Triumph Returns

[Rob Not Bob]

I know there's some folks on the list who still love that classic arena rock sound ...

Triumph lays it on the line

Death of Rik Emmett's brother prompted trio to regroup for festival

Jan 21, 2008 04:30 AM

Greg Quill

ENTERTAINMENT COLUMNIST

The Triumph shadow has hung for more than 20 years over Toronto guitarist Rik Emmett, but nothing – not the promise of money, nor the efforts of friends and advisers to engineer a reconciliation with his estranged bandmates, drummer Gil Moore and bassist Mike Levine – could have lured him back into the arena-rock vortex.

Until, that is, the recent cancer-related death of his younger brother, a longtime fan of the Toronto trio that broke out of the club scene in the mid-1970s and rose to international stardom through the 1980s before calling it quits.

Emmett, Moore and Levine have spent the subsequent two decades bickering and sniping at each other in public and lawyer's offices.

"Yeah, well ... life's too short, and I did make this promise to my brother before he died," Emmett said Friday from his Toronto home after the announcement that Triumph is one of the featured headliners in June at the four-day Sweden Rock Festival. Having been inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame last March, Emmett, Moore and Levine were approached by the festival to share its main stage with Judas Priest, Def Leppard, Blue Öyster Cult, Whitesnake and other top arena rock bands of the 1980s.

Their decision to reform had little to do with money and less with revisiting past glories, said Emmett, 54, the band's youngest member. He has built a respectable solo career as a jazz and rock guitarist since Triumph split. Levine and Moore quit playing altogether, the latter to establish the Metalworks recording complex in Mississauga.

"When there's a death in the family, you start pondering the meaning of life .. and it's not as if Triumph has ever gone away. It's been part of me since I was in my early 20s," says Emmett.

He also recalled sharing a bill with veteran hard rock act Nazareth recently and being moved by their camaraderie and shared loved of the music they've been playing since the early 1970s.

"They're old, grey-haired, hard-drinking Scottish geezers and they're living an adventure that may never end, eternal brothers in music. I was jealous. I wished I still had that."

In the 1980s Triumph released a string of gold and platinum albums (Progressions of Power, Allied Forces, Never Surrender, Thunder Seven) and several durable hits, including "Fight the Good Fight," "Magic Power" and "Lay It On The Line."

Even so, it's unlikely Triumph can pick up where it left off. The plan, Emmett said, is to perform once in Sweden, and maybe a couple of times in July at venues yet to be determined, then to spend a year gearing up for a major world tour beginning in the summer of 2009.

"Of course, there is a Spinal Tap element to all of this," Emmett adds. "We haven't even had a rehearsal yet.

"This is no middle-age adventure. This is our history, our lives, our work."

[Kanada Kev]

Really. I thought this thread was about the return of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog!

"Of course, there is a Spinal Tap element to all of this," Emmett adds. "We haven't even had a rehearsal yet.

Great quote

I still love hearing "Magic Power". There was something about that tune when it came out that just lifted your spirits and made you want to rock out Now i'm young at heart, but a bit older, but still a bit wild and free, and I still gots the music in me ....

[Freak By Night]

I loved Triumph and look forward to a potential reunion tour. I went to a Rik Emmett guitar seminar in 1992. In the question and answer part of the seminar, I asked him if he was still on speaking terms with his former bandmates, and he just glared at me as if I had told him his brother had just died.

The article does contain an inaccuracy - Emmett's solo career is far from respectable.

[Patchoulia]

I hate to admit it..I mean, I really hate to admit it..but there was a period when "The Sport of Kings" was my favourite cassette.

1987 was a really unfortunate year in Dryden, Ontario.

[Velvet]

Dryden, huh? Wow.

I laid down my dollars to see Triumph twice and loved it both times. I'm not sure about a third time. Mayyyyybe.