Rush Evans of Goldmine magazine recently conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist Steve "Lips" Kudlow of Canadian metal legends ANVIL. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below. Goldmine: You're done with day jobs and you're 60 now… congratulations, but it appears that that fact means nothing as far as slowing down or thinking any differently about your work. Is that fair to say? Lips: "I've retired into work! I went from back-breaking fucking horrible shit to doing this rock thing, and it's like I'm on a constant vacation. Every fucking night on the road is a Friday or Saturday. I lose all perception of time, place, date. I don't know the day of the month. You couldn't dream of something this good to retire to! I don't understand why these bands are doing their farewell tours. They should be so fucking grateful that they can continue. Choosing not to is beyond my understanding. We're making up for a lot of time that we didn't get to tour. I didn't burn myself out on the road in my 20s and 30s because I had to make a living at home. Having said that, me making a living at home, I was able to maintain a still wonderful relationship with my wife. I have children that are all grown up. My youngest is in university. It's not like the world is on my shoulders. A lot of the pressures that you get in younger years are gone. So now I go away and I don't feel guilty that I'm not home. It's quite comfortable. It's not back-breaking. It's a great place to end up being." Goldmine: How did you feel when your one-time roadie Sacha Gervasi came to you with the idea for directing a documentary film about Anvil? Lips: "I hadn't heard from him in 25 years. The last time I'd seen him, he was, like, 17 years old. Then all of a sudden I'm getting an email from him in 2006. I sent him my phone number, he calls me, he tells me, 'This weekend, I'm paying for a flight. You're coming to visit me in L.A.' I get out at LAX, and I see this little sports car with the hood down. There's Sacha; the kid grew up! It was a remarkable feeling. I get in the car and I find out that it was originally Sean Connery's car that he bought second hand. We're buzzing around in the thing, and he begins telling me that he's working in Los Angeles, that he'd written the movie 'The Terminal'. I went, 'Holy shit! I just went to see the movie! No wonder you're driving this fucking thing!' As we're talking, it was like no time had elapsed. As I go home after the weekend, he calls and tells me, 'I'm coming up to Toronto, I've got to talk to you.' He goes, 'Listen, I gotta tell you: I'm gonna make a movie about you.' I immediately went into tears. What flashed in my mind was 30 years of trying to make it in the music business, waiting for the break and I just got it. I was so emotionally blown away by it. He didn't really get it, why I was freaking out about it. I knew that this was my break. 'You're just doing what you want to do, but for me, I finally got my break.' I knew what it was gonna turn into. This wasn't some guy with a video camera. This was a guy who's worked with Spielberg. Somebody who knows what they're doing is gonna do this. Sacha is one of the most interesting people you could meet, really good guy. He's a pretty fascinating human being. I feel very fortunate to have met him, particularly at such a young age. I mean this kid was already friends with Dustin Hoffman even before I knew him! I don't even know how to explain this shit, man! Some people are just magic people." Read the entire interview at Goldmine.
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