{"id":538264,"date":"2026-03-15T15:48:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T15:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/538264\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T15:48:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T15:48:12","slug":"anvil-the-band-who-claim-to-have-brought-metal-to-north-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/538264\/","title":{"rendered":"Anvil: the band who claim to have brought metal to North America"},"content":{"rendered":"

History doesn\u2019t always get it right. While every metalhead knows
that the 80s began with a flurry of classic albums from Ozzy<\/a>, Priest<\/a>, Maiden<\/a>, Mot\u00f6rhead<\/a> and many more, one of the most important and influential records of the decade\u2019s first couple of years rarely gets a mention.<\/p>\n

Released in the spring of 1981, Toronto trio Anvil\u2019s debut album, Hard \u2019N\u2019 Heavy, was one of the catalysts that set metal\u2019s wheels rolling towards the birth of thrash and beyond, influencing Metallica, Anthrax and countless more iconic bands in the process.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Genial frontman Steve \u2018Lips\u2019 Kudlow looks back on those early days as a time of wide-eyed enthusiasm. \u201cWhen the 80s started, metal really didn\u2019t exist, particularly in North America,\u201d he recalls. \u201cIt was something that was mainly coming from the UK. We formed in \u201978 and I guess we were kind of bringing metal to our country.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe had cassette tapes that we\u2019d run through our PA system and we\u2019d introduce other cool bands to the audiences that we were playing for. So it was a really new thing, but to us it was just a continuation of the hard rock that we\u2019d been listening to since we were kids. They just started to call it heavy metal and we were happy to be part of it. It was exciting, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Anvil\n<\/p>\n

Anvil in 2008: (from left) Rob Reiner, Steve \u2018Lips\u2019 Kudlow, Glen Five (Image credit: Frank Micelotta\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Hindsight is a glorious thing. Looking back to the music Anvil were making in the early 80s, it\u2019s easy to see how wildly ahead of their time they were and how, along with Mot\u00f6rhead, they contributed several major new weapons to metal\u2019s creative armoury.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t look back at the 80s with great nostalgia. Some of those days were pretty rough. <\/p>\n

Lips<\/p>\n

Although Hard \u2019N\u2019 Heavy was a largely straightforward hard rock record, songs such as Bedroom Game and Bondage are some of the earliest ever examples of what would become speed and thrash metal.<\/p>\n

\u201cRobb [Reiner, Anvil drummer] and I were always really intrigued by and loved Deep Purple a lot, and the higher-tempo stuff really attracted us and inspired us to want to be able to play like that,\u201d Lips explains. \u201cSo in doing that, instead of single bass drum beats, Robb started using double bass drum beats and I would chug the guitar in much the same way as [Ritchie] Blackmore did on Speed King or Flight Of The Rat or any of the higher-tempo Deep Purple songs. And I guess that became speed metal, but we didn\u2019t know that\u2019s what we were doing! That\u2019s just what it became.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Anvil\n<\/p>\n

Anvil onstage in 1982 (Image credit: David Plastik\/IconicPix)<\/p>\n

Recorded at Quest Studios in Oshawa, Canada, Anvil\u2019s debut album was entirely self-financed, not least because the North American music industry was yet to pick up on this new and exhilarating breed of none-more-heavy rock. As Lips notes, the songs on Hard \u2019N\u2019 Heavy were written very early on in Anvil\u2019s development as musicians and songwriters, and it wouldn\u2019t be until 1982\u2019s Metal On Metal that the band\u2019s more brutal ideas started to gain traction.<\/p>\n

\u201cRealistically, the material that was written for that first record was written two to three years before it was recorded. So it\u2019s really previous to metal even being called metal, if you know what I mean. What were we influenced by? Obviously English stuff and also American stuff. Bedroom Game was directly influenced by Rainbow. Then there\u2019s Bondage, which was directly influenced by Ted Nugent. So it\u2019s really all that stuff that was part of the 70s. It just so happened that we didn\u2019t release it until 1981. As soon as that came out, we started writing for the second record, which came out in 1982. Metal On Metal was much more of a heavy metal record than the first one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hard \u2019N\u2019 Heavy was released on May 25, 1981 via Canadian rock imprint Attic Records. Lips notes that securing a record deal hadn\u2019t been too much of a problem, but that at least one prospective benefactor at Capitol Records had flinched when confronted with the sexually charged (but slightly juvenile) lyrics to songs like School Love, I Want You Both (With Me) and, in particular, Bondage (opening line: \u2018Tie me down you mean old bag!\u2019). Lips cackles at the memory.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

