If there is one thing that we as human beings all share as a similarity, it's the fact that we always dream big and we strive to achieve even bigger. Before I got into the world of heavy metal music, before playing in bands and before chasing the vision of playing in front of a big audience, I always wanted to know how all the great bands from the old days achieved that. Truth be told, it's not always an overnight success and it's not always a matter of an instant hit. Sometimes, it is a matter of enduring much turmoil and hardship that comes along the way, the price you have to pay and the lengths you have to go in order to get what you want. A band with such a difficult yet incredibly inspiring story, presented through their successful documentary, a band with such a rich catalog of influential classic heavy metal albums, is none other than the Canadian legends Anvil. For the longest time ever, Anvil has been very important for me in developing the love and passion that I have for heavy metal music, as well as for anybody else who was coming from famous bands such as Judas Priest, Motörhead and Black Sabbath, while also following their footsteps to achieve the same thing one day. I still look back at that golden year of 2013 when I really started diving deeper to find more incredible stuff on YouTube, even while playing the video game Brutal Legend which opened new doors for me in my early teens. Had it not been for this band, and their documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil, I don't think I would be sitting here right now. The Canadian heavy metal maniacs Anvil are coming back with their officially twentieth album "One And Only", which was teased with their hit singles 'Feed Your Fantasy' and 'Truth Is Dying', but that is just a taste of what is to come before this album is officially released on June 28th. On June 13th, I had the pleasure of exchanging words about their upcoming album with none other than the man and legend himself, Steve "Lips" Kudlow. Aside from the main focus of the new album "One And Only", we also talked about a lot of other subjects along the way, such as his upbringing and development that made a person that he is today, the problems of modern-day society, and we also brought up a couple of famous conspiracy theories that still keep people wake at night all these years. It was a very wild and crazy conversation, but nonetheless it was just as pleasant and engaging as I expected, and I truly hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.

Vladimir

How are you doing Lips? I see it's a nice day up there in Toronto.

Yeah hahah, pretty good.

So, the reason why I invited you is because I had the pleasure of checking out the new Anvil record "One And Only", I have to say that I was very pleased how the performance still sounds fresh and tight as always, even aside from the great album production, there is plenty of catchiness and heaviness all around that you can feel from start to finish. In comparison to your previous album "Impact Is Imminent", it is much simpler in structure, but still a very mean rock and roll album overall. How are you guys satisfied with the final result?

I think we're pretty damn satisfied, can't complain. Came out exactly as planned, and that's a good thing.

Very happy to hear that. For a band such as yourselves, being on this planet for the last 45 or so years, I have a hard time believing that you would come across any difficulties when making a new album, but I am curious to know, were you facing any challenges with this album or was it a smooth ride?

No, actually it went very smoothly. It all went very smoothly, the recording, writing and everything. It went very quick, very pleasurable, no problem.

There's plenty of standout tracks on this record, even the title track has a very strong message to it, essentially stating the fact that despite the difficulties of originality and mediocrity in the modern age of music, you still gotta be yourself, be One and Only. It is exactly what you guys are, because there is no other band with a story such as yours, and another great band by the name of Anvil. What inspired you to take on this lyrical subject regarding originality and musical mediocrity that the song deals with?

Well, that's my motto of life. It's what I've started out to be like as a child. It's been something that I followed those intuitions and that philosophy my entire life. Yeah, I was the kid that all the teachers had trouble with in the class because I was not like the other kids, I didn't want to be like the other kids and I wasn't. I was obstinate and doubtful of authority.

Yeah, and it practically never changed since.

