From the Vaults: Triumph

 

          By the end of the 1970s, Triumph (aka – The Rock and Roll Machine) were one of the biggest exports from the Great White North.  There were better known bands at the time (see:  The Guess Who and Rush) but for the record, Triumph were similar to, yet vastly different, than their Canadian compatriots.  Unfortunately, they would implode in 1988 in one of the less amicable musical divorces of modern time.  The triumph of Triumph would end in a whimper and not an induction into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.  As all good band stories tend to go back to the beginning (who am I to tread new ground), that is as good a place to start as any.  

     The ‘beginning’ here lies with the strangely named group Abernathy Shanaster’s Wash And Wear Rock & Roll Band.  More accurately, the Triumph story begins where Abernathy’s ends.  Drummer/vocalist Gil Moore and bassist Mike Levin were previously members of Abernathy’s and when that band imploded, they decided to form a trio.  They approached a noted ‘guitar-hero-about-town’ named Rik Emmett about the gig.  He was already performing in a King Crimson / Gentle Giant inspired prog band called Act III so he was somewhat reluctant to jump ship to join a new band.

     Levine and Moore had an ace in the hole.  Levine had a background as a recording engineer and Moore was running a successful P.A. rental business.  Having secured a sizable record contract from Attic Records, they were able to ‘show him the money’ as an added incentive to sign with them.  At the time, Emmett was still living with his parents and cashing in on the signing money would allow Rik and his girlfriend the chance to get a place of their own.  Thus,  Triumph was born and they proceeded to plan the path forward – the ‘Rock and Roll Machine’ was going to make sure its fans would get a show that would be hard to forget.

     The first thing that set them apart was pyro and their light show.  Moore’s knowledge of pyrotechnics allowed the band to “Come into town and blow (expletive deleted) up!” according to Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach.  They employed aircraft landing lights to illuminate the arenas with what they called The Blinding Light Show.  A sign board / marquee spelling TRIUMPH out in lightbulbs which could blink and run in patterns was another band hallmark.  Emmett took to wearing skin tight Spandex outfits with ice-hockey pads to protect his knees during his stage sliding antics a la Pete Townshend of The Who.  There was a practical reason for the knee pads (he had injured his knees playing American football in high school) but all the audience saw was a cool rock ‘n’ roll gimmick.  Triumph were definitely not going to be a ‘shoe gazer’ band standing in one spot while performing.  High energy rock ‘n’ roll was the fuel that would propel ‘the Rock and Roll Machine’.

     Their first two albums (1976’s In the Beginning and 1977’s Rock & Roll Machine) weren’t spectacularly successful in separating them from the other touring bands out at the time.  Things changed with their third outing, 1979’s Just A Game, because the quality of Emmett’s songwriting began to mature and become more sophisticated.  The rich, layered vocal harmonies of the title track made people sit up and take notice as the album climbed to gold-selling heights.  Two more singles (Lay It On the Line and Hold On) basically took over the drivetime radio waves.  They were not allergic to straight ahead rockers like Moore’s American Girls,  but Emmett wanted to set the bar higher.  He told James McNair from Classic Rock Magazine, “When I wrote Hold On, it was like, ‘Okay, maybe this is why I’m doing this.  Maybe I can write songs that make people feel better about themselves.”  Their compassionate image stood out from the crowd as guitar player Danko Jones pointed out, “Triumph were seen as the good guys in an era of dirtbags.”

     Perhaps some of the band’s wholesome ethos came from Emmett’s background.  “My mom was a very religious person,” he told CRM, “I was steeped in Christianity until I was about twelve.”  He began having reservations about religion and when he opted out of that path, it caused some serious fall-out at home.  The golden haired soprano singing in the church choir turned toward secular humanism, but he adds, “I still believe the human spirit is a very powerful thing.”  The part that he did not leave behind was his choir boy soprano voice and it is on full display in some of their most memorable hits.  There are times it seems he is singing notes only dogs can hear.

