Hi everybody, you are watching Lips from the band Anvil on Signals from Mars.
Welcome everyone to episode 386 of Signals from Mars.
I'm your host Victor and as you might surmise, this episode features an interview with Lips,
the lead singer of Anvil, had a nice 40 something minute chat with him and we'll be getting
into that roughly around the 5 minute mark.
Here we go.
I'm ready.
Let's do it.
So it has been some time since I've actually done this interview.
So it has been some time since I've actually done an interview on the show.
I have been in a fairly good rhythm speaking to patrons and other people that are sure
a lot less known, but similar to something that we're going to talk about during this
episode between Lips and myself.
Success.
How do you measure success?
I love doing these shows where I talk to other people and yeah, maybe the vast majority of
the podcasting universe doesn't care about these conversations, but a lot of what attracts
me to music and has always done so is that dialogue back and forth with other people
discussing different topics, different bands, different things in the news regarding music
and whatnot and I think it's fun and it's therapeutic and it's awesome, which is why
I do the podcast.
My goal a little while back was to try to do interviews here and there because it also
becomes kind of a, yeah, I don't know.
I don't want to interview people just for the sake of interviewing them.
I've always wanted to try and interview people that I'm interested in, that I enjoy their
music.
They can be newer bands.
They can be bands like Anvil that have been around for some time, but I don't like the
generic softball interview where you can tell the interviewer just doesn't care about the
band.
And ultimately it's all the, hey, so where are you going next on tour?
And so do you remember recording Metal on Metal?
Do you remember where it's all blast from the past and nostalgia stuff?
There's a lot of things that you can talk about and listen if that's what you like doing
on your show, more power to you.
But I don't know, man, I like talking about current stuff.
I like mixing in other stuff.
It's just whatever you do, you, and this is what I like doing.
And I like talking about music.
So it's why the show is in the direction that it's in now.
That's not to say that I won't be including more interviews, which is what I do want to
do.
I think this will be kind of the first step in incorporating or bringing back more interview
based shows.
In any event, I do want to thank you for listening to this episode.
I do want to thank you if you are one of my patrons.
I do want to thank you for sharing this episode.
So if it's the first time that you're here and you're listening to this show because
Lips is on the show, go to signals from ours.com.
It's your one stop shopping place to pick up merch where you can go to our Patreon, subscribe
where you could find all the various places where you can subscribe to the show on the
internet where you can watch the live stream, the video, the video portion where you can
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Again, thanks for being here.
There's a million and one other things you can be checking out now and it really means
a lot that you're here.
Enjoy the episode and help spread the word.
Welcome everyone to another episode of signals from Mars.
I am pleased to announce Lips from Anvil joining me today.
Sir, how are you?
I'm okay.
Awesome.
So when I was given the opportunity to interview you, the first thing that came to mind for
some reason was the documentary and seeing a maple leaf beanie featured prevalently at
the beginning.
So my first question to you is out of all the Toronto sports franchises, which is the
next one that's going to bring sports glory back to Toronto?
Obviously the maple leaves.
It's only been since 1967.
You've got faith in them being able to turn it around and finally get out of the first
round.
That's why you call them the mainly briefs.
See growing up in the New York area as a Rangers fan, I've never heard that.
It's usually things like that towards, you know, Islanders or flyers or stuff like that
for your, for when I was growing up, at least the rivals at that time.
So that brings a smile to my face to know that there are other nicknames for other teams.
Oh yeah, definitely.
Speaking of the documentary, it came out 16 years ago at this point.
How important do you feel that was for the band's legacy?
It righted all the wrongs.
It righted all the wrongs, man.
All the misfortune.
And without the misfortune, there wouldn't have been any movie.
So what the hell?
Perfect ending to all the bullshit.
You know what I mean?
Right.
Yeah.
So it's kind of like a balancing.
Totally, totally balancing.
