didn't come see us at the gasworks. He didn't come see us at the Young Station. He knows nothing of what we've done to get where we are,

but he knows our music thoroughly. And it was an amazement. Look at how powerful music is that we've inspired this kid who lives here in england this is what we it was this is what we hope it was because of their music that that's a movie it's because of the music i connected in with how extraordinary they were and are and it's astonishing that here we are like 40 years later discussing this i can't and i can't believe that you know we're very fortunate that, so the re-release,

I'll just explain a little bit of how this happened. Yeah, well, let's preface that by saying the movie goes on to touch millions of people all over the world. It's since been placed on all of these, you know, best rock documentaries of all time lists from Newsweek to The Guardian to, you know, NME, like all of these places have placed Anvil,

The Story of Anvil among the top three, five, 10 rock documentaries of all time. I mean, and we look at these lists because we got the Newsweek list recently and you're like, you're on a list with like, you know, Woodstock and Gimme Shelter and, you know, and the Bob, No Way Home, the Bob Dylan movie and all these incredible films

and Amy, which I love, you know, and it's like hard to believe. Like, what? This is our little movie. And we've encountered, all of us, over the years, so many fans and other filmmakers who just, you can't believe that they've even seen the film.

You're so sort of touched. Well, the thing is, about it is the access. and it really is about the access of the of the director to the subjects of the documentary he had a hundred percent access you don't usually get that and trust and trust you just you're not going to get it who's who the hell is going to you know have their basically hands around each other's throat and let yourself get filmed? During that whole thing, when I was saying that,

he's saying I waited two, three years for this. We didn't have, it's very, very uncommon for us to get like that. We got like that through the pressures and stress of being in the studio and everything that was going on. Working with a crazy producer. Everything was culminated it and created it. And it was also that the band was really on the edge. Like it was either make or break, like this was going to happen or not. The whole band was the, and obviously when there's a movie. Everything, he's on the edge of, am I going to make it with this? I'm on the edge with, I've spent everything we've got in the bank.

I've lent money from my sister. Just an endless list of, oh my God, if this goes sour, we're done. And it continued because when we had this incredible reaction at Sundance, it was in 2008. And the documentary market was the absolute, it was a disaster. It was the 2008 and the documentary market was the absolute, it was a disaster. It was the financial crisis. And, you know, I was like facing love, people love. I remember one major distributor came to see the movie, came out in tears.

He said, I absolutely love your movie. I just can't sell it. It's just too, you know, it's just too weird to sell major. Anyway, so I remember being on the phone with my agent and manager, and they were like, look, you've been offered this DVD deal with this company, very good company, you'll get some of the money back, and you should just take the deal. Everyone loves this movie, you know.

And I just thought about it overnight, and I was like, fuck it. No. I'm fucking releasing this movie into theaters. And I called up Lips lips and rob and i said we're not giving it away to some dvd company it'll disappear this movie is too important because every place that we'd shown it had had i just trusted the audience and so i took a mortgage to take them to take the movie out and take it into theaters and we got an amazing guy called richard maramovitz in new york and we got an amazing guy called Richard Maramovitz in New York. And we got an amazing guy called Scott Feinstein and Cynthia Swartz. And I paid for all that

because I knew this movie needed to get out there. And it was like, I was already done, but I was like, I'm done. Fuck it. I'm going. I remember that. I mean, that was such a ballsy thing to do. I had no choice. It was like, if you're done, you're done. It was pre-Netflix and all the hysteria around documentaries. Absolutely. And I remember like you trying to figure out what you were gonna do. And I- And to like double down.

I mean, how much of that is a hat tip to kind of the inspirational influence of you guys, right? Like you're like, that would have been an obvious choice for you, right? Absolutely. Of course, always invest in yourself. of you guys, right? Like you're like, that would have been an obvious choice for you, right? Absolutely. Of course, always invest in yourself. It's never a question of whether it's obvious.

It's like there's no other option. You're doing something and it's like, I've got to go through with it. It is going to crash. I would say the whole of my life. I don't have to do an album and go okay well i'm gonna bail because i don't think the song is working out no i'm gonna finish it and i gotta get this job done man and i had i was in this exactly the same position i think what you pointed out is absolutely right i was like what

would anvil do they would fucking double down and they'd they'd go for it so i got this money and we hired richard and scott and we took out. And it was just astonishing what happened. Like the week that we were released, they were on CNN, good morning. Well, what we did, we had this whole vision of how this was going to work. And we got everything that we needed, you know, everything, every step of the way,

we would discuss it. And then we'd make a decision. We would do this, do that. We got this guy, Josh, who could book all the theaters, book the band into the theaters. So we did the movie and then the band. It's like a road show. And we did it as the Anvil Experience. And it happened at the LA.

And that's how we released the movie through America. So people are going, fuck, they watched the movie, and all of a sudden, the next thing they know, they got me standing beside them in the aisle. We do a flying V. Playing March of the Crabs. Are you, what are you, kidding me? And the way it all came to life was it happened at the LA Film Festival.

We got in. We actually ended up, I think, winning the audience award at LA. Ford Amphitheater. The movie was shown on a giant screen. You were there. I was there. And it was 1500 people, every band from like, I can't remember, like Weezer to whoever. It was just everyone was there. The movie played like gangbusters. It was the summer. And then at the

end of the movie, people were freaking out. Suddenly a spotlight and you saw Lips on a Roman column, 60 feet in the air with his flying V and people went nuts because here's the audience able to make this a happy ending for the band and they've just been through with them through this madness and that was how we took the movie out we did it in Japan and it was mental in Japan we got chased in Japan we did I mean it was bonk and we did it all over the world we did it in London and um I you know there's two people I really want to mention. Shepherds Bush. One of them is Shepherds Bush Empire, two shows.

It was like crazy. Scott Ian from Anthrax came out to support. You know, the really sweet thing, and I just have to give a nice compliment to someone, is Keanu Reeves, who I knew. And I said, dude, we've got the London Film Festival. And like, is there any way that you could come and help? And he said, well, what do you want me to do?

I said, well, if you could just come and maybe intro the film. I just thought bad about asking. And you know what? He flew himself from LA to London and he introduced the film and he did the press line. And because people knew he was coming, 3,000 girls showed up. And we had the Woody Allen premiere was blown out of the water. We suddenly, and we had, and so there were people like that, our angels. And the other angel who I think is a long-term and super important angel is a guy called Rick

Krim. And Rick Krim was the head of talent at VH1 at the time, one of the original MTV executives. And VH1 had passed on Anvil, which was upsetting. Anyway, cut a long story short, two VH1 executives were on holiday with their wives in Germany. And they were somewhere in Munich or whatever. And someone noticed, oh, there's a film festival downstairs. This was like a rinky dink film festival with like 11 people at it and they were drunk and they thought oh let's go down and anvil was showing because our policy was we're

just going to send this everywhere we possibly can something we were hoping that something would happen so these two vacationing vh1 executives drunkenly go to some nothing film festival come back to new york and say to rick crim you've got to see this movie he sees the movie and that begins everything going and vh1 came in and mtv and you've got to see this movie. He sees the movie and that begins everything going. And VH1 came in and MTV and, you know, Van Toffler. The funniest thing is, of course, he had told me a few months before this that VH1 had passed.