Yeah, I was always questioning things like "is that the only way to do it? Wait a minute, there's gotta be a better way than that". That kind of attitude. Since I was little, by the time I was 10 years old when my dad bought a guitar for me, I began playing, but not playing from copying, but from trying to create. Once the initial challenges like learning how to tune came in, things that in today's day and age you don't even think twice, because you got electronic tuners and you don't have to worry about things like that, but in the old days they didn't have electronic tuners. I guess they did, but they were called strobe tuners, but aside from strobe tuners you would use either a pitchfork or piano or you use a record, and hopefully the record that you are taking the sample from is in tune and the turntable is turning at the right speed, you can get your guitar in tune, but aside from that, learning how to play chords was the first initial challenges. My mother actually went out and bought the Rubber Soul Beatles book because she knew I was a Beatles fan, which had all the chords and everything. I learned all my chords by looking at that, I could barely play the songs because they got really complex chords which you are virtually never gonna use again, as a whole other issue about Beatle music, but it taught me the fundamentals to start noodling around and figuring out "wow this chord sounds good with that chord, this and that and the other". I began creating because by the time I was that age I had little reel to reel cassette players, and I began immediately recording and experimenting, so that's how I learned. My whole thing was you don't get anywhere by playing somebody else's song.

Yeah, well it depends if you play in a cover band that plays in weddings or elsewhere.

Yeah, well if you are a cover band, okay, but that's not what I had in mind, if I want to be in a cover band I might as well be in a Bar Mitzvah band, they get more. Playing at a Bar Mitzvah or in a wedding band or playing Tom Jones material and dance music, you are gonna make a hell of a lot more money than you are as a rock band, because those bands get paid a bloody fortune and they are fed really well.

Yeah, I totally agree on this. Essentially, what I'd like to state about this album is that it is something than can make you just sit back, put it on, and enjoy it all the way through, without bothering too much about what is going on or paying attention to the slightest musical details. In some ways it's like when you are listening to a new AC/DC album, you know exactly what to expect and you know you just have to relax and be one with the music. Was this the kind of approach that you were trying to incorporate?

I think we are always trying to do that; I don't know if any of that has changed. We still want a very cohesive and enjoyable record on a whole overall picture, you want a certain level of consistency in songs. I think the biggest mistake is getting too complicated, you don't really need to get that complicated, not really. It's all about the feel of the song, the tempos and the kind of groove that each song has, and you don't want it to go on too long and you don't want it to be too short. You've gotta find the right arrangements for these songs, it's really important cause if it's too long and it has too many verses, it gets boring to listen to. Our songs are very well arranged.

And they are simple, that's the most important part that they are simple.

Yeah, simple to listen to.

Yeah, even if you go heavier, because there are a couple of tracks that really stand out like that. What I like about this album, like some of the previous albums, is that it combines the old and the new when it comes to Anvil, with some tracks giving a nice throwback to the heavier headbanging tunes from the 80's such as 'Dead Man Shoes' and 'Blind Rage'. Was it all planned to have the album be like a nice balance of the two or did it all come together naturally?

You want both kind of songs, you want as many variables to your sound as you can possibly come up with, and the way it is with feels. I've got one of the greatest drummers in the world and I like to utilize it, and having him playing double-bass drum in every song would be such a waste, because look at that wealth of great feels and things like that. You can hear the drums in all different kinds of songs, and that's what I strive for, variables. It must not be one linear thing, it has to have all different types of songs, very very important. But the thing they have all in common, it's that they are memorable. You remember the hook like you remember the chorus for every song that's on this record, and that's the same as on the albums "Metal On Metal" and "Forged In Fire", everyone of those songs you remember as a result of knowing the title of the song. Memorability is everything, and you have that with your chorus lines, and these songs are all written from course of knowing this is the main riff, this is where the chorus is going to sit, now write the song around that, build the song in a proper arrangement where you hear the chorus enough that it catches your ear and that it remains there, that you have enough verse but not too much to make it boring. Everything is properly arranged, very methodically arranged this time and that's because I didn't do it through intervention, I did between myself and my tape recorders, figuring out on my own, keep listening and listening to stuff over and over and figuring out what needs and what doesn't need to be there.

That's a good approach. A lot of bands nowadays, they have this general issue when they come up with a song, they don't really revisit it, even if it's like a day after or couple of weeks after, the problem is they don't bother to look if it's a good idea after it's been sitting there for a while. You once mentioned about the song 'Feed Your Fantasy' that the original idea you got for the chorus was 'Road To Sunshine'.