And you know what's wonderful about all of it and the real truth, although it comes across
that, you know, people think that, you know, we want that stardom like a Metallica or one
of the big, big bands.
That's not the case.
What we wanted was to make a living from our fucking band.
Right.
Simple as that.
It's really is just as simple as that because 99% of bands don't make a living.
Right.
Everybody wants that.
But meanwhile, no one is making that because there's incredible competition.
Musicians undersell themselves so bad to get a gig.
So why are they going to pay, you know, a thousand bucks when they can pay five hundred?
So now you've got bands playing for five hundred.
And that's no good.
Hey, now you're paying to play.
That's going on.
Yeah.
You'll get a gig at the whiskey and you're going to pay them to play.
That's what it's turned into.
Right.
So.
Yeah, that's crazy.
Yeah.
But that's that's the realities of the business.
That's you know, but that's what it's up against.
After the movie, I haven't stopped working.
I haven't done it.
I haven't done a delivery for choice children's catering in 17 years.
You know, I'm making a full on living.
No, I'm not a millionaire.
And that's not what I really wanted.
I just wanted to make a living like everybody else.
Right.
Well, it's like it's and it's a dream come true.
And it did.
It did.
You worked hard enough.
And the other thing is, God, everything I ever, ever wanted.
Or ever strive for.
I attained it.
I didn't want the mass stardom or the number one hit or the, you know, the top 10 on Billboard.
That's that's not what metal is.
It's not what metal is.
And the bands that the bands that do make it in there, they're there for a blink.
And then they they're they're pigeonholed and and called and looked at from whatever
that hit was forever.
And they never do better or never do worse.
That's what they are.
And they never and they can go on forever just being the same and never.
You know, it's not it's not it's not what I wanted to do.
I wanted to put out music for my entire life.
Robin I wanted to do this for a lifetime and not sell out, not be commercial, not be, you
know, turn into what everything else watered down garbage.
No, that's not.
That's not what we want to do.
Stay consistent, stay true to our fans, all those things.
And here we are 20 albums later.
Hey, man, how come they're not big stars?
How about we don't want to be?
How about it takes it takes so much, so much synchronicity to actually get anywhere in
this business.
And what do I mean by that?
Finding the right manager, finding the right booking agent, putting out the right album
at the right time, being with the right label, then then the people it's down to the people
getting that tour, getting the big tour, the opening slot.
Do you know what it's like?
Look at here we are.
Forty five years into this business.
OK.
I haven't I haven't done shows in big arenas in the United States other than the five days
or four ACDC shows.
Other than that, doing four shows with Aerosmith in 1982.
If you don't if you don't get on a real tour and not do five shows, what I'm talking about
is do 30 shows with with Kiss, 30 shows with with Iron Maiden, you know, 30 shows with.
Yeah.
Until you do those things, you sit and you play clubs.
That's what you do, because that's what the alternative is.
And there is no alternative because you're not going to get those those positions on
those tours unless you've got a horseshoe up your ass.
Big.
In other words, you got a big selling record right out the gate and you're you're a commodity
worth worth hiring.
Their management's not going to look at you unless you can bring 10,000 people to that
show.
Right.
OK.
And that's the way it works.
And if you can't bring 10,000 people to the show, we want what 10,000 people would be
paying to be at the show.
So you're buying on.
OK.
So all these these contingencies until those contingencies are met and and and and dealt
with, you don't make it right.
You just don't make it.
And you never will.
It's just the nature of what it is.
And if you don't want to if you don't believe me, go try it.
Knock yourself out, man.
Yeah.
And it's interesting.
A lot of the topics you just touched upon is spread out across 14 years of me podcasting.
There are a lot of topics that we've touched on over the years, like bands having that
one single and always having a B version, a C version, a D version of that single on
every album, a watered down version of that to just recently we were talking about economics
in music in 2024 outside of the metal realm.
We've seen big rock acts, big pop acts that have had to cancel huge scores because they're
not selling tickets.