And all of a sudden we get, Rob gets an email from somebody at VH1. I want a t-shirt. And can you please tell me what I have to do to acquire it? What VH1 has to do to acquire the movie. So he writes to their website, gets a t-shirt and said, I want a t-shirt and can you please tell me what I have to do to acquire the movie? What VH1 has to do to acquire the movie. So it writes to their website, gets a t-shirt and said, I want this movie. They call me and say, VH1 is calling. I'm like, but they passed.

Anyway, what I didn't know was that the person who passed had been fired for passing on the movie. And that began. And then VH1 came in and they supported the release and they supported, you know, we even did a best picture campaign. Right, I know. For Anvil, which we had a can- But you did, did you win

the Independent Spirit Award? Yes, we won the Independent Spirit Award and we won- And then another kind of like angel in this is, you're still wearing that from that, wow.

From that night. Oh my God. That's the Anvil commitment. Yeah, 13 years ago. I still wear the same pants from that night. And Dave Grohl gave that amazing speech.

Dave Grohl was, I mean, he was amazing. Actually, interestingly, Dave Grohl introduces our new album. Our new album has a song called Take a Lesson. And that's the name of the song. It's a quote from Dave Grohl. And what happened was,

we finished all the recording and the guys mixing and whatnot. I walk into the fucking control room and he goes, listen, here's the opening cut for the album. And I go, what do you mean? And he starts the thing up and it's Dave doing the introduction. At the Spirit Awards. From the Spirit Awards saying, this is a lesson in perseverance.

This is a lesson. From the heart. A lesson in passion. It's a pleasure. And I've been in the right place twice in my life. And this time I get to introduce a great rock and roll band. And he introduces Anvil. And that's how the beginning of our album starts.

And the song's called Take a Lesson. I mean, Grohl was incredible. Because the lyrics actually really talk with the message he was saying. Yeah. It all, it came organically. We didn't plan it.

Yeah, we didn't plan it and it ended up like that. I mean, so the Spirit Awards were incredible. Dave Grohl was incredible. When Anvil do their performance,

you kind of cut away to a very bemused looking Robert Duvall who doesn't really understand what's happening. He was really like, what about Elton John doing this? Elton John was doing this.

Christopher Plummer was there, too. That's right. We had a very good run with the film. It was out there. There's one quite funny story. We went to the Emmys at the Carnegie Hall in the arts and whatever, docs, Emmys, whatever.

And me and rebecca was seated like right up on the fifth floor so we were like okay we're definitely not winning anything and so anyway cut a long story short rebecca says to me just get it just go down there in case something happens right so i go into the elevator to go down to the floor where they're giving out the awards and i got stuck in the lift for about an hour. And then I came out to discover that Anvil had won the Emmy and I was stuck in an elevator.

And so then I went backstage and I said, I made a movie about a band that got lost and I got stuck in an elevator. And so Lester Holt had me come out and they gave me the Emmy. But it was like typically Anvil, like an amazing thing happened. Of course it happened that way.

But of course we weren't there because I was dealing with a lift engineer at Carnegie Hall. But here's the thing. This movie came out 13 years ago. Like, why are we sitting here talking about it today? So walk me up to- I'll walk you through what happened.

Right. Okay, so to my godson is a kid called Rio Hanson rebecca rebecca yeldon who produced the film as his son and rio you know i was in england and he said you know i'd really like to see anvil and i said i have a print i got it out of storage um and so rio brought his friends to see the movie this is this past summer in london no no here oh here in, I was here briefly, and I got the printout and we showed the film and all of his friends went nuts. And I was like, they're like 17, 18 years old.

So Rick Crim and I and Rebecca started to do these screenings and we started to just invite people to see the film. And the response from young people was just like, why haven't we heard of this film? So it was just really unbelievable because, and a lot of it was about, we've just been through two years of COVID. It's been an absolute nightmare.

People have really, you know, people have lost people. I mean, I have in my family. Yeah, so have I. It's been a really horrible time. And suddenly here's a movie with the message of hope about enduring almost absolutely impossible situations and somehow not giving up, right? And so for whatever reason,

that theme began to land with a totally new audience. And then we had this fantastic British singer called Youngblood come and he came and he brought his and he's 23 year old and never heard of Anvil and, you know, a very big artist now in the UK. And all these people just started coming, all young people. And then all the old fans, some of those people came back

and they were like, this movie is, I'm feeling this now. It was, I really enjoyed it then. I'm really feeling it now. And out of these screenings, we did about eight that Rick and I principally put together. Two distributors emerged. They're a friend of a friend. Oh, I went to see this anvil.

Anyway, so we had two separate distributors approach us to re-release the film for the 13th anniversary, 13 years later. And we decided to go with this incredible company called Utopia, who's kind of, I guess, like the new A24. This guy, Robert Schwartzman, who himself was the band Rooney and really understood it.

And he was like, look, there is a, and he was a couple of the screenings. And he's like, the response I'm seeing from the kids is, this is a film that needs to get out there again, and we wanna re-release it. And so that's how it all happened, but it began with my godson. It's unbelievable.

I mean, that never happens. It never happens. 13 years later. 13 years later. Why do you think now? Like, what do you think it is? Because 13 is a lucky number. I know, well, like this is 13. This is the record.

This is 13. But what do you think is happening? Like, what's going on in the culture right now that you think is lending itself to this interest and enthusiasm? I really don't know. I think that people are so bored of plastic, fake, kind of Instagram kind of phoniness

that I think there's a sense of, you know, this is something completely authentic and real with real history. And there's a purity to what Anvil do. And there's also a purity and honesty to the film. And I think whenever it's purity and honesty, people gravitate towards that, no matter what time you're in. I think that for's purity and honesty, people gravitate towards that no

matter what time you're in. I think that for me, what happened was the COVID thing. You know, it just made people really like, this is fragile. Life is super fragile. And, you know, don't take it for granted that everything's going to be great and you can go to the store and buy what you want. And, you know, it's, you know what? No, actually. And I think that people got really appropriately scared. The world shut down and people started thinking about what was important. And I think this film speaks to what really is important, which is how you treat other people.

Are you doing something you love? Are you doing the thing you love for the right reason? Are you driven by money and external things? And, you know, or are you just committed to being an alive and present and passionate, creative human being? You know, and this movie is kind of, is about those things.

