Continued from page 34 ematography. It’ s actually the first documentary ever made, and that’ s interesting in the aspect that Anvil is [ the ] subject of a documentary. It struck home for me on that level. The photographer in the 1920s went up north and lived with the Eskimos for a number of years and filmed it all. There’ s no talking in the film, of course in the 1920s there wasn’ t. It tells the whole story of a family history or at least a glimpse of what people lived like in the 1920s up in the North. I was inspired by it. With the idea of it being about [ the ] Inuit and about the first nation, I looked for a tempo and a type of feel that represented that. I used a very common drum feel to create music [ for the song ]. You zero in on a subject matter and capture it musically, as well as lyrically.
Mosh: During the songwriting process for Pounding the Pavement, did you find yourself going back and listening to your older material for inspiration or did it just come naturally? Lips: There was a period in my career in the’ 90s where we let the influences of that day into our music, particularly the thrash aspect. And we went really super heavy with ridiculously long arrangements and ten different riffs and ten different feels going on in the song. To me, that was never natural for me. What’ s natural to me is what we’ ve been doing in the last four or five albums. I like songs for the sake of songs, and a riff for the sake of a riff. You shouldn’ t be trying to be anything; you should just be what you are. And that’ s what I was saying- at the onset when we began talking about all of this- is that everything has to be natural. When it became unnatural, it became further off the
mark. It’ s not about going commercial. It’ s totally the opposite, where you become too complicated for your own fans. It’ s not a real conscious thing that we changed. What [ we do is ] whatever I feel like, and whatever we put together is what we’ re going to go with. Stop steering and just drive. That’ s what we’ ve been doing. It’ s very natural. Writing by not trying to complicate it. Don’ t overdo it.
Mosh: With the mainstream success of the 2008 documentary, you became relevant again in the metal world after so many years of slugging it out in relative obscurity. Lips: A lot of people misread it. It’ s not really about the unsuccessfulness of the band; it’ s actually quite the opposite. People get a laugh out of it in the sense that I rattled off 12 albums, it’ s not like we were sitting around doing nothing all those years. We were putting out records and doing the best we could under the circumstances. The fact is, I’ ve done what I’ ve wanted to do, the way I’ ve wanted to do it, and when I’ ve wanted to do it my entire career. Along comes a guy from my past( Sasha Gervasi) and [ he ] makes a movie and brings me into the mainstream, rebooting my career beyond where it was even at the beginning. I’ m making a living [ now ] where I never have in all my 40 years of doing this. My whole idea when I put the band together with Robb in the’ 70s, when we first started as kids, [ was ] we’ re going to put a heavy band together, and we’ re going to stay heavy till we can’ t breathe anymore. That was the whole concept of what we were about from the very onset. And I’ ve stayed true to that my entire career. We still have our feet firmly planted in our roots; they’ re not going to go away. It’ s our signature aspect, and it’ s just part of what we do.
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