And a lot of what you're saying, you know, for me as an ignorant podcaster, I thought,
well, who's the manager there that's saying let's go play these stadiums when maybe the
reality is maybe we can't play those stadiums.
Maybe we can only play a package tour on an amphitheater on an amphitheater run.
Maybe we can only play 2000 seat venues because we can't sell out the Maple Leaf Garden or
whatever.
We can, but we're going to have to rope off 80 percent of the place and we're going to
have to pay for that.
So I'm glad that you brought that up because it was one of the points that I did want to
touch upon because the documentary does give you that kind of feel that, hey, you may not
be in a place where you want to be, but reality may be something different.
As you're saying, no, no, hey, listen, man, it's ridiculous.
Hey, they're not there.
You know, the people calling out saying we're not successful.
You go and record 12 albums.
Yeah.
Before you say that I'm not successful, you go record 12 albums and live in obscurity and
deal with having to have a day job and then finally get a movie out and then you tell
me what what what's going on, what's successful or not.
Being successful in the music industry is writing a bunch of songs, recording them with
the guys that you've that you love like brothers and make make the best piece of music, best
pieces of music that you possibly can and get it out in the public domain.
That's being successful.
How many records you sell is not even relevant because at the end of the day, it's about
how many songs did you write?
How much did you contribute?
What did you bring to this world?
That's what living is about is what you bring to the world, not what the world gives to
you.
If you have to, if if you have to judge everything on on what the world gives to you, you're
going to get got fuck all.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I mean, even even even if if you've got no one that loves you, you got fuck all.
And if you haven't got someone to love, you got fuck all.
You know what I mean?
There's a lot more money is only one small aspect of of of our human existence.
And until you put it in perspective of what it actually is, it's a means to an end.
It's to feed yourself.
That's what you're using to make money.
So once you've fed yourself, everything more is abundance.
What do you if you're a minimalist, you feed yourself and you go out and you enjoy your
fucking life and get as much and put as much of yourself out there as you can to to actually
be responsible for for all kinds of as much as possible and get as much done in your life
as you can.
That's what it's all about.
So you know, the guy who wins, the guy who the guy who records a thousand songs in a
lifetime, that's the guy who wins.
He was successful.
That's real success, man.
Yeah, I think that the whole success thing is is very relative to what your goals are,
because at the end of the day, you're the one that's living your life.
At the end of the day.
Yeah, someone come up to you on the Internet that you don't even know, say, oh, well, yeah,
sure, he's recorded 20 albums, but he's never gotten that number one or that statue or most
bands don't weigh more than don't than ever do.
And usually bands that do do it once and live off it for for the rest of their lives, whether
you want it that way or not.
The world, that's what they do to you.
The world does that to every band.
They pick a song and you're fucked.
That's what it is, whether you liked it or not.
We put out the metal on metal album, then the song metal on metal to me at that particular
time was the weakest song on that album.
Right.
I'm going to it's got it's got the least integrity.
You know, it's got a short guitar solo.
It's it's got, you know, mid range singing.
There's no real melody going on.
You know, there's all these things that I felt as as as a musician that it fell short
of of of the other songs.
In comparison, it's not to me.
It was not as an integrity.
Didn't have the integrity that the other songs did.
But it's our song for ever, whether we like it or not.
You know what I'm saying?
And you know, you could say, oh, geez, you know, why didn't they pick it?
It doesn't matter what they pick so long as they pick something.
OK.
But having said that, I have not absolutely not gone and written 20 metal on metals.
Right.
There's one.
That's it.
You know, that's the way it works.
Or at least that's the way it works for me.
I try not to write the same song twice.
And sometimes I do it.
I do try to write the same song twice in a certain sense to capture the same feelings,
but they're still the same song.
Right.
I get what you're saying.
It's the same as taking a picture.
You know, when you take a picture, you may take a snapshot of a specific moment, but
you take it from a different angle.