And I think that's the reason. But it really all started with my godson making a request. He said, I'd like to see the movie that you and mummy, his mum, Rebecca, made because I saw it when I was a kid or whatever and i'd like to see the movie that you and mummy his mom rebecca made because i saw it when i was a kid or whatever and i really want to see it and so rio was the reason and again and a personal reason it's my godson saying i want to see this film that you and mom made and and that's always been the way with anvil you know it's it's a really emotional because it's truthful and i think we're all so,

I mean, the fact that this movie is being re-released 13 years later, I mean- It's bananas. It's bananas. I mean, what movies get, what documentaries get re-released? And it was like- Yeah, it's crazy.

Yeah, it is crazy. I like it. I'm still trying to get around all this. I mean, it's all surreal, right? Like what has been the most surreal aspect of this whole adventure for you guys surreal yeah just like sort of like wow this guy comes in he makes this movie i mean in certain ways your lives have changed in certain ways you guys are doing it the way you always have done it

but suddenly we're musically we don't We stick to our guns, you know, like, you know, so we're not going to change. I'm really hoping. I think there's. We're just going to stick to our guns with the music. I mean, like I want critics to find something new to say about us. I'm tired of them saying, oh, well, there's nothing new here. Well, of course not. Find something else to say.

But the point is that to these guys and we were talking about this before we came to do your podcast that it's their life it's normal like but I said but you understand the message like most people like how many teenage kids at 13 14 make a pact to rock together forever and 50 years later are still doing it

how many no one but to them it's normal that's actually too bad because some of the stuff when you're young but the commitment to each other your innocence you don't see all the obstacles but you know i'm not gonna quit on myself yeah what for like i can't i can't cope with that notion yeah why didn't you quit hey Hey, you quit what you hate. Right, not what you love. Not what you love. You know, I'm a painter. I'm a painter. I paint, you know,

and I paint for myself. You know, people come criticize, oh, you should sell your shit. It's awesome. You know, people want to buy it, you know. You're a selfish fucking asshole, you know. No, fuck you. You know, it's for me. It's my passion. It's my hobby. I enjoy it. It's relaxing. It keeps me fucking at peace, you know what I It's my hobby. I enjoy it. It's relaxing.

It keeps me fucking at peace. You know what I mean? That's why I do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure, I can make money and this and that, but that's not what I want to do. There's this perverted idea. People criticize you for that shit. That if you're not selling it

or you're not selling this many of whatever it is that you get labeled a success or a lack of success when in truth, you guys are this example of the purity of the whole thing. You do it for the love, whether it's the painting. And honesty. No, the real truth about what art is, it's not the guy who makes the most money from his art

or sells the most paintings or the guy who sells most records or the guy who has the biggest selling hit single. It's about the guy who sells more most records or the guy who has the biggest selling hit single it's about the guy who wrote the most songs the guy who was able to express himself hundreds of times over that is pure prolific output success yeah well it's also about the honesty that you bring to that well it's the same thing what the best painter? The guy who could fill that canvas thousands of times. Like for example, I mean, one example, because when we made the film,

I was living on right opposite the artist, David Hockney. And you know, that guy, because he was my neighbor, I got to know him a little bit. He was never stopping painting. I mean, he was constantly, even when he had people over for tea, he would be on the iPad, like, doing stuff, like, constantly. And there is something to what Lips is saying about just doing the thing for its own sake and not thinking about what it means or what success, you know.

The guy who does the most is the winner. That's the guy. The guy who's expressed himself the most. That's the winning quality. And the ability and the and the and the the imagination to do that it makes you the winner not not what you get is after doing it it's doing it to begin with that is is the thing that's the most important a shining sort of success story in the vein of the war of art right like it is i mean you guys you have resistance in your life, but you're always creating. Like, I don't get the sense that you have writer's block, right? No, I don't even know what that means.

And when I say on that subject, I can tell you that I feel really fortunate because the new Anvil album, for the first time, Anvil has written a song about me on their 19th record. And it's got no lyrics. It's just a musical.

And I'm so honored. But that's fucking going to be a big song. I'm lyrics. It's just a musical. And I'm so on it. Yeah, but that's fucking going to be a big song. I'm excited. It's cool. There's two different, there's my original anvil name, T-Bag, and then there's my later anvil name, Gomez. What is that about?

I don't know, they came up with it. Well, T-Bag is because he's English, okay? It has no sexual inclination. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It has no sexual connotation. It's tea time. It's tea time. It's Peter Pocklington time. And then Gomez.

And Gomez is strictly just his lifestyle. You know, somebody who whips around, he has lots of toys. When the movie started getting released and it started becoming successful, he goes, I've got the best train set in all of Hollywood. And we went, he's Gomez Adams. That's right. I became Gomez.

Importantly, Rob, does it have a drum part that Sasha can actually play? No, I can't play anything, Rob, still to this day. Well, I don't know. He always tries. We've seen him do what? School of? I've seen him play School of, you know, he, he, he keeps the beat, but when it comes down to roles, you know,

he can't keep up to Robo. There are videos on YouTube though, of Sasha sitting in. It was great. Well, the best one was in Japan. When we filmed the end of the movie, I was invited out to do school of, and it was, that was pretty wild. It was like 20,000 people. So that was intense, but we, 20 000 people right so that was uh

intense but we we know but it's just the connection the love of the fan for the band we're family we're like family and we you know we're friends it is like family actually it is that's the best way i could describe the friendship that we have with sasha it's not like somehow sometimes you connect with with certain people in your life in a way that you can't really explain it. But somehow you feel like you've had a past life or something together. Right. I don't know. The movie came from that.

And that's what gives the access. That bond is so powerful. You're not going to, we're not going a fight or or or talk about things or be natural like that we just figured let him film everything and if we don't like it we'll just tell him to make it go away and so we don't have to worry about it and that gave a hundred percent access sasha said to me very early in the whole thing she looked at me right in the eyes said listen man i'm not going to do like he said earlier I'm going to be straight up

I'm going to film all this stuff but I'm not going to make anything bad trust me you know and I told him I trust him we shook hands and I felt very comfortable after that point I mean you have to realize you're letting people have access like that

and what was the experience the first time you watched the movie I mean, you have to realize, when you're letting people have access like that. I went with the French. And what was the experience the first time you watched the movie? Oh, I had to watch, I was the last guy to see it. I guess Sasha had wanted it that way. So I was the last person to see it. I saw it at his house in that living room.

And as soon as it was ended, we ended the film, Rob looked at me and said, play it again. Like, he didn't even give me a thought and he watched it twice in a row to absorb yeah it was it was it dazzled me beyond words at that time because it's not what i expected i didn't know what to expect he filmed everything you know we after a while i said wait a minute we're making a documentary about a band

but this guy's like filming things that like family shit and fighting and like like all this other stuff right so i couldn't get what like what's what so when that like family shit and fighting and like, like all this other stuff. Right. So I couldn't get what, like what's, what's, so when I saw it, I got it. And then I said, Oh my fucking God, this movie is going to rip people's souls out. That's what I thought at first. I said, this movie is going to kill fucking people, man. Because it was killing me, you know, watching, right. You know? And after the third time I just sent them, I think it was a genius piece of work. And that was before anybody saw it.