\u201cAnybody between the ages of 18 and 23, that\u2019s all that\u2019s on your mind, right?\u201d he muses, not unreasonably. \u201cThat guy hears School Love and he says, \u2018Oh my god, that\u2019s absolutely filthy! We\u2019re not signing that!\u2019 Ha ha! So it makes sense that the first album was so much about sex. The second one made a slight departure from that, because I guess it became a little less important. Maybe my hormones weren\u2019t working as strongly, I don\u2019t know! Ha ha ha!\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Anvil&rsquo;s\n<\/p>\n

Anvil\u2019s Steve \u2018Lips\u2019 Kudlow in the 1980s (Image credit: Ebet Roberts\/Redferns)<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve seen Sacha Gervasi\u2019s astonishing documentary, Anvil:
The Story Of Anvil (and if you haven\u2019t, what the fuck?) then you will know that Lips\u2019 hopes for world domination never quite came to fruition.<\/p>\n

We fell between the cracks and that\u2019s what caused the fall into obscurity. But it never put an end to what I wanted to do.<\/p>\n

Lips<\/p>\n

Despite his and Robb Reiner\u2019s resolute determination, an initial flurry of low-key success in the early 80s never led them to a major commercial breakthrough, and due to poor management decisions and a whole stack of bad luck, the 80s didn\u2019t turn out to be golden age that Anvil unquestionably deserved. In fact, it all sounds a bit rank.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting the first album recorded was a massive highlight,\u201d Lips states. \u201cBut I don\u2019t look back at the 80s with great nostalgia. I\u2019ll be honest, I\u2019ve had better times! Ha ha! Some of those days were pretty rough. Some of the hotel rooms were horrible. There were holes in the walls. You had to bring sleeping bags, because if you slept in those beds you were gonna get scabies and fuckin\u2019 crabs. If you slept with anyone you\u2019re gonna get a dose. It was just a dirty time and a dirty environment, so yeah, we had a lot of fun but there was some pretty awful stuff going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

#TBT Anvil March Of The Crabs Live | Licklibrary @ Hellfire Festival 2009 – YouTube
\n\"#TBT<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

In musical terms, Anvil plainly made their mark in those grubby early days. Glowing tributes from the likes of Lars Ulrich and Anthrax\u2019s Scott Ian at the start of Anvil: The Story Of Anvil tell their own story about the lasting impact and power of Lips\u2019 prescient contribution to metal history, even if the band themselves are underdogs to the last and proud of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re ahead of your time, it\u2019s a real problem,\u201d he shrugs. \u201cYou can have something extremely unique and cutting edge and you send that to a record label, and they won\u2019t sign it because they don\u2019t understand it. But I knew what we had was special, even back on Hard \u2019N\u2019 Heavy. I was never going to give up and now I\u2019ve been doing it for 40 years nonstop. And we are still playing School Love!\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Anvil&rsquo;s\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: FRANCOIS GUILLOT\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Even as Lips bemoans the struggles that his band had to endure during their pioneering early days, he still sounds very much in love with the whole notion of playing in a heavy metal band. He\u2019s also happy to admit that it was Sacha Gervasi\u2019s support and the impact of his documentary that finally, after 30 years of trying, enabled Anvil to become the secure recording and touring unit that they always wanted to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fell between the cracks and that\u2019s what caused the fall into obscurity,\u201d he notes, cheerfully. \u201cBut it never put an end to what I wanted to do. I just waited until it came around again. In the end, a kid that we met back at The Marquee in London grew up to be Steven Spielberg\u2019s screenwriter, and what does he do? He makes a movie about Anvil and that\u2019s it, bingo! Had I given up in \u201983, there would\u2019ve been no history for that movie to base itself on. So you can\u2019t wish anything different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 332 (February 2020)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"History doesn\u2019t always get it right. While every metalhead knows that the 80s began with a flurry of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-538264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}