It's not the same picture.
It's not the same thing, but it's giving you something different.
That's right.
That is comparable.
And it's sort of like it's sort of like you think about Van Gogh and his paintings of
the flowers in the flower vase.
There's about I think I think there's almost a dozen of them.
OK.
And they're all over the world.
And everybody who looks at them thinks they're looking at the same painting.
But as soon as you see them up against each other, they're vastly different.
Yeah.
Each one's got its own thing.
But yet they're all they're all similar, but all unique.
Right.
So it's really much the same thing.
But then again, you know, Van Gogh is another example of of anvilism in a certain sense.
They didn't.
The guy didn't sell a paint one sold one painting his whole entire life.
And now now his paintings are you can't even put a price tag on it.
So fucking it's worth so much.
You know what I mean?
But meanwhile, in his day and age, and he died, a poor man.
So you know, more more of injustice in the arts, just typical common and typical.
You know, you don't know what you got till it's gone.
All the cliched stuff that they say about it, you know, it's true.
There's no bitterness.
I'm not have no bitterness.
I am completely, completely content and happy and proud of everything that I've ever done.
So it's all good, man.
At this point, the other thing that I wanted to bring up about the documentary is we've
seen documentaries forever.
But it seemed like your documentary was kind of lightning striking because it kind of set
off a wave of other a new generation or new era of documentaries.
And I mean, I would take it a step further and say that your documentary probably fueled
stuff like the Queen biopic and the Elton John biopic and stuff like that.
Do you feel that your movie had that type of influence?
It's no different than my fucking music, dude.
OK, how do you think it how do you think it looked to it to to to Rob and I to watch in
1983, the whole world pick up on what we did and and leave us behind.
OK, we were doing it before there.
There wasn't even metal didn't exist in North America.
Didn't call it metal.
We were doing something that they were doing in England.
And we were one of the very first metal bands to play in America.
Yeah, you got hard rock.
But there's a there's a there's there's there was a differential.
There's a difference.
There's a difference between hard rock and metal because hard rock was still attached
to rock and roll and still use rock and roll progressions.
Metal used more of a prog attitude.
You had songs that that that were much more complicated than than just rock and roll.
Certainly, certainly the Iron Maidens, the Phantom of the Opera and songs like that or
or Anvil Mothra.
It's not rock and roll.
It's a form of it, but it's it's it's metal that turned it into metal.
What we call metal and it's it's taking taking and riff rock.
So that's that's what it is.
And you can you can put titles on it, but you can also talk about it in musicality.
What what what things we're actually doing.
You know, so that's how I kind of see it.
So it's it there was a difference.
And some of the problems that that that that I've been faced with is that I'm I'm kind
of the bridge between between hard rock and heavy metal.
Because I was one of the pioneering bands that that created that bridge.
So I had songs I have.
I still have songs that that venture back into the rock and roll world.
But at the same time, there are songs that are not rock and roll.
OK.
And you can hear that, obviously, obviously, Dead Man's Shoes or or actually, that's not
even a good example.
Probably probably more like blind rage is that's not really rock and roll.
That's all on metal.
That's what you know, when you go.
And you're not using it down.
And that completely different, different
genre in the if you know, just in the riffs itself.
But but that's that's you know, we can sit and discuss how how hard rock became metal.
And you know, it's you know, it certainly certainly Black Sabbath and Deep Purple and
Led Zeppelin were the were the the forerunners of all of it, really, because that's when
the biggest and the biggest influence after Hendrix, you know, the use of distorted guitars
and stuff and what all of a sudden, every everybody's doing it.
You know, nothing stays sacred.
But you know, everything is stolen by the next by the next generation and regurgitated
in a new a new fashion.
And that's what's going on in the music industry for for decades now.
But I think we might have might have gone the full circle.
You know, I don't know that you can't go any you can't go any you certainly can't go much
further with lead with guitar.