So that was my impression. And again, you know, with these things, if someone sets out to make a genius piece of work, I mean, you set out,

you follow an instinct, you go with a story, you go with a feeling. And then, sometimes you have that feeling and the movie doesn't come out good. In this case, there was just such purity

and emotion from these guys. And we were so emotional making the film. I mean, now I look at the film and I think about all the people who aren't here anymore. Yeah, there's a lot. A lot of people. A lot of people. Like, to Robin Lips, both their mothers are alive in this film. They're gone.

And Jethro and Chris Tangarides, the producer. I mean, so many people. And the dog. And the dog. My dog. Yeah, your brother. And the dog. My dog.

Yeah, your brother. In the English, the English journalist, the guy who... Malcolm Dome. Malcolm Dome. He's passed away. He just passed away. So a lot of people in that movie are...

And Lemmy. And Lemmy, of course. And, you know, after the movie... Didn't Lemmy Lips invite you to join Motorhead at some point, like early in your career? Yeah, he did. You said now.

Yeah, well, we were both early in our careers. He was losing Eddie Clark, and he was in a panic. Come and help me. I know you love Motorhead. You could probably do it. And I said, yeah, I could probably do it, but I can't. I'm in Anvil. I'm going into the studio in a week.

What do you mean? Join Motorhead. What's Anvil going to do? We're under contract. And I remember that tour because Lemmy loved the band so much he asked Anvil to open for Motorhead on the Another Perfect Day tour in 83.

And I went on tour with these guys as they were opening for Motorhead. Motorhead have never been louder. I mean, it was like standing next to three 777s thinking of it was like, it was almost too much. But anyway, you were on tour with him. And I remember the moment when Lemmy's like,ark has left brian robertson isn't working out you need to come

into motorhead and you know lips would not leave rob and rob's had other opportunities himself to go you know to join you know for us it's always this is the way to do it. Work for yourself. Do your own thing. It doesn't matter. You know, can Daniel Carrot say, man, you can make more money? Again, it's not about the money. I want to be happy. I want to feel honest to myself.

So that's why, you know, and this feels honest. You know, this band always has. That's why we're still here. How many bands rock it out for 50 years, stay together, you guys are best friends still. I mean, that in and of itself, set aside everything else. We still have a good friendship. That's right. Is an unbelievable accomplishment.

So what do you, I'm sure young musicians, young creative people want advice from you. Like, what do you say to that young musician or writer or filmmaker or anybody who's trying to birth something creative into the world about how to approach that? My biggest advice is make something and be something that no one else can be but you. Yeah, be an individual.

Ultimately, that's what it comes down to. You've got to be you, and you've got to find out what that is. And the way you find out is by doing it and being you. And then you can slowly recognize what that is and zero in on it and hone it and get it better and better. That's how you do it. Finding your voice takes a bit of time sometimes. Yeah, you've got to learn to discover, what keys do I sing in best?

What words sound best? Never mind what fits this song. All those things. You know, it's a learning process. It applies to the movie, too. You know, Anvil was a movie that only I could have made. Similar to My Dinner with Herve was movie that only I could have made. Similar to My Dinner with Herve was a movie only I could have made.

You know, it's like, you've got to do the thing that's so uniquely yourself and whatever happens, it doesn't matter because you're doing the thing that only you can do. That's right. You've got to be honest to yourself. Yeah, like what do you, as somebody who you've worked with Spielberg and Tom Hanks and Anthony Hopkins and all of these

people. Hey, it's a difference between being in a cover band and being in an original band. Yeah, 100%. You're not going to make it playing someone else's music. That's right. As simple as that. Despite this storied career that you've had, Sasha, you're best known for Anvil, right?

Your most personal movie. My most personal movie, yeah. So with that, how does that inform how you make choices about the projects you get involved with or the curiosity that you choose to explore? I would say I have a pretty healthy career doing stuff. And I'm doing another movie with Helen Mirren. Again, there's a lot of personal stuff coming up.

But I would say for me, Hervé and Anvil are the two films which I think are, for me, the most personal and the best films. But there's also making a living. You can't make these kind of, you know, movies like Anvil don't happen every time you make a movie. That said, all of the experiences I had in all the other things helped me make these personal movies. Like, Anvil came from a pure place but i had some experience you know having done other stuff and you know been brought in as a rewriter on you know some quite big movies and i've ghostwritten lots of things and i've also you know

but working with actors you know like learning how to manage and handle volatile and difficult emotional scenes and situations i mean that was a skill I think I brought to Anvil because there were times where, you know, you could tell this train could have come off the track. But because I had some experience from other areas, I was able to kind of navigate that. So there is a connection between the works you do, the work you do professionally and these personal films.

But there's more personal films to come. So Anvil is the first film, and for those of you seen it ends with a photo of me and lips taken on a tour of canadian hockey arenas in 1985 my dinner with hervey ends with a photo of me and hervey villashez in his hotel room a few days before he committed suicide and there's a third film i call them the photograph films that i won't tell you, but the title is Mizu, and that will be. And if I'm known for those films, and I will be, and principally Anvil, I'm so lucky to have that happen. And as a filmmaker, you're lucky if it even happens once. So it's happened.

Yeah, that's the same thing with music. The same thing with music you make you make a a real hit for yourself once yeah and then basically who knows what happens yeah it sustains you look at it's just metal on metal album sustained me for 50 years now yeah but i but i would but i would say speaking to the point of right It doesn't mean it's my best album by my standards, but it set me up so that I could do 20 other albums. But I will say the ones where I've struggled the most, like with Hervé, me and Peter Dinklage

tried to get that movie made for 17 years. And we were told flat out, this movie will never get made. And we persisted. I took the lesson of Anvil and me and Peter Dinklage applied. Now, then Game of Thrones hit and then there was a chance

and then finally it got made and in the way that we really wanted to. But that was also years of struggle and stuff. And I watched that. I watched that from the onset. I mean, at that party that we met you at, that's when I became aware of the whole story. I mean,

it was your first script. Yeah, that script was led to me working with Spielberg. And I think if I'm not mistaken, that lady, his girlfriend was at that party.

She was, yeah. And that's where his whole focus when I first met him was that he was going to make this movie about Hervé's last hours. And it's like, wow, okay. And that was, and again, I was told, don't waste your time with that. And I wrote it as a short script, a 34-page script about Hervé Villachez.

Everyone was like, this is the most expensive short in history. I had it budgeted. It was like $4 million in 1998. Like, never going to happen. That's what got you an agent and kind of got your name out there in terms of writing. I met Steve Zalian. He passed it on to Steven Spielberg that ended up with me working with Spielberg. So again, the source of all of it was a personal story that I was passionate about that only I could tell. And then Anvil also reaching all of these other people that ultimately leads you into these other big projects.

