BraveWords caught up with Anvil legend Steve “Lips” Kudlow recently as the band continue to “pound the pavement” in support of their latest album, Impact Is Imminent. At 67 years old, he still has all the pistons pumping alongside life-long friend, brother and drummer Robb "Robbo" Reiner and more recent addition (2014) bassist Chris Robertson. So Anvil are survivalists fulfilling their ultimate passion of writing, recording and playing live. A simple solution for artistic sanity. Most certainly, they are living the dream.
“Think about it. The first show as Anvil, we were opening for Motörhead,” he begins reminiscing in an excerpt from our upcoming feature. “That's pretty remarkable. Lemmy was so good to us. He was so fucking cool, man. Like, from that first show on, I remained friends with him until the day he died. Just incredible. He's like the older brother who tells you all the fucking shit that's going to happen to you if you don't watch it. That's what the friendship was like.”
BraveWords: Was there a real older brother in your life who introduced you to music?
Lips: "I had an older brother."
BraveWords: Did he deliver the goods?
Lips: "Actually, yes he did. When I think back, in 1967 - I started playing in 1966, but by 1967 my older brother was bringing home the Hendrix Are You Experienced? album, Jefferson Airplane Surrealistic Pillow, The Doors first album. That's pretty serious, you know? It's not like I was turned onto it after the fact, they were new albums at the time. But I was only a ten year old, right? Eleven years old. And previous to that, I was a Stones fanatic. Yeah, I loved The Beatles, and my mother sent me to guitar lessons when I started at ten years old, and the first thing they did was they bought the Rubber Soul music book. It had every chord and then some, for me to learn. I think I pretty much favoured the Stones more, because they were dirtier."
BraveWords: The Rolling Stones were dirtier than The Beatles?
Lips: "In my discussions with Lemmy, he didn't agree with me on that. That's fascinating to me. He goes, 'The Beatles, they were the real dirt. They were the guys who lived really tough and hard. The Stones all came from wealthy families and fucking lived the high life in London. Where the guys were fighting for their life was in Liverpool'. He really respected The Beatles much more. I'm just telling you, these were the discussions that I had with Lemmy in his day. It was incredible."
The irony is that Lemmy asked Lips to replace "Fast" Eddie Clarke in the early ‘80s but he declined! Stay tuned for our upcoming feature with Lips in the coming days.
(Photo credit: James Garvin)