Yeah, it's on its thing, man.
It's done.
I and that's that's that's part of where the downslide for for the interest in it went
once you got to the point where the guitar playing is so phenomenal that everybody starts
sounding the same.
You can't tell one guitar player from the next.
It's done.
It's over.
The race is finished.
You know what I mean?
It for for many, many years in hard rock and metal, especially it was who had the best
guitar player in their band.
Everything was was revolved around the lead guitar.
I mean, otherwise, what would Van Halen mean without without any Van Halen?
Right, right, right.
Exactly.
Around around around the guitar, which we all know.
Obviously, we all know that.
But we're at a point in history that they've done everything, every every possible way
of playing lead guitar has been done.
So what do you do?
What's what is there left to do?
Write good songs.
That's all that's left.
It's not about the guitar solo anymore.
It's about the frickin song.
The riffs last forever.
The solos are here temporarily.
That's the way it is, man.
Yeah, I think that gets lost on a lot of I don't want to say newer bands because I sound
like an old fart saying that.
But I think with the advent of of technology and people being able to record anything they
want from home and being able to perfect a lot of things, the as you're saying, it's
almost like a space race.
But we already we were able to go the fastest.
We were able to play the most amount of notes, the most amount of this, most amount of that.
But at the end of the day, what's the most memorable and what are you going to what's
going to speak to you really?
What's actually going to entertain you?
OK, cool.
We got past the Olympic event, but what's going to say?
Where's the entertainment value?
Where's the fulfillment of of what what we love as human beings, which is melody?
Yeah.
No melody, no music.
Yeah, I agree.
When you when you when you put too many notes, you lose the melody.
You know, when you when you play too fast, you can't use melody.
That's why all the death metal that's playing a million miles an hour has got some guy screaming
like Cookie Monster.
You know, it's it if you start thinking about what it is and what what what it is that but
it is about melody.
If you haven't got a melody, it's really not music.
Technically speaking, it's not.
Yeah, I think for me, it's definitely something that's always attracted me to bands.
And even if they have gone with some of that more Cookie Monster sound, if they're able
to pull in some sort of melody to their songs, that's always kind of open.
You know, what these bands do, they've got, of course, the death metal vocals.
But what they do to offset that there's no melody is they'll put they'll put melody
in with the guitars.
Yeah.
And it's usually a slower melody line that they'll add in some place in in the song.
And now the song has a shape and form because without that, they're there.
It's just fucking noise.
Sorry.
We got a bunch of it, but I'm going to do that.
And every song is how are you going to discern?
OK.
This is the real truth about humans and ears.
OK.
Years ago, I did an experiment and I'm not this is no joke.
I used a four track tape recorder and I went and I recorded on each track different sounds
in around the house, keys popping a glass breaking, just various sounds of all types
and just filled four minutes of tape on four tracks.
And it just filled with all different things.
You know, it's in stereo and it's being banned.
All of a sudden, there's a glass smashing here that you listen to it 10 times.
And even before the glass smashes, you're going, here comes the glass smashing.
You're memorizing the fucking noise.
Interesting.
Oh, what does that say?
It says that we we basically remember we can memorize noise and it turns into music.
That's how we recognize it as music.
That's that's what it is.
And that's why you can get away with playing a billion miles an hour with no melody.
You eventually you listen to it enough and it becomes music.
You memorize all the all the bumps and scratches and everything that I mean, it's
if you think about it, OK.
Johnny Z, you know, the great Johnny Z, right?
Yeah.
He bought the Metal on Metal album way, way of course, way to back, way to back, kind
of first pressing and it had a skip in Mothra.
You know, he talked about that skip till the day he died.
That's that that's amazing because there's so many things that as a kid that I had that
you ended up getting scratches in your vinyl albums and you listen to it later when you're
listening to it on CD.
You're expected to hear that crap or pop or or skip.
I know, man.
Exactly.