The only reason I got to direct Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren in Hitchcock was because of Anvil, because Tony Hopkins is a massive Anvil fan. I watched the movie three times. So when I met Tony Hopkins for the first time, I put him and Lips on the phone.

He was like, hello! Hello, Lips. I'm like, hello. Hello. What was that like? Hello, lips. I'm going, oh my God. He was doing his Hannibal Lecter voice. Hello, lips. Like whatever he was doing.

But it was like, what I'm saying is, you do this stuff, you have no idea what's going to happen and the most unexpected things, like I was told absolutely categorically

by my agents at the time, I should not self-fund a documentary about an unknown heavy metal band from Canada. That was like career death. I needed to go meet Adam Sandler and I needed to go meet whoever else and do these big rewrites at wherever it was. I had an instinct. I ignored all the people who told me, you know, on the face of it right probably not a great idea but it doesn't matter because my instinct told me it was the best thing and ironically uh you know i later fired those people you know fuck them like if you're not going to support me and and and of course the irony is that that turned out to be you know this incredible thing that still is going on 13 years

later where it's coming out into theaters again i mean like so it just means it's actually it's actually interesting um i perceived all this what it was on the onset yeah i really you're on a different level with this i really did but but like tapping into some past life and and and I even said, and even in discussions with my younger brother when I told him about the thing, his predictions were, he's going, your friend is looking to make a very, very special movie about your failed career. movie about about your failed career and it's going to make both of your careers explode like a rocket and that's what's going to happen out of this because it's got to because it's it's what it's sort of what the what the fuel is for all of it see and he thought it was just if the if and at the onset that's what he's going this this is amazing. I hope it works out for you guys. And I remember I was at my Uncle Marty's house at 5 Ava Road in Toronto, and I called up Lips, and he came over, and I said, I have this instinct about a film.

It was like, let's have an exploratory conversation. And Lips broke down into tears. Because it was what I had called 15 years before when I was sitting in a car with johnny z telling him i'm gonna have to wait till a fan grows up and helps me make it the next time around this was my foretelling but not only that i i when the movie did start taking off i i remember having a conversation with sasha i go this is a a flagpole movie for you, man. This is like your metal on metal,

like whatever metal on metal was for me, this is going to be your metal on metal. And at that time, you did not want to hear that. You go, what do you mean? I got a whole mess of, I got to make lots of movies, man. They can all be big or whatever. And I'm going, dude dude sometimes you get a special moment and you don't know and i will say that and you don't realize it at the time he knew much more

than i did at the time how special it was going to be when i saw it at sundance and when we went to hot dogs in toronto and we did the big theater and people went nuts i started to get the sense but initially i was like are you crazy man what do you mean like when he started crying when i told him i wanted to make a movie i was like a bit like why is he crying i didn't really understand but he knew like almost he had an intuition before i did about what was going to happen i could never have predicted though and i don't think you could have that 13 years later this movie would be coming out again. No, but I predicted that it would have a huge, long life.

Yes, that's true. And the reason that I felt it would have a long life is because the band still exists, and it was meaningful enough. See, this is the thing, and it's not that I'm full of myself. That's not where this is coming from. It's a special band and every, everything has its claim to fame or whatever. This is part of what Anvil is. It's part of our claim, claim to fame, and it's going to be

long lasting. And because it's a real spinal tap, it's going to live the fake one because it's a real living breathing entity both both things are going to live off of each other and propel it well into the future until they're until one of us disappears and it's probably going to be us because we're human beings and we have a finite end but ultimately what it is that one feeds the other. We go and play a gig, all of a sudden the movie starts appearing in the local theaters. They buy it from Sasha. And all of a sudden, every time we go out and do a tour, a movie starts playing in different places. So it brings life that way. It's been an extraordinary journey.

For me, probably one of the high points was Marty Scorsese did a documentary about George Harrison called Living in the Material World, probably six or seven years ago. And I was invited completely out of the blue to a private party at the Beverly Hills Hotel, a dinner to celebrate the movie. And I was sitting next to Olivia Harrison. And I was like, I don't know George Harrison or any of them.

And so I'm at this dinner and anyway, Scorsese comes over and he said, you did Anvil. And I said, yeah. He said,

that's my favorite music movie of all time. Doesn't get any better than that, man. You know, and we had had a print of the film go to New York

and we didn't know who it was for and it was Scorsese had personally requested the film and kept it private a print of the film go to new york and we didn't know who it was for and it was scorsese had personally requested the film and kept it private and he watched the movie and i think he even kept the print but to get someone my hero director come to me and say you did something really incredible that still resonates i mean like who on earth could have predicted that i mean it just still that was just like for me as a filmmaker like i hit that note it's unbelievable and um and that just you know is is you never like i had no idea man i i mean i don't think any of us had any idea that a lot of this would happen no you know what you know well you know how i felt except for me

because then that's okay. Which was wonderful to watch you guys learn what I knew was going to happen. I was skeptical. This guy was going to be the worst. And it's like, dude, we're driving in Europe and we're getting lost in the middle of the fucking woods because the crazy tour managers, they'll turn off into this thing. And we turn down and we're lost in the woods. Let me tell you a quick story on that. Yeah, but I'm going,

we're only going to have to do this once. We're never going to have to do this again. Trust me, Robbo. Let's just get through it and you'll see, man. This is all for a reason. So me, Chris Seuss and Matt Dennis, we're in a camper van following Anvil through the forests of literally of Transylvania.

We're in Romania, in Transylvania. We're following. It's like three in the morning. Tiziana, the crazy tour thing. It's like, okay, we stop here, right? So we stop and we're like, what is going on? Anyway, we got some sleep at 5.15. The sun came up and we realized

that we were on the edge of a cliff with a 400 foot drop to certain death in a gorge. And me and Chris woke up and we were on the edge of a cliff with a 400-foot drop to certain death in a gorge. And me and Chris woke up, and we were like, we're this far away from dying. And we're like, we're going to die for Anvil. It was like constantly. It's not fake. It's all this stuff.

It's true, man. Like, how are we getting through this? Like, what the hell is that? I mean. The thing is, like what I take away from the whole thing though, is that when you express from the truest deepest part of your heart,

that you're basically paving the way for magic to happen. Not in any kind of guaranteed sense, but you're sort of casting your vote for like mystery to enter your life. And I think there's something really instructive about approaching your life or the decisions that you make about where to invest your energy. And just Sasha, hearing you talk about, you know, you had done this sort of traditional

success track in Hollywood and it left you feeling, you know, a little bit fallow or empty. And then that reconnection process of finding that thing that gets you excited when you wake up in the morning and having the audacity to continue to pull that thread when there were a lot of, you know, people trying to talk you out of it and a lot of resistance. I think it's just really powerful. The same story can be said for your entire career

and everything that you guys- Well, I mean, it's hilarious when I stop and think about it. My mother's constant nagging me as a kid, you got to go to school and you got to do this and you got to do that and you're never going to, and you're wasting your life and your decision to make no money. And my whole life was focused on proving her wrong.

