Metal on Ice by Sean Kelly

Author:Sean Kelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2013-07-30T04:00:00+00:00

In the cases of Voivod and Anvil, touring abroad provided a bedrock that has sustained the careers of both bands for decades. Anvil was aided by Attic Records president Al Mair’s solid relationship with Doug Smith, who managed the legendary Motörhead, as well as early eighties metal mainstays Girlschool, and tours with both acts were the result of this friendship. Mair was also instrumental in getting the band a slot on the bill for Japan’s massive Super Rock Festival, which saw Anvil standing toe-to-toe with such metal giants as Scorpions, Whitesnake, and the Michael Schenker Group. That festival also featured a little-known New Jersey band in the support slot by the name of Bon Jovi. It was Europe, however, that yielded the greatest return on time invested.

Lips: “Oh yeah, Europe. We made a huge impact in Europe, massive, in fact, to the point where it kept the band a recording band for thirty plus years since.”

And was there something distinctly Canadian about Anvil that appeared to European audiences?

“We were unique. In the early eighties, you had to have a sound and a style that was your own. Otherwise you didn’t get a record deal. So that is why, as well as being Canadian, we have kept that throne all through the years, to this day. People know that Anvil is a Canadian band, and part of our marketing is that. By the time we did our fifth album, we had a song called ‘Blood on the Ice,’ not that dissimilar from your book [laughs]. Many years later, probably in ’97 or ’98, the record company and promotional company decided to make a T-shirt that looked like a hockey jersey and put ‘98’ on the back with Blood on the Ice and the Canadian maple leaf on the front with the Anvil logo over top in white. It looked like a white hockey jersey, and when we played the Wacken Festival in Germany in ’98 we probably sold a thousand. And part of it had to do with the Canadian maple leaf. We’ve got a number of different T-shirt designs that we use to this day that all have the Canadian insignia. I mean, it becomes part of it. I wear something with the Canadian insignia on it onstage every night — whether it’s wristbands or a T-shirt, there’s always something indicating it’s Lips from Anvil from Canada. It’s funny, because we have a song on our latest album (Juggernaut of Justice) called ‘Fuckin’ Eh.’ And now we’ve changed the Blood on the Ice shirt to a Fuckin’ Eh shirt. It’s become part of the show. Steve-O [from MTV’s Jackass] came up to me at a show in Los Angeles at the House of Blues and said, ‘Hey Lips, do you know how to spell Canada?’ And I go, ‘Huh?’ And he goes, ‘C -eh-N-eh-D-eh.’ [laughs]. And that’s become part of the show. I talk about being Canadian. I even talk about being the Stompin’ Tom Connors of heavy metal. I play a few bars of a couple of his songs, and it really goes over very, very well worldwide.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.