So you're saying that that actually made the hair stand up on on my arms because I've experienced
that so many times where you're like, OK, here it comes.
The beginning of Ozzy Osbourne's Tribute, where it's the opera lead up.
I forget the name of the song.
But anyway, it skips on my vinyl right into the beginning of I don't know.
So it's when I hear it back, it's like, oh, here comes the skip.
Oh, no, it's the CD version.
So we don't have the skip anymore.
I hear the whole intro.
So great.
Yeah.
They changed the song.
It's a song.
There you go.
That's great.
But but but that's how our brain works.
That's why what we're talking about works.
That's why.
And you can get away with a lot of garbage, man.
People memorize a lot of garbage.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
It makes sense when you when you when you put it together like that.
It completely makes sense.
We've talked about a lot of things we haven't really talked about one and only.
OK.
Let's do that.
Yeah.
So you've worked with Martin and and Oaken for the last few albums.
Yeah.
Why does it make sense for you guys to continue to work with them?
What do they add?
They completely.
They do an amazing, an amazing job at getting the best, the best performances.
Fixing listen to the sound of those albums.
You're not going to do much better than that.
You got German.
It's German technology done by Germans.
It's like and they're metal fanatics.
No one knows that music better than than those people.
No one.
It's a culture in that country.
It's not just a passing fancy.
This has been something that's been going on for decades.
So and there are generations of these people.
It's not just one age group.
It's like across the whole fucking thing, man.
It's like, wow, you got you got children to elderly adults listening to metal.
It's way, way, way much more ingrained in Germany than it is in North America.
It's not even comparable.
You know, why would I go to, you know, like, why would I record in Canada when you've got
maybe a handful of guys that even know or even into the music that are any good at being
engineers and working in studios?
So where are you going to?
You got to get to know who they are.
And then and who knows what kind of prices it cost to find somebody with the same level
of expertise that I'm using in Germany.
Good luck.
I I don't know anybody like I don't.
And they haven't introduced themselves to me either.
So you know, until that that happens, you know, or until I hear about something, why
would I change?
There's no point.
So why do I keep going?
Well, you keep going because they're raising the bar keeps getting raised every time we
take the last album and bring it to the next level.
What can we do to make it better?
And working with the same people in the same team, you the familiarity between your personalities,
it opens a deeper communication.
And with deeper communication, you can get even more more exacting work done.
You know, whereas the person might be, you know, where Martin might be originally was
slightly intimidated to tell me to sing something again.
Now he doesn't think twice about it, right?
It's like, let's just fucking sing it again.
Sure, Barton, no problem, man.
You know what I mean?
And it's it's it becomes your friend.
You're all friends.
And you've known each other.
You can tell by each other's expression on your face.
You don't even have to use words.
Right.
They're becoming like band members.
You know, and I think it's a great, a great, a great working, working a bunch of guys,
working within the band, you know, that that each of the guys in the band have the trust
in these engineers and producers that when they when, you know, when someone tells Chris
to replay or give me a different kind of baseline, he doesn't get angry.
You know, and you got somebody that you trust is saying that there's a reason they're saying
it.
And eventually you have the you you gain the trust.
From the from experiencing it, working with them, that they've been right.
So they're probably right again.
Right.
You know what I mean?
So that that and and that's those kind of things are.
You know, why did Rush do all those albums with Terry Brown?
I guess the same reasons, right?
Yeah.
Well, you got lucky and you find the right guy and it's great.
The right guys.
I mean, we're we're very, very, very I feel very fortunate.
And I have a lot of a lot of gratitude towards Martin and your they're phenomenal, phenomenal
guys, man.
You know, and they're when I can't see something and they tell me, I listen because they're
always right.
And it's like, oh, you know, like in and picking the song, the lead song for the new album
as an example.
I think.
I think Feed Your Fantasy would have been the last song I would have I would have chosen.