Was it though? Honestly, as crazy as that sounds, I'm going to proving her wrong. Was it though? Honestly, as crazy as that sounds, I'm going to prove you wrong if it's the last thing I do on earth. You don't strike me as somebody who's being driven by like resentment. Like you seem like you're a pretty happy guy. No, it's not resentment.

I'm going to have fun doing what you say I shouldn't do. And you know, like. It's teenage defiance. I never grew. It's like, yeah, I'm growing old, but I never grew up. Right. And there's something magical about that. And for some people that might be, oh, you should grow up. I'm not going to let a grown up world taint my innocence.

I'm going to still act as though I've still got a chance when there might not be, and I'm just going to keep going with the innocence. I can do this. But here's the thing. When I met Lips on that first weekend, and he came to LA, and you met him, Richard, at the party, I started the weekend thinking,

oh God, this is quite sad. By the end of the weekend, I was like, you know what? They're going to fucking do it, man. And he was so, believed it so much that had he not had that belief there would have been no film to make sure the film was about the story in the present about the present the struggle right now yeah but come on let's face it anvils are meant to be there are things

that are meant to be and i i'm sorry i've i've had that feeling since i've since since i was a teenager, it's meant to be. I'm not supposed to quit. Clearly. You're not supposed to. I'm significant. I mean something in this world. And I was going to see, my whole point was, I'm going to see it through. I don't give a shit.

My mother taught me not to give a shit. Right. She told me I'm never gonna make it i'm and and you know what the makings of my personality of where it where it was fostered yeah i get it it was there right to the end but rich speaking to your point about success you know about the meaning of success which i think anvil is redefining you know like working in hollywood it's so geared to what are the box office numbers, you know, all that kind of stuff. It's so geared to external things. And what I've observed is that if you're happy, it's usually in spite of success rather than because of it.

You know, success comes from a completely different place. You know, it's about, you know, I'm like, I'm so proud and happy because of Anvil. But, you know, it's like it didn't take $200 million at the box office. But I will say that the impact and the depth of the feeling that it's created in so many people, it's priceless. The film also changed my idea and orientation about what does it mean. Well, I think in terms of anvil and longevity,

I mean, here we are 13 years later with this movie, you know, it stands the test of time. It speaks to people. You know, that's, you can't buy that, man. And the movie that took $500 million 10 years ago, no one remembers. No one cares about that. It's about the quality of what you're doing and the

reasons why you're doing it and that has to be that always the determining factors in what i think and what you define as success because i thought i came to hollywood i went to film school i'll sell a movie for a million dollars or whatever you know it's like that's not success that's just a thing that happens that you have to get over and a piece of luck and a bit of luck and it's like you know it works for a weekend you know i remember when that happened and i sold this in 2005 i sold a pitch for like an insane amount of money it was the biggest selling pitch of the year i remember we sold it on a friday night and by sunday i was like in a depression i was like now i have to write this piece of you know it was just just like it the anvil experience totally rewired everything about

what i think is important and how i feel about what's important and what to me what is important and so how do you articulate what that is like i said i just think it's about you know ultimately it's about being the most authentic human being you can be. And it's about putting something into the world that in some way to someone lifts them up is nourishing is meaningful, you know, sometimes and pure entertainment can be a great diversion, you take people away from their problems, you know, they're able to have an escape, but really to have the ability to, to make people think to make people think about the person right next to them and sometimes maybe i'm in judgment sometimes maybe i'm in fear and

how about listening how about you know like just a sense of empathy i think that the whole movie anvil is about empathy it's about looking past your you know top line judgments and your initial you know everyone rushes to judge man you know but when you strip the layers away and you go deeper you find things that you would never expect and that's what i love is if and i think that happened with herve i think that's happened with Anvil, is just dig a little deeper and you may find something that you need. And I had no idea how profoundly I needed to make this film. This film, forget what happened

and Marty Scorsese loves it and amazing. That's amazing, right? But it was the actual experience of spending time with these people and seeing how our work together changed all of our lives. Like that experience was incredible because we were on this for years. I mean, this is not something we did in a weekend. This was, and we all sacrificed and we all were at the absolute brink.

And we were near, I was nearly completely broken by this. Completely. My accountant said, I may have to declare you bankrupt next year. You know? But it was worth it. And I was still happy to do it. And you and I have known each other a long time, Rich. The stuff that my brother Gary said all came true

is what we actually did. Well, you know, it's interesting. And from an objective perspective, that's is what we actually did. Well, you know, it's interesting. From an objective perspective, that's exactly what we did. Because also Rich and I have known each other for more than 20 years at least. And we have both been at that point in different ways. Yeah. And to survive beyond that point, to just not give up, is the example I got from you. And it's so many people.

The most interesting people that I know are the people who've not had it easy, actually. Who've had it really... Well, yeah. Who've had to... Sure. It's colorful, isn't it? When it's really colorful, it's really fascinating.

I mean, a lot of the bands all try to i i just watch all these copycats trying to capture some some of the essence of that amble movie but they can't because they haven't really got they haven't got the the history they didn't get the they haven't acquired the access that the director never got the access they never get emotional stuff but another beautiful thing that happened that I should mention is that, you know, Searching for Sugar Man, I love the movie. And Simon Chin, who produced it, is a friend of mine.

And the day after they won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, you know, I got a call from Simon, and I think, and Malik, to say thank you for opening the door. Because Anvil was the movie that changed a lot of things. And in fact, the Academy changed their rules around music documentaries and then Sugarman one,

20 Feet From Stardom. And you know, so we really did play a part in opening things up to music documentaries. Yeah, it was like, we were one of those films. I think Dig was another one. No, the biggest difference between most. Dig was just before, yeah. Okay, the biggest difference for the Anvil documentary

to almost every other documentary made about bands, they show it all in retrospect. They never show what we did with the Anvil movie. Let's show what's happening in the moment. Yeah, now. And capture it as we're doing it. It's not talking heads looking back upon a career. It's not talking about once what was.

It's what are we doing tomorrow and how we're going to go about doing it and let's film it. So I have to ask this question. So the kind of tagline that gets thrown around with the movie is real life Spinal Tap, like you said it earlier. But I've always wondered like how that lands with you guys.

Like, how do you feel about the movie being called that? I don't like it. I never did. Spinal Tap is the fake Anvil. And that's just- That's the title of this podcast. Spinal Tap is the fake Anvil. And funnily enough, when Anvil started doing the rounds

and started people, you know, Spinal Tap was on their 25th anniversary. And those guys who I love, because I love that movie, right? This was like, for me, my two favorite films, Spinal Tap and Withnail and I. And Anvil is a sort of combination of those two films. And so when they got so sick of hearing about Anvil

on their 25th anniversary, they told their publicist, I don't want any questions. They didn't want any questions. And what happened was we had an MTV reporter interviewed them, and they asked about Anvil, like against the rules. And you could tell that Nigel Tufnel was very upset. And the broad said, what's it like, you know, when you hear about Anvil?

