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RIK EMMETT SAYS NO TRIUMPH TOUR DATES ON THE HORIZON:
Matt Wardlaw spoke with former Triumph singer/guitarist Rik Emmett this past Thursday for the pop culture blog Addicted to Vinyl (Addicted to Vinyl) regarding Emmett's upcoming acoustic tour, which begins on Friday, September 24th in Pittsburgh. Emmett will once again team up with his longtime songwriting partner Dave Dunlop as The Troubs (the newly shortened nickname of their Strung-Out Troubadours project) for a short series of dates that will feature tracks from Push and Pull, the latest Troubs album plus acoustic versions of Triumph favorites, selections from Emmett's solo catalog and some brand new material the pair will be road testing. Visit Rik Emmett | Official Site for a complete list of upcoming tour dates.
Here are a couple of excerpts from the interview:
On the transition from Triumph to being a solo artist, plus related thoughts about Mike Portnoy's departure from Dream Theater:
Just looking back a bit, I heard the tracks from your solo debut [Absolutely, released in 1990] for the first time as you were playing live during a radio broadcast from the Empire Concert Club, a club here in Cleveland that's long gone.
Oh yeah, I remember that one now! [Laughs]
It struck me as a really powerful statement and a strong first move for your debut as a solo artist. 20 years later as you look back, what was it like making that transition from being a member of Triumph to being a solo artist? As a listener, Absolutely came across as a very confident record, so it seems like something you would have been happy with at the time.
I was, but I do remember it as an extremely emotionally turbulent difficult time in my life. It was just weird to be kind of caught in a situation where I really wanted to try to step out on my own. I wasn't sure what form that stepping out was going to take. And then of course you have all of the pressure - managers and agents and record company people that are leaning over your shoulder saying "now now Rik, you shouldn't go too far away from that image." You have that Absolutely cover and you can see there's a guy that he's got the MTV hair and he's got the leather jacket and he's playing the black Les Paul. That was what record companies, managers and agents were saying, you've got to do this. I do think it had a certain kind of strength, but now when I listen to the record I go "geez, there's an awful lot of late '80s/'90s kind of reverb in the mixes." There was reverb on everything! Reverb for the snare, reverb for the kick and reverb for the background vocals and it just seems gargantuan and dynamically over the top sometimes now when I listen back to it. There's a song on there called "Middle Ground" that is still one of the most important songs I play when I play little acoustic shows. I realized that song had more value when it was more intimate and more personal, so that was part of it - the production maybe pushed me a little bit outside of the comfort zone. But I didn't even know what my comfort zone was.
And I just want to say this quickly - I heard today that [drummer] Mike Portnoy has left Dream Theater. He put out an announcement on his site and talked about how this would be shocking and heavy duty and it certainly was heavy duty for him. That took me right back to that time period in 1988/1989 when I left Triumph. You've got people that are saying "how can you do this, how can you betray the things that you've stood for for so long and that you were an integral part of," and blah blah blah. But in the end, you've kind of got to do what your heart tells you. Why else did you choose a life as an artist if you're not gonna do that and sometimes the choices are hard. I think the Absolutely album for me was one where it was a statement of saying "you know, life isn't so simple, life is kind of complex." So I wanted a record that had a little bit of that. It had ballads and then it had progressive kind of tunes like "Stand and Deliver" and it had vocal kind of, I don't know what you'd call them - fugues or rounds or something and finger style guitar. It had a lot of stuff and I'm thinking it will be pretty interesting to see what Portnoy comes up with next, now that he's made this step, now what does he do - what's his definitive statement? That's all I've got to say about that.
I don't want to dwell on it but you're right, when he made his announcement, it was really shocking to me - I wasn't so much shocked that he did it, but it's one of the biggest departures and lineup changes that we've heard about in a while.
Yeah, and it was his band for crying out loud. That band was his band and his dad was the one that came up with the name for it, for crying out loud. So that's a real shocker.
On the future of Triumph:
Final bit - what's the current word on Triumph?
We had a dinner this summer with the guys from Live Nation and had some conversations about potential tours and what might happen and then since then, nothing. In truth, I think honestly Gil Moore has that whole Metalworks empire - you know he's got a studio and a school and a production company and it's growing and it's doing gangbusters and I think he probably - Gil always did have a very strong workaholic kind of nature and I have a feeling that he's just sitting there now going "love my life, love my job, love what I'm doing here, don't necessarily need to try and gear myself up as a drummer to play a 75 minute show, sing half the songs, [and] go on and have to do that, would rather be doing this."