But they insisted that it was the most groundbreaking for for the band and stepping a little bit
to the left or the right of what people will expect.
Right.
And they were saying that that's going to be a better stepping stone and a better start
because you've been doing a lot of you know, you guys have been very consistent.
You can say the same, but it's a consistency of heaviness, consistency of types of feels
and and what people grow to expect.
And when you hear something new and that's saying you need needed something new, this
is new for you guys.
This is new, it might not be new to the world, but it's new for you guys.
And you know what?
You could use it.
Right.
And so people go, what?
That's anvil.
Perfect.
That's what you want.
Yeah.
Because it's only one song on the album.
The rest of the album is all different.
So what the hell?
And then I stopped and thought about it.
I'm going, yeah, and metal on metal is the same thing on that album.
It's the only song completely.
The only song that was like that on that record.
And in fact, the only song that's ever been like that on any of our records.
So it was one of those.
And the one that I least expected to do anything.
To me, it was, you know, we talked about this at the beginning.
So no, no, no, no new revelation, no new surprise.
You know what I mean?
Right.
And so so when you're going and and and they're going, it's it's obvious you can't hear it.
What is the matter with you?
It's come on.
It's it's it's different.
You need this.
OK, I'll go with it.
What the hell?
And it's actually made quite an impression in a sense, because, of course, the people
that had the expectations of hearing them, you know, a million miles an hour and the
typical anvil me screaming my head off.
All of a sudden, it's not a song like that.
And they're going, oh, no.
Yeah.
It's like it's a fucking bubblegum song, man.
OK, it's not like it's not like it turned into bubblegum.
It's just it's just not speed metal.
OK, so.
It was metal on metal.
Hello.
Yeah, I think that's so important to have that trust and communication with someone that
you see a lot of bands that self produce things.
And although a lot of bands think that they know what's what's best for them, sometimes
you need that kick in the ass.
Yeah, you all think all these bands think they've got Tom Schultz in the band and they're
going to produce themselves.
It's like, get the fuck out of here.
That's a one in a million guy.
You're not going to do it.
You're not going to do it, man.
First of all, think about what Tom was.
He's a guitar player who owned his own fucking studio.
OK, he's there every day working in that studio.
He knows how to do it.
He knows what he's doing.
If you're just a musician and you're going into into a studio once a year, if you're
lucky, you're going in once a year, what are you doing?
What do you think about it?
How much do you really know about what what's going on in a studio and how to use it properly?
And you can't listen.
You can't listen and play at the same time.
How do you be in a control room and know when you got a good bed track?
You got to go and going back and forth.
Listen, man, I did enough records with an engineer and producing ourselves.
I did enough of it.
And you know, everybody in the band becomes a musician and their opinion means more than
the next guy.
And the mixes, the mixes sound like a battle rather than a real mix.
Everybody's battling to be heard.
And sometimes it's ridiculous because sometimes when something's really soft in a mix, it
stands out more than when it's loud.
Right.
And these are the things these are the things that an engineer and a professional who works
in a studio all the time knows the difference.
Most musicians do not.
They deluding themselves into believing that they do that.
You know, you're you're one or two times into the studio.
You're going to do your first and second album.
Now you're a big shot.
You're not a big shot.
I've been in the fucking studio 20 times and I would never undertake being a knob twiddler.
I ain't going to do it.
I don't want to know where does that plug in?
I don't care.
I'm a musician.
That's what I want to be.
Right.
Let somebody else worry about it.
And I'm going to make sure that whoever is worrying about it is the best guy that I can
find.
And I'm going to make sure that he has a set of ears on him, that he can he can tell when
I've hit a sour note or when I hit the right note and and whether it's got the right attitude.
I want to I want somebody who can tell the difference between that, not just whether
it's the right note or wrong note or whether it's in time.
What's the attitude?
Is it right?
Take is it right?
Character in the voice is it?
These are all these are what that's what a producer does.
Yeah, very important.
