VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Anvil’s Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow & Robb Reiner On Life Since Their Documentary

Anvil, the Canadian heavy metal band that released the influential Metal on Metal album of the early ’80s and served as the subject of Anvil! The Story Of Anvil, is touring again as the highly-rated documentary is out for rerelease.

Guitarist Steve “Lips” Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner recently sat with uInterview founder Erik Meers to discuss what their life has been like since the documentary was originally released in 2009.

“We’re just carrying on our career quite nicely,” Reiner shared. “The band has become our day job. We love it. All we do is rock when we can.”

The documentary follows the band that had at one time been at the top of their genre but soon fell off the map due to multiple mishaps. Kudlow and Reiner shared some of the instances they think attributed to the downfall of their career.

“Bad managers. S–tty record companies. Being young. Making some f–cking dumb decisions,” Reiner said.

“Choosing the big rockstar style management over the guy who’s down in the trenches and up and coming really doing it. That’s the mistake,” Kudlow revealed. “You go with the big name, a guy who’s managing Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and Scorpions, and meanwhile the guy who’s up and coming and is managing Anthrax and is trying to get them a record deal … you’re passing on him and meanwhile, there was your ticket. Then, there’s greed. Real simple greed. We were signed to an independent label in Canada and when the big-time manager that I was referring to went and took our catalog to the labels, they said, ‘Oh what a lovely band! They’re from Canada. We’ll be glad to sign them as long as they give us the first three albums for free.'”

When asked if they felt they were punished by the industry for being Canadian, the band members stopped short of agreeing with the notion.

“Rock and roll is a vicious game,” Reiner said. “That’s the bottom line. It’s all about money. It’s all about business. It’s all people and personal stuff. It’s not territorial, there are a–holes everywhere. There are no borders on that.”