ANVIL Movie Director Encourages References To 'Spinal Tap'

Matt Singer of IFC.com recently conducted an interview with Sacha Gervasi — the director of "Anvil! The Story of Anvil", a mockumentary-like true account of fiftysomething Canadian heavy-metal practitioners Robb Reiner and Steve "Lips" Kudlow who, after a desultory European tour with their band ANVIL, decide to record a 13th album in a final attempt to fulfill their boyhead dreams of stardom. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

IFC.com: The movie begins with metal heavyweights like METALLICA's Lars Ulrich and ANTHRAX's Scott Ian talking about the band. You ask all of them why ANVIL didn't make it, and no one seems to have a good answer. I'm wondering why you think they never became superstars.

Gervasi: I think it was a combination of things. ANVIL is notoriously too early or too late. In this case, they were too early. In 1982, they came out with "Metal on Metal" and while they were figuring out what direction to go in, they signed with this big manager named David Krebs, who managed AC/DC, the SCORPIONS and BON JOVI. He was saying, "You shouldn't be doing the hard stuff like 'Metal on Metal' or '666!' You should be focusing on being like BON JOVI." The biggest manager in the business is telling them that if they want to be huge, this is what they should be doing. Meanwhile, METALLICA, who were listening to [Canadian speed metal bands] EXCITER and ANVIL, took all of that and went bang! And while ANVIL was arguing amongst themselves, I think there was a window that they missed. That's my personal theory.

IFC.com: At a certain point, you lost contact with the band. Was the idea of making a documentary about ANVIL what brought you guys back together?

Gervasi: Not at all. In the summer of 2005, ANVIL just came into my mind one night. I remember I was at the beach, just hanging out and listening to METALLICA and I thought "That sounds so much like ANVIL!" And I was like "What happened to them?"

I went online and discovered that the band had never quit. And I was like, "How is it possible that they didn't make it and they didn't kill each other?" I discovered ten albums I'd never heard of and saw photos from a show at the Horseshoe Tavern the week before. I was fascinated.

I wrote to the web site and got an e-mail back from Lips a week later. He was in L.A. It was as if the 20 years went by [snaps fingers] like that. I took him to my mentor, [screenwriter] Steve Zallian's house — he was the one who introduced me to Steven Spielberg [who directed Gervasi's screenplay for "The Terminal"]. I remember sitting in Steve's kitchen and looking through the window at Lips explaining speed metal to Steve's wife Elizabeth. I said to Steve, "He's never given up. Why? Wouldn't you just give up? He still believes he can make it." It just suddenly hit me: It's a movie.

IFC.com: "Anvil!" includes many obvious references to "Spinal Tap". The one big difference — besides the fact that "Spinal Tap" is a fake documentary and yours is real — is that the director of "Spinal Tap" appears onscreen to lead us through the film. Did you ever consider putting yourself into "Anvil!" in a similar role?

Gervasi: I did. In an earlier version, I thought we'd just do "Spinal Tap" and we'll freak people out because it's real. So we did a version where I narrated. But the movie's about these two guys. And by removing myself entirely, it just became obvious that that was what the film was. I just felt like it was an unnecessary filter.

And the references to "Spinal Tap" we encouraged. Look, the drummer's named Robb Reiner, so you're fucked out of the gate. I just decided you know what we're going to do? We're going to embrace it and encourage the audience to believe that this is a jovial romp à la "Spinal Tap". And then when it changes gears, [everyone's] going to be crying over the same people they were laughing at 40 minutes before.

Read the entire interview at IFC.com.