Yeah, that's right. Well, we were experimenting with lyrics. Robb gives me a list of titles and I try to fit them on the song, and I discovered how the chorus worked in 'Feed Your Fantasy', but I discovered it with using other words. Musically speaking I am looking for the notes and what the singing notes are, and what the syllables of the lyrics are, and how that rhythmically works within the song. 'Road To Sunshine' is somewhat like 'Feed Your Fantasy'.

Yeah, if you know how to rhythmically pronounce those words.

Yeah, but 'Road To Sunshine' was unsatisfying because it only worked in the front, you couldn't get both choruses. There is a chorus that goes between the verses and the chorus that goes between the lines of the verse and they are two different ones. The one is the elongated like 'Feeeed Your Fantasy', and the other one goes 'Feed Your Fantasy, what it's got to be, Feed Your Fantasy'. They are two different chorus lines that happen in two different places. With 'Road To Sunshine' you can't go "Road to Suuunshine", it doesn't work, it didn't work, but the "Roaaaad to Suuunshine", that worked. Jeez, you know, until you find the right thing, it's tough. And then you're watching TV and the guy comes on and he's advertising a trip to Jamaica and he's going "Feed your Fantasy!", and I went "that's the title for the song, right there".

That's actually a very good opportunity, because you don't know exactly where to look but once you do, and it's there and you know it's there, you go "Oh! That's it!".

That's right, because you got there by deduction, we just went "Feeeed your Fantasy" and we're like "oh it's done, I found it, it's done", that's how you know. You're looking for something and you can't find it, but when you do, you know you found it. It's like a puzzle piece, only one piece fits, you just have to think of it. That's how I go about doing it.

Yeah, and the fact that you mentioned the memorability, it has to be memorable and they can't be just any words.

No, obviously. That's a prime example and it shows a couple of things, it didn't work in every instinct, in every application of what I wanted to do, it was completely limited. I had to find something else and it made it so very apparent, but in doing so it made me come to realize how the melody works on the piece of music, and what I was looking for that piece of music, because it has to work vocally and musically. You can't have something that's disjointed and not working and then record it and put it out, you can't do that.

That's one of the things that stood out for me at least with the majority of your discographies that there is a good sense of memorable stuff, whether it's the song name or the chorus that highlights the song name. But there is a specific situation that I wanted to bring up, and it is a weird one. When I was getting into Anvil like many years ago, there is like an order of songs on the tracklist that form such a weird sentence, it's from the first three tracks from the "Absolutely No Alternative" album that go 'Oldschool', 'Green Jesus', 'Show Me Your Tits', and imagine saying that to somebody like "Hey Oldschool Green Jesus, Show me Your Tits!". That's crazy. Those song names just stand out to you and I can't imagine any other band doing the same thing as you guys do.

Hahah, yeah. But at the same time, the song 'Show Me Your Tits', which was actually just called "Show me" was a good idea but it didn't work in another sense. People took that really the wrong way, I don't think they really came to understand that I am talking about the legality of being able to take your shirt off, for a woman being allowed to take her shirt off, because it was about a Canadian law, about something that got implemented and then got changed. The Canadian law made all the news across the country, it was a big deal, and it set precedents that if it's a hot day outside, and they are working in the yard, they are allowed to take their shirt off and not be charged with anything, which I think it's up to a woman what she wants to do. Why is it against the law? Think about that.

That's a very hard law to dictate, it's basically robbing people of their freedom.

Yeah, or 'Condemned Liberty', that's about losing the rights. Now if somebody makes a big complain, they'll change the law and that will lose that right in a blink, because that's what goes on in this world, one or two people complain and they take out a whole situation for that. As an example, there is a lady who opened up a coffee shop and I guess it's out of the zone, she opened it up in her living room, she opened up the front window so people could see in and set up like a little café in the front of her house. Okay so fine, she's serving and selling coffee. Well, the government came and shut her down. Why? Because someone "complained". So now they got a petition where there's something like a fifteen thousand people that said "Leave her alone, she's not causing any harm to anybody". And where are we gonna get the coffee? Now you got to walk a mile to get to the closest place to get a coffee. Thanks! You what I mean? That's the kind of 'Condemned Liberty', that's how our society is working, it takes one person to wreck it for everybody. I am telling you man it's craziness, over-amplified bellyaching.