And Nigel Tufnel looked at David St. Hubbins and Derek Smalls. And they obviously were like, really not happy. And Nigel Tufnel turned and he went, it's like being crushed by a piece of art. That's what he said. And I seen the clip of that. They were so sweet about it. So I'd love to get, you know, them together. Yeah.

It would be great. That has to happen. I think so. You must do that around this release. I mean, it would be lovely if they were open to it. I don't know what their attitude towards Anvil is, but I think when Rob said, they're the fake Anvil.

I mean, but you know. But you cut them off, Rob. You were going to say something else too. Yeah, no, just, it's just a good hook catch for marketing. but you know but you cut him off Rob you were gonna say something else too yeah no just it's just a it's a good hook catch for marketing

I thought the spinal tap thing comparing us but we're we're nothing like that in my mind at all we're real

fucking musicians man those guys are not that it's it's you know we're real fucking man it's a fake

it's fictitious none of it's everything is taken from everything is taken from real life and re recreated whereas the the anvil film is it is real life and there is no recreation the reason spinal tap is so great is because it's so close to the truth but those guys got it from bands like Anvil and Jethro Tull and Saxon and whatever else was their inspiration. All of the things that happened, like when Derek Smalls gets caught in the chrysalis pod. Yeah, right, yeah, yeah.

I mean, that happened. And the cucumber down the pants. Trousers. That was stolen up. Biff did it. That's right, Biff from Saxon. At the airport. So all of these things are taken from real things.

That's why they're funny. So I don't know that there's, you know, we could be that upset did it. That's right, Biff. At the airport. So all of these things are taken from real things. That's why they're funny. So I don't know that there's, you know, we could be that upset about it. Well, it's a good marketing catch. Yeah, people love familiarity and be able to at least be able to tag it to something else so that at least they know and to be able to explain it to somebody else. It's like some, what's that band like? Well, they're sort of like that. In the same sense, what's this movie like? Well, it kind of reminded me of

Spinal Tap. So it's kind of a catch, a catch, a hook, a hook and catch kind of thing. The real original Anvil Pounders, they're not happy with any of it. No. The original Anvil Pounders they're not happy with any of it no

well the Pounders are your well they're fans I call them the Pounders the original Anvil fans are very upset they didn't need a movie the world should have

known about you all along they don't need a movie to tell us that you know you guys are a good band and all that kind of shit so you know

we dealt with that all along from our original base you know what I mean but you know what was really interesting they liked the movie but it was they felt like they didn't like it the same as somebody who's not a fan.

But you know what was interesting was that all bands, whether they're heavy metal or pop or rappers or whatever, they have similar things happen. Like I remember speaking to Chris Martin. They all do. Of course, because that's what life, mistakes happen. That's what happens in everyday life. That's what happens.

Why are there car accidents? They're not happening on purpose. You know what I mean? They're accidents. For me to even decode. Come on, man. It's the same thing with anything that goes on on the road or bands or whatever. Stuff happens.

Rich, that's a present for you, Rich. Let me see. It's something very special. It's a limited edition. You may want to try that. But for these times... Oh, it's an anvil mask. Can you live without an anvil face mask?

I actually have to go to Canada in a couple weeks so I can wear this for that. Yeah, now you have an official anvil mask. Yeah. That limited edition. What happened to the sequel? I know you guys were working on solving world peace at some point.

We started shooting. I'm really disappointed to hear that the actual trailer is gone. No, no, no. We have it somewhere. Oh, now we have it. Now we have it. We do have it.

John has it and I don't. John Peter. Okay. We do have the trailer. The issue is we started shooting and I think we all got busy with different things. And it also got very heavy because the band was invited to Israel.

We were going to go to Israel. A lot of it was around the Jewish family history of Rob and also of Lips. And what we did manage to do, which I think may at one point resurface, I don't know, but Lips and Rob went to Auschwitz where Rob's father uh had escaped from and his grandfather unfortunately had passed away and they looked in the book at the camp

and the reiner family name was there and i have this incredible moment remember on the suitcases oh the suitcases my relatives of my of my of my relatives of my mother's family. And really, really hard to take, actually, for me, because it's just like, oh, that's, okay. It never really affected me. I didn't know these people. They were all dead before I was born. But that's the whole bloody point. whole that's the whole bloody point and i'm and and i when i when i when we went there i was like so uh it was such an awakening yeah it was because because what you what you came to realize this

happened not that long ago yeah and when you hear about you know when you're a little kid and you've heard about all this stuff through your whole life, you're thinking they're talking about ancient history. You never think about it. You know, when we show up there and I'm looking at the electric fences and I'm going, this isn't that long ago, man. And these buildings look like stuff in and around a home.

This is not ancient. This is within the last 50 years, man. It's on our life cycle. building is no no older than my house wait a minute that means and then all of a sudden it started really sinking in that in my era and in my lifetime i am still i am still attached to the atrocities that went on in that bloody place. That there are literally hundreds of lost souls that I'll never know that I should have known. And then I started to come to realize of all the people that should have, would have, coulda been in the world today, and the kind of differences those people,

just as simple as when I realized, look it, Rob's father's survival of Auschwitz brought a speed medal. What else could have gotten lost in Auschwitz? If Rob's father didn't survive, would people be using double bass drums the way they do today? Because Rob doesn't exist?

Would I have had a drummer to create this stuff with? I mean, a lot of those things started to dawn on me. So in the filming, we all came to this realization that Rob's family and Lips' family, because he discovered that one of his relatives who we didn't know, her name was written on one of the suitcases in the display. And then it suddenly occurred to us that it's possible that Lips' relative

and Rob's grandfather and father knew each other at Auschwitz. And then the cameraman, Chris Seuss, you know, his family was also, had lost people at Auschwitz and in the holocaust and my family toronto jews also and there's this underpinning of this incredible story of the jewish immigrants and what happened in germany in the 1930s and all of the key people in this movie in one way or another either come from that or are connected from it and then it just so that in itself was maybe the reason why we we did all the filming that we did because it brought us to so many different realizations and then we thought you know yeah but i mean these things came

afterwards that that's not really what wasn't we weren't really conscious of during the making of the movie that it would have that that it would that we'd be left with these these feelings that that that it would evoke these things i was not thinking about the holocaust during the whole movie it wasn't after that i came to realize we wouldn't be we ended up at the at the jewish film festival in san francisco and i'm standing outside the place and I look across the street and I, I look at this fence and it's got barbed wire on top. And all of a sudden I go, I wouldn't be standing here if Rob's father didn't survive Auschwitz. I wouldn't be here. And neither would all these people lining up to see the Anvil movie. And I coming to realize holy shit talk about meant to

bees or something this is overcoming not only not only overcoming my obstacles it's it's it's my fellow tribesmen i i we've our survival has has brought forth some of the most important things in human history. And coming to realize what got lost. I don't think people ever stop to think about what the possibilities and the potentials that got lost in that period of time. And all wars, not just that, and the persecution of a certain people and the impact that that could have

for the rest of human history. I know, like, a lot of things came to realize for myself personally from doing that Anvil movie. Otherwise, where would I get that stuff from? And we discovered lots of really weird things like Lips' brother, Gary, bought a house that my grandfather, Jack Kassoy, owned in Toronto.

