Steve Kudlow, better known as Lips, is the frontman and co-founder of Canadian metal legends, Anvil, and he's a guy you can talk to for hours and never get bored. Our discussion about Anvil's latest album, One And Only, had very little to do with breaking down the hows and whys of the new music, and much more to do with how being focused on Anvil for most of his life has (finally) given him everything he wanted at the beginning of his career. Still, he did entertain the painfully cliché question of how One And Only - released in July - has been received by the Anvil fans, making a startling revelation along the way.

"As far as I can tell, it's being received better than we have been with the last couple records," he offers. "Have we sold more or less? I don't know. Does it really matter? I don't know. But in this day and age, does any of that matter? I'm able to go out and play, and be on an endless tour. I'm making a living, that's all I know. Does it matter if this new album sold more than the last one? Not really. Not when you've got 20 albums out, because those old records still sell."

"The thing is, when I went in, I wrote this album as if it was going to be the last thing I ever did. I've had heart issues, and my life became questionable as in how much longer do I really have? With that hovering around in your head, you write songs like you're never going to write again (laughs)."

He elaborates:

"I've had what they call an ablation, where they go into your heart through arteries, and then they zap the inside of your heart with electricity to stop certain nerves from making it fibrillate, speed up, arrhythmia, and all the other shit that it was doing. It was a kind of corrective surgery, but it's not surgery. As it turns out, only 85% of people receiving this treatment get cured forever, otherwise you have to go back and get it done again. And guess who has to go back and get it done again? While on our American tour, I was back on heavy medication to keep my heart under control, which is no pleasant thing, but at least now I know what I'm going to have to go through in the future, which is a lot better than the unknown I was dealing with before."

The initial plan for this interview was to avoid discussing Anvil: The Story Of Anvil, the band documentary released in 2008. The film made a huge splash and reinvigorated what was perceived as Anvil's waning career - a perception Lips will gladly argue - but 16 years on it seemed logical that the topic would bore him to tears. That was certainly not the case.

"It's impossible to avoid it; it's intertwined with the history of Anvil," says Lips. "It changed the trajectory of everything, obviously. People watch that movie and say 'They weren't successful...', but in the view of being a musician, success is writing an album, recording it, and putting it out. The number of records is irrelevant. You have to ask the questions: How much work have you done in your life? How much have you got to show for it? I've got 20 albums (laughs) I've got lots to show for it."

Speaking of said albums, hats off to Lips for being able to keep the Anvil alliterations going for the last 40+ years....

"I won't ever run out of ideas. All the album titles are pretty much relevant for its era. Plugged In Permanent (1996), that came out of seemingly everybody doing an unplugged album, and Absolutely No Alternative (1997) obviously came out of the alternative years because everybody stopped playing lead guitar."

Twenty albums spanning four decades is a monstrous accomplishment for any artist, but Lips considers that consistency to be par for the course. His course, at any rate.

"The idea that you're not going to be able to come up with new ideas is absolutely ludicrous," he scoffs, "because music for a real songwriter is consistent and never-ending. I think the saddest thing about everything in this day and age is the public looking at the older musicians as if we're not capable anymore. That's anything but the truth. You don't stop having an imagination; you don't stop talking, you don't stop singing unless you burn yourself right out. If anything, writing new music becomes easier for me because I know exactly how to do it. I've done it so many times."

There is a perception that the older one gets, they less one has to offer in any field. Lips isn't having any of that age-ism crap, either.

"That's more of a public projection of themselves. When you look at the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger is 80 years-old. The question is, how old were you when you started listening to Mick Jagger? How old are you now? You didn't stand still; you're old too (laughs). I'm 68, you're 56, and we didn't stand still. It's not like we became incapable of doing anything. People who say that shit should ask themselves those questions before pointing their dirty fingers at musicians (laughs). God be with me that I can be doing what Mick Jagger is doing at 80. And I would venture to say to anybody that, if you're envious of it, shut your fucking mouth."

"Aside from those things, the idea that you lose your creativity because of your age... I think you do lose it when you lose interest. If you lose the interest and the desire, and you stop caring, then everything goes away. If you still care, it won't."

Lips digs into his own past as Anvil's frontman to make his point....

"Let's put this into perspective. You start off in your 20s, you might fuck up your first marriage, which is precisely what I did because I was away focusing on rock ‘n' roll. Second marriage, no, I wasn't away. I was out doing two week tours here, two week tours there, and keeping my band alive by doing whatever it took to make it continue. I never had a problem getting record deals because Anvil is a brand name. I was able to put out those records all through the years somehow, but at the same time I was having my cake and eating it, too. Sure, I had day jobs, but everybody pays for their enjoyment in life, and my main enjoyment in life was music. It wasn't a problem for me to go through a day of work - something that I hated - to know that there was something that I love that I was going to do later on in the day."

"Being home, you're able to have a proper relationship, you're able to raise kids, you're able to own a house, and for the most part everything was put in place by the time I had the opportunity to go and work full time as a musician. I started out working as a full-time musician in the early days and it caused havoc in my life. I had the whole middle section of my life when I was around and making a steady income so I could afford a family and a home. And at the same time, I'm continuing my music, not as a side project, but as a major part of my life. I set myself up to be able to do that, and I had everything that I needed when the opportunity to be a full-time musician. The way that it ended up was, at the age of 52 or 53, I gave up my day jobs and I've been playing metal all over the world ever since. That documentary has given me endless work."

"I got everything I could have wanted in my life done," he concludes, "and now I am in my retirement years out having a fucking party and not being burned out from doing it in my 20s, 30s and 40s. It's all fresh and new. What a way to retire; as a rock star in the fall of my life."

We circle back to One And Only, which is effectively keeping Lips' rock star dream alive. At the time of this writing Anvil was in the middle of a string of Canadian dates only a couple weeks after completing a summer tour of the US, with a European tour slated for the fall. The band could have given up on writing new music and opt to concentrate on their classic years (1981 - 1988), but Lips had never envisioned Anvil as a nostalgia band.

"That's how you stay relevant, releasing new music," he says. "We're not a pop band. A pop band comes and goes; they get a big hit, celebrate it, get the money, and then they fuck off. That's not the case with a real metal band like Anvil. In a real metal band, you've got to be working at it for your life, like Motörhead, like Iron Maiden. Like any long-lasting band, you've gotta keep putting stuff out."

"The guy who writes the most songs and gets them out is the king. It's not the guy that made five albums and sold a million copies. No, it's the guy that made 30 albums in a lifetime. He's got something to show for it. Like I said, how much did you get done in your life? That's the question."

(Photos - W. Cliff Knese)