     McNair remembers seeing Triumph on tour behind 1980’s Progressions of Power LP and soon after, the band hit their peak on their next release, Allied Forces.  McNair remembers the show he saw at the Glasgow Apollo as being, “A thrilling night of retina-scorching spectacle” (remember the aircraft landing lights?).  Emmett remembers that European tour for a different reason:  “The critics kind of hated us, and Kerrang! gave us a bad review.  We were a glitzy North American act with lasers.  People went wild for that in America, but in the U.K. it seemed a little much for some sensibilities [he said with a laugh].”

     Then there were the constant comparisons to another popular Canadian power trio, Rush.  Emmett thinks there were enough differences to separate the two bands in the public’s eye.

Rush didn’t get a lot of radio play initially but their carefully crafted studio albums brought them a very large cult-like following.  Triumph tended to write more radio friendly fare and the band didn’t focus on recreating their studio tracks exactly as they were recorded when they performed live.   Rik said both bands were made up of ‘friends’ but Rush were more tightly bonded:  “Geddy and Alex had known each other since school and in Neil they found a guy who shared their artistic vision.  Triumph were friends, too, but it was more of a business relationship.”  Management was another big difference.  While Triumph managed their own affairs, Rush relied on Ray Daniels.  As Emmett pointed out, being one’s own manager always leads to problems.

     A contractual dispute with their label (RCA) ended when Triumph bought their freedom to  the tune of three million dollars.  MCA would be their new home by the time they released 1984’s Thunder Seven LP.  As interband tensions mounted, it was not smooth sailing for 1986’s Sport of Kings which found them no longer writing together.  The label sought to help them by bringing in outside writers, which producer Ron Nevison had previously done to hit the Top 10 with Heart’s What About Love.  This caused a different kind of problem for the band according to Emmett:  “Ron wanted me to sing the songs, but Gil was like, ‘What?  That’s not going to happen in my band!’  I agreed with Ron and felt that as the voice behind some of our other hits like Lay It On the Line and Magic Power, I was our best shot for getting back on the radio, but that was never going to fly given the band politics at the time.”  Nevison was let go and the album was eventually produced by Mike Clink and Thom Trumbo, but by then the damage had been done.

     With the band running on life support for 1987’s Surveillance, Emmett decided to move on.

“I knew we were going nowhere fast and I had to get out,” he told CRM.  Moore and Levine recruited guitarist Phil X (who later took over for Richie Sambora in Bon Jovi) to tour one last album, a 1992 swan song called Edge of Excess.  The unhappy split was blamed on Emmett and it put the band on ice for the next twenty years.

     The road to reunion began with Emmett’s brother Russell.  Before he died of cancer in 2007, he told his brother, “Rik, nobody in the world is a bigger Triumph fan than me, and I would love to see you guys back together.”  Emmett was as mad about his brother’s death as he was about Russell pushing the three of them back together.  In fact, their first meeting at a coffee shop was done with a mediator present who told them, “If you guys bury the hatchet, I can get you into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame”.  The memories of the split were difficult to break through until they realized how entrenched their own anger and bitterness had become.  Eventually, they said, “This is stupid,” and before long, they were cracking jokes like it was the old days.  They had barely spoken to each other for 20 years yet they pulled themselves together to play the 2008 Sweden Rocks Festival.  They followed this feat by appearing at Rocklahoma a few weeks later.  In 2019, they repeated this pair of shows and added a couple more in Toronto.  Asked by a reporter when they would be ‘touring again’, Emmett quipped, “In eleven years.”

     Classic Rock Magazine does not necessarily cover band reunions (especially those done at eleven year intervals) unless there is something new in the wings.  This interview with Emmett came about with the release of a compilation of his best solo work entitled Diamonds – The Best of the Hard Rock Years 1990-1995.  He told McNair, “That is the reason you and I are talking today.”  He also has a new book out entitled Lay It On the Line which helps fill in both the band’s history and what he was up to in the twenty year gap created when he left in 1988.  

