ANVIL Drummer: We Have Become Super-Famous Not Just Famous, But Super-Famous

Niclas Mller-Hansen of Sweden's Metalshrine recently conducted an interview with drummer Robb Reiner of Canadian heavy metal legends ANVIL. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metalshrine: Did you feel a lot of pressure recording this album, considering all the hype around the movie ["Anvil! The Story Of Anvil"], that this is a make-or-break album?

Robb: Well, let's be realistic. Of course we felt no pressure, because we had the material in hand all along and our mission was to make the most true-to-the-classic-form ANVIL album we've ever made and we had to make sure that we stood up and that we were gonna be counted this time, musically. We were looking forward to the challenge more than the pressure, you know. We had no choice but to do it and I think that we're definitely are gonna be counted this time.

Metalshrine: How come you ended up working with [producer] Bob Marlette? Was that something you chose or the record company?

Robb: No, no, no! Our manager. We knew that [former ANVIL producer] Chris Tsangarides could not take us to the next level and we've known that for quite a while. Chris is a great producer and he's my friend and all that, but he's not the man to take us to the next level and our manager suggested a few new people and we picked Bob out of the list. He was a great choice and he's an amazing, amazing producer and he's a songwriter and he really cares about making it right.

Metalshrine: After this and everything that happened, did you feel that you got a lot more attention from different record companies and how come you ended up with Steamhammer?

Robb: Listen, we're super-famous now! ANVIL has become worldwide super-famous not just famous, but super-famous. It's unbelievable how famous we got! The story got told and the story needed to get told and by becoming the story, a lot of people didn't realize a lot of the truths about ANVIL, and yeah, that brought a lot of people that are in the business to the band, to become bona fide rock stars. We have a great team around us now and we have the best management any rock band can have. We have a great rock and roll agent, we've got a record company and we've been touring nonstop for years now. Last year we played to a total of more than 400,000 people and it's not stopping. The movie part will never stop. It will keep going forever!

Metalshrine: Did you ever feel like that with everything that happened with the movie, that why did it take a movie to put you on the next level?

Robb: You know what?! Life is funny and that's just how it works. I would have never thought in a million years that it would take a movie to open the doors for us. Who would've thought? That was the beautiful part about it. The movie idea was the director Sacha's [Gervasi] idea. He came up with the idea and we just went along with it. We wanted to tell a story and the world needed to know the whole career of ANVIL. Our music made a difference and it inspired a whole generation of music that everybody veered and nobody knew that. We had to get everything told, we had to tell the whole story. I'm glad it did it. But listen, without the music there would be no movie, so it's the music that got the movie made and it's a beautiful thing. The movie now has inspired hundreds of other bands to make movies! Everybody's making a fucking movie now! I mean, even Lemmy has a fucking movie! Everybody saw that and, "Oh, my god, look at this! It's the biggest thing ever! The biggest rock movie ever!" Believe it or not, it's true! I'm happy about it. How can I not be happy? It opened the doors for us and we walked in and we had to deliver the record of our career and we're a great band anyway. People are discovering it when we play live!

Read the entire interview from Metalshrine.