There were all these crazy connections and Chris's family too. That's wild. And it was all about the kind of... The survival. The survival. But what happened? So this movie never got completed.

So we shot a lot of stuff and then I think we all got busy and we always said to each other, you know, we may come back to it, who knows, because a lot of stuff, and then I think we all got busy. And we always said to each other, you know, we may come back to it. Who knows? Because a lot of that footage over that time and interviews have been shot. It could be that in 10 years' time, we've shot over six years. There is an appetite for it.

If it got made and blah, blah, blah, everybody would want to see it. We get asked all the time. The idea was that we'll make a film about Judaism and identity and survival. That becomes a really interesting Anvil sequel. Anvil 2 Quest for World Peace was the original title. But then I thought,

let's call it Metal in the Shtetl, I thought. But I'm so, you know, it's like, it's ongoing. I don't know what's going to happen. It's definitely an album name. I don't know what's going to happen. If there was a movie made, it would have been embraced. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't doubt it. By the same crowd that took in the first one. I don't doubt it. Because they wanted to know what happened to the band, what are you guys doing, and all that kind of stuff. And the story, having some kind of a story that would have been the whole catch. Right.

Anyways, but the trailer was good. Yeah, I the whole catch right anyways but the trailer was good yeah i cut a trailer yeah the trailer was the trailer is cool but this movie's coming out we're recording this in november yeah it's coming out to coordinate with the anvil album also being released i can't mention the title but it's fantastic i guess i guess we could because by time by the time this is not this is not getting released. Do you want to say the title of the album? Sure. The new Anvil album is called Impact is Imminent. Of course it is.

Of course it is. I've just seen the album artwork, and it features an Anvil as asteroid hurtling towards the Earth, about to destroy it. But for those Anvil fans who haven't had a chance to look it up i would suggest looking up the image online of the album cover anvil is anvil from a couple of years ago that's my favorite it's uh an anvil an oil painting of an anvil staring at itself in the mirror it's called anvil is anvil and i called up rob and i said how fucking high were you when you came up

with this concept and he said pretty fucking high isn't it great and up with this concept? And he said, pretty fucking high. Isn't it great? And I was like, yeah, it's great. I mean, the whole point is, man, nothing changes. You know, it's like these guys have been going since the film and we have a new album that will coincide with the re-release. Beautiful, man. I love you guys. I'm so excited for you.

And it's deserved, man. It's so cool that this movie is getting a new life with a new generation. Yeah, that's great. It really is. And you guys are just rocking all the way through it. I mean, to see. It's dawn to dusk. Yeah, when Sasha said, hey, man, you know, the movie's going to come back.

I said, what are you talking about? Like, really? Come back. Come back. He goes, yeah, it's going to get re-released. Then it's going to be like a new movie kind of thing. Yeah, we were kind of baffled. That never happens, right? I said, that never happens. yeah, it's going to get re-released, and it's going to be like a new movie kind of thing. Really? We were kind of baffled.

That never happens, right? I said, that never happens. It's kind of baffling. He goes, it's going to happen now. You want to see the same movie again, but you don't want to see a new one? Like, huh? Well, there'll be some extra stuff.

Again, it's going to be remastered, which is great. But I mean, the reason this is happening, like I said, is because of the young kids who've seen the film. And that's why we're doing it. There's an appetite for this type of thing. Yeah. Apparently. So awesome.

It's going to be so cool. It's going to be so cool. We'll invite you to the premiere, which will be happening around the... Yeah, of course. Because the last one was not so bad, right? Yeah. No, that was fun.

And Sasha, I got to say, I mean, you've been on the show before and I've probably said this publicly, but you had mentioned, yes, we've known each other for a long time. And I think over the 20 years of our friendship, we've both gone through a lot. And you have definitely been someone who's been there for me during my low moments and difficult times. And a lot of those times coincided with when you were making this movie. Like I remember vividly a lot of time that we spent together. I remember when you got married to Julie, dude. I was there that day. I remember talking to you just before. I remember that very well. Do you remember that conversation?

Yes, vividly, vividly. It's been a while, man. You know what, man? We're still here. We're still fighting. I know, I know. I feel so lucky that I've been invited onto this show and to be able to share this, you know,

my really good friends. Yeah, thank you very much. We're very, very lucky. We definitely thank you for having us on here. I'm so excited to have you guys on. Yeah, it's a thrill. It's an honor. So if people want to learn more about you guys, the band, where do you want to direct them?

Oh. I mean, obviously go see the movie. Well, we have, what do we have? You still have that website? We got the social media stuff. You know, we have a Twitter, we got an what do we have? we got the social media stuff we got a Twitter, we got an Instagram, we have a Facebook you got all the stuff they've got all the stuff

I think that right now we're probably and actually we still have that rinky dinky they still have the rinky dinky the fans are the fans same one nothing changes since 1996. Same fan site.

The same fan site. All right. I'll link all that stuff up in the show notes, obviously. But it's so simple and so straightforward. Everything is listed. You click on it. It brings it up. And are you guys back touring now?

Yeah. Well, with COVID, we had a huge tour last year with the Legal Alastor, legal last record, right? You know, the Anvil Bong. People need to smoke the Anvil Bong, you know? I guess they do. I mean, there's really not much to say after that. But yeah, we had a great 65-day tour, and we got 17 dates into the tour,

and COVID just shut the world down. So we did one live stream last year, which was interesting. We did that. And we did one show a couple of weeks ago just to be able to say we did a COVID gig. That was kind of cool, right? People were very hungry.

It was great. It was sold out, packed out. Next year. Yeah. The UK tour is coming. Yeah, we got big tours. They're doing the biggest ever tour of the UK they've ever done in 2022.

So it's just now we're at the mercy of this COVID nonsense. I mean, like it's for real, but that they get it, just open the world up, let's get on with it. So that's complicated things. Yeah, in due time. But in the meantime, great to spend an afternoon with you guys.

Best of luck. And I'll see you at the LA premiere. Okay. Sounds good to me. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you, Sasha. Love you.

Peace. That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change in the Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support

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Portraits by Davy Greenberg and Grayson Wilder. Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Jessica Miranda, Daniel Solis, Dan Drake, and AJ Akpodiete. Thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis.

Appreciate the love, love the supportatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love. Love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste. Thank you.