     In the wake of his departure from Triumph, Rik Emmett didn’t let any moss grow on his rock ‘n’ roll career.  His solo work saw him delve into jazz, folk, flamenco, swing music, and (of course) more rock.  CRM also points out that, “He started writing for Guitar Player, was a cartoonist for Hit Parader magazine, and taught songwriting and music business at Toronto’s Humber College.”  As far as him releasing a poetry collection (Reinvention 2021), Emmett smiled and commented, “The poetry is a bit like when I release a jazz record.  You’re immediately shrinking possible sales down to the smallest demographic.”  This, according to McNair, “marked Rik out as a guitar hero with different sensibilities to, say, Ted Nugent.”  

     Emmett truly is and was a guitar hero, but one with his feet planted firmly on the ground.  At the age of 70, he has recently ended radiation treatments for prostate cancer.  He also has arthritis in his hands which, he says, “Is tricky, because it’s really cramping my style, both literally and metaphorically.  Maybe that for all the showbiz BS that’s gone down in my life, I adhere to a philosophy of humility more than anyone might imagine, (especially) while watching old footage of me in Spandex (laughing).  I remember meeting one of my heroes, Chet Atkins, in Nashville in 1979.  A genius guitarist, obviously, but also the A&R guy who signed Elvis to RCA, and you can’t beat that.  He was lovely, very humble.  I thought, ‘When I grow up I want to be like Chet’.”

     What about Gil Moore and MIke Levine in the years before they linked up with Emmett again in 2008?  Moore founded Metalworks Studios in Mississauga, Ontario over 40 years ago.  At first it was Triumph’s home studio but when the band was winding down, it became the go to studio for the likes of Drake, Guns N’ Roses, Aerosmith, Katy Perry, Black Eyed Peas, Jonas Brothers, and many more artists.  Besides the studio, Moore also serves as the CEO of Metalworks Production Group and Metalworks Institute.  When their ten year contract with MCA ended, he launched the band’s own label which is now known as TML  Having bought back the band’s music licensing when the MCA contract ended, all of the band’s releases (since the release of Live at the US Festival in 2003) and all Triumph re-releases have been handled by TML.

     During the band’s heyday, Mike Levine was more than just ‘the bass player’.  He helped write and arrange songs, add keyboard parts, and supply a lot of the stage chatter during shows.  Levine liked to support jerseys from local sports teams, particularly NHL teams.  When their Stages double album was released in 1985, he took up a promoting challenge by visiting eight radio stations across Canada (Halifax to Vancouver) in one day to do radio promotions.  These days, most bands would settle for Zoom chats, but this wasn’t an option in 1985, was it?

     Since Triumph disbanded in 1983, Lavine has kept busy merchandising the band’s recordings and music.  Living part time in Jamaica, he also serves on the board of directors for the Muscian’s Rights Organization of Canada (he also serves on their advisory board).  As a bit of trivia, one might be able to find a clip of Levine appearing on the 1996 Christmas Eve edition of Wheel of Fortune (and no, I do not know if he was any good, hit on Vanna, or won).  Lavine was the oldest member of the band (born in 1949 making him 75 today) while his bandmates were both born in 1953 which puts them at 71 these days).

     Triumph is no doubt done touring.  Emmett’s collaborations with guitarist Dave Dunlop (as the Strung-Out Troubadours) kept him busy from 2007 to 2018.  In January of 2019 he announced he was on hiatus from touring.  Since then his health problems and a stated desire to retire hint that one will need to consult their record collections or YouTube to hear Triumph’s music.  If you haven’t in a while, check them out again.  They made some beautiful music in their day and it has aged well.

 

Top Piece Video – Triumph reunited at the 2008 Sweden Rocks Festival