Jesus Christ, those are the people that I like to call killjoys of life because they basically ruin all the things that people enjoy. I can only imagine having to walk 10 miles to buy coffee, that is more expensive and not as good as that homemade coffee. You have got to be fucking kidding me…

That's right and that is exactly what happened. And one person wrecked it just by complaining. You have to wonder what the hell are you complaining about? Like, really? I don't know man, it's a weird world man, it's all I can say. That's what we do, that's the kind of stuff that goes on, so it gives me stuff to write about. Obviously having a song like 'Condemned Liberty', it's pretty true. I mean what are we doing before we know we are living in China, like in a dictatorship? You get to the point where you can't trust anything you are hearing and they are taking over. It's like "you are either gonna trust us or trust nothing". That's what it turns into and people give up their rights and everything just for security.

People really like to complain about things that are really not big of a deal. I mean imagine this; the peak of technology is somehow also the peak of human stupidity. I mean, how the hell is anyone supposed to live a normal day life? And how are you able to actually make things worse in this day and age? There is something weird about it that really makes you scratch your head, because people make a big deal about something that is actually pointless.

There are serious implications and evidence that something stinks, and no one does anything about it. You never hear truth at the end of the day what really happened. What really happened on 9/11? There are obviously three perfect demo jobs, you've got to wonder how the hell did they pull that off. It's not just one building, it was three buildings, perfect demolition jobs, and one of the buildings wasn't even hit by the airplanes. Why is there no real inquiry to what really happened? Why are there no real answers? They say there are, but some of it just doesn't add up. All I know is what I saw, and it looked to me, and it still does, like it was purposely done and demolished perfectly. I don't know man, it's really hard to believe all the facts that they don't tell us. In the same way that it's hard to believe that president Kennedy was shot with one bullet, that doesn't make any sense either, right? Especially if you watch the footage that they have. From my perspective it looked like he had been hit twice, but I don't know. I see him lurch backwards and then I see him lurch forwards, I see him get shot twice, I don't know.

Yeah, it's crazy. Honestly, there isn't much that I could add to it, even I am a bit puzzled about it. A lot of times I just keep thinking that they keep the truth away from us because they might just want to change the course of history. Of course, if anybody has the evidence, it's Roswell, but I am not gonna go there.

That's a whole other thing, but it's also about 'Truth Is Dying', and it's also about 'Condemned Liberty'. Don't we have a right to know that shit? They are just beginning to divulge the fact that "Yes there is stuff that we don't know what it is". It's just divulging that. Yeah, you are admitting that there are UFO's or that there are things that we don't know what they are, but what else are we not admitting? They never admitted up until now. At least they are admitting that they don't know what this stuff really is.

Lips, I have to say that it has been such an honor talking to you man, this was a very wild conversation.  Anvil has been one of the most important bands for me when I started getting into heavy metal music, and I still recall covering "Metal On Metal" with my best friend on our first rehearsal ever when we were just 13/14 years old. It means the world to me that you agreed to do this, thank you so much for this wonderful chat, you're a true legend.

Thank you man, you are a very kind gentleman, thank you.

I am really looking forward to the release of the new album and I hope that you guys will come to play in Serbia someday or anywhere else in Eastern Europe. Are there any final words you'd like to say before we wrap up this interview?

Not really, I just want peace on this fucking planet. That's what I'd really like to see, very very badly. Because we have to get out of the framework and the thought of finding our differences, we should find our similarities. That's what we really need to do badly as a whole human race, more than finding the same God. Music is one of those things, there's metal people in every culture and every place on this planet. It would be nice if that became a religion and that we all got along and that we look beyond our brand name, like what country we come from, like "no, you belong to the human race". A world where there is no such thing as racism, there is no such thing as hatred and there shouldn't be. People should learn to have conscience and have empathy for each other, that would be a really great world. I can dream and that's what I like to do.

We all dream big, and we all strive to dream bigger. Much less people nowadays dream bigger of a better world, and I am really glad that you are one of those people.

Thank you very much and I appreciate the time that you put in, it's great to meet you.