Anvil is coming to Cleveland. You don’t know Anvil from any of their 14 albums. You don’t know them as the Canadian thunder gods who influenced the likes of Anthrax, Slayer and Metallica. You don’t them as the band that spent the early ’80s holding their own against, if not outright upstaging, some of the decade’s biggest metal acts. If you know them at all, you know them from Sacha Gervasi’s 2008 acclaimed documentary, “Anvil! The Story of Anvil,” a movie The New York Times called “possibly the greatest film yet made about rock and roll.” In the early 1980s, everyone who heard Anvil pronounced them destined for mainstream, heavy-metal greatness. But when that didn’t happen, guitarist and lead singer Steve “Lips” Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner did a funny thing — they made good on the promise they made to one another when they were teenagers to never give up. After decades of obscurity, empty gigs and bouncing from one label to another, screenwriter (and one of Anvil’s roadies) Gervasi shot the documentary. The film chronicles Kudlow and Reiner, now in middle age and splitting their time between day jobs, family, a European tour where everything that could go wrong did and a shot at recording an album with producer Chris Tsangarides. (Tsangarides, who also produced for Thin Lizzy and Judas Priest, is the same man who produced Anvil’s most critically and commercially viable albums two decades before.) The film’s success — it premiered at Sundance and won Best Documentary at the Independent Spirit Awards in 2010 — resulted in a second life for Anvil as a bankable act. They are signed with The End Records in North America and SPV in Europe, and, said Kudlow, Anvil’s tours “have been excellent and continuous” ever since. “There was no management, no representation, no hit singles, no producer and no real record company,” said Kudlow on their first brush with fame. “Now, we’ve simply added what was missing once the movie generated the interest in the band.” Consensus on the band’s resurgence seems to be a tangle of triumph, empathy and schadenfreude. Some find Anvil’s story intensely engaging, accessible and human. Some have discovered a vast discography of unheralded heavy metal gold. And for some — perhaps more in America than Europe or Japan, where heavy metal is considered a more relevant and immediate form of expression — their interest in Anvil is rooted in a kind of self-preserving irony. “America and Canada have the most lavish living existence. Hardships are [few and far] between. Generally, we got it better than anywhere else,” said Kudlow. “We have a wandering taste for music and use it as disposable background noise. In Europe, and exotic places like South America, the metal thing is a way of life, something to believe in, a common-cause entity.” Fans of heavy metal seem to love it more, and in a deeper way, than most anyone loves anything. Kudlow and Reiner, at an early age, discovered their common cause at about the same time the rest of the West took blind solace in an increasingly throwaway way of life. Their story is remarkable for the same reasons they are, to some, considered a cautionary tale. Because giving up is what a normal person would do. “It is as much a type of music as it is a way of life,” Kudlow said. “To explain why or how is not possible. It’s a matter of true love.” It’s a vast understatement to say Kudlow, Reiner and longtime bassist Glenn Five have paid their dues and then some. While the days of taking it to the hilt on stage for empty bars are done, they play every show with the same tenacity and love that they embodied during their bleakest wilderness years. And that’s exactly what they’re going to do at the Grog Shop on July 27 with Destructor. And that’s exactly what they’re going to do no matter who comes to the show, or why, or even if “Anvil! The Story of Anvil” never happened. “I go out and have the time of my life onstage and try to evoke the same feeling from my audience,” said Kudlow. “It’s a fun time for us and hopefully the people there enjoy us having a good time.”