So so think about it.
You're singing a song and everything can you when you listen to yourself sing, you're hearing
yourself sing.
You don't really hear the performance in in context with the music.
You don't because you're you're focusing.
Did I sing all the notes right?
Did I sing?
That's why you can't produce it.
You can't listen and can't listen and perform at the same time.
You got there are two different angles.
It's like being able to see yourself, see yourself in the mirror versus seeing yourself
in person like right.
Like everybody else like everybody else sees you.
See, that's the thing.
Even when we when we when we see ourselves, we never see ourselves like everybody else
does until we watch ourselves on a video.
Right.
So fuck my mole is on the wrong side of my face.
Right.
Oh, yeah.
But if you didn't if you didn't have a producer, you'd never know it.
Or if you never saw it on film, you'd never know it.
Yeah.
And that's what having a producer, it's like having somebody who's who's giving your reflection
back properly from from the from your perspective on the on the rather than a mirror perspective.
It's really kind of fascinating.
You're asking about how important producers is.
You can't you can't even begin to start tallying up the things that become important and contingent
on whether you've got a good producer or not.
Where can people go to pick up one and only and ensure that the most amount of money gets
back into your pockets?
Wow.
In this day and age.
Find someplace to buy the album.
OK.
Amazon usually works.
OK, perfect.
I mean, that's what everybody's that's what everybody does these days.
I mean, it's not I guess record stores have I guess if you can find a record store.
Yeah.
OK.
They were you going to find it?
Look on the Internet.
That's where everybody does.
Right.
I don't know if I had to find it.
Where would I find it?
I guess I I Google I Google Anvil one and only and it would probably put tell you where
to buy it.
And is there any specific place you want people to go to keep up with the band?
Well, I mean, if you haven't seen the movie, it's worth it's definitely a worthy watch.
OK.
It's not a movie about heavy metal.
If that's what you're thinking, that's really not what it is.
And that's what you'll probably really love about it.
If you actually watch it.
It's a movie about about perseverance and doing what you love and getting away with
it.
But that's that's really that's really what it's about, which is pretty pretty much a
human story.
You know, so if you can find that it's it's a it's definitely a worthy watch.
There's 20 Anvil albums out there.
Buy one.
I don't I I can't I'm not going to tell you which one.
You know what I mean?
That's up to you.
Pick the pick the cover you like the most and buy it.
And you're going to have a generally a good a good example of what Anvil is, no matter
what you bought.
OK.
And every album has its own time and place.
So it's just a different a slightly a different spin every time.
But they're all Anvil.
I mean, you can find that you could say the same thing about ACDC or Motorhead or any
of the other bands that came from the 80s.
That's what we do.
We are what we are.
And we do what we do.
That's it.
Hi, everybody.
You are watching Lips from the band Anvil on signals from Mars.
Awesome.
I appreciate your time.
It was a lot of fun chatting with you.
Nothing but success for you, sir.
Within as we've talked within the success that you're that you're looking for.
I hope that you guys can get the success that they're looking for.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Looking for that ultimate success.
Good luck.
OK, sir.
Thank you so much for your time.
OK, take care.
All right.
Bye bye.
Take care.
Bye.
Awesome.
There was my interview with Lips.
Lots of fun to talk to him was a lot in 45 minutes was shooting for 20 to 30.
I was able to ask I had 16 points here.
I think I asked seven, eight interesting guy was was a really cool chat.
Hope you guys enjoyed that as much as I enjoyed speaking to him.
And on that note, we'll end this episode of signals from Mars.
This is coming out on June 28th, which is when one and only by Anvil will be coming
out on the 29th, the Saturday after this episode airs.
They will be at Hellfest, which is a huge festival in Clisson, France.
I'm pronouncing that right.
At least I'm doing a stupid French accent.
Anyway, thank you guys for checking this episode out and we'll see you next time right here
on signals from Mars.
See you folks.