I'm not sure anything will ever happen. If someone came along and said "look, can't you just do this one [show]" and I imagine it might be Canada too that somebody would come and say "hey, we're having this huge outdoor Canada concert thing, will you guys just reunite and come on out more time for a million dollars?" And then I think Gil and Mike might go "yeah, that sounds pretty good, sure!" Until that happens, I'm not sure. They don't want to go out and do a tour where they're just going to take a small production and play casinos or something. I just don't think that's going to happen. It doesn't matter to me - I'm quite content taking my acoustic guitar and going and playing acoustic shows in places like The Winchester. For me, I just want a chance to play every now and then and gig, write new tunes and get a chance to air 'em out. So I don't necessarily need Triumph to be able to fulfill that and I get the sense that neither do the other two guys.
Read the complete interview via the following link: addictedtovinyl.com/blog/2010/09/13/the-atv-interview-rik-emmett/
RIK EMMETT SAYS NO TRIUMPH TOUR DATES ON THE HORIZON:
Matt Wardlaw spoke with former Triumph singer/guitarist Rik Emmett this past Thursday for the pop culture blog Addicted to Vinyl (Addicted to Vinyl) regarding Emmett's upcoming acoustic tour, which begins on Friday, September 24th in Pittsburgh. Emmett will once again team up with his longtime songwriting partner Dave Dunlop as The Troubs (the newly shortened nickname of their Strung-Out Troubadours project) for a short series of dates that will feature tracks from Push and Pull, the latest Troubs album plus acoustic versions of Triumph favorites, selections from Emmett's solo catalog and some brand new material the pair will be road testing. Visit Rik Emmett | Official Site for a complete list of upcoming tour dates.
Here are a couple of excerpts from the interview:
On the transition from Triumph to being a solo artist, plus related thoughts about Mike Portnoy's departure from Dream Theater:
Just looking back a bit, I heard the tracks from your solo debut [Absolutely, released in 1990] for the first time as you were playing live during a radio broadcast from the Empire Concert Club, a club here in Cleveland that's long gone.
Oh yeah, I remember that one now! [Laughs]
It struck me as a really powerful statement and a strong first move for your debut as a solo artist. 20 years later as you look back, what was it like making that transition from being a member of Triumph to being a solo artist? As a listener, Absolutely came across as a very confident record, so it seems like something you would have been happy with at the time.
I was, but I do remember it as an extremely emotionally turbulent difficult time in my life. It was just weird to be kind of caught in a situation where I really wanted to try to step out on my own. I wasn't sure what form that stepping out was going to take. And then of course you have all of the pressure - managers and agents and record company people that are leaning over your shoulder saying "now now Rik, you shouldn't go too far away from that image." You have that Absolutely cover and you can see there's a guy that he's got the MTV hair and he's got the leather jacket and he's playing the black Les Paul. That was what record companies, managers and agents were saying, you've got to do this. I do think it had a certain kind of strength, but now when I listen to the record I go "geez, there's an awful lot of late '80s/'90s kind of reverb in the mixes." There was reverb on everything! Reverb for the snare, reverb for the kick and reverb for the background vocals and it just seems gargantuan and dynamically over the top sometimes now when I listen back to it. There's a song on there called "Middle Ground" that is still one of the most important songs I play when I play little acoustic shows. I realized that song had more value when it was more intimate and more personal, so that was part of it - the production maybe pushed me a little bit outside of the comfort zone. But I didn't even know what my comfort zone was.
And I just want to say this quickly - I heard today that [drummer] Mike Portnoy has left Dream Theater. He put out an announcement on his site and talked about how this would be shocking and heavy duty and it certainly was heavy duty for him. That took me right back to that time period in 1988/1989 when I left Triumph. You've got people that are saying "how can you do this, how can you betray the things that you've stood for for so long and that you were an integral part of," and blah blah blah. But in the end, you've kind of got to do what your heart tells you. Why else did you choose a life as an artist if you're not gonna do that and sometimes the choices are hard. I think the Absolutely album for me was one where it was a statement of saying "you know, life isn't so simple, life is kind of complex." So I wanted a record that had a little bit of that. It had ballads and then it had progressive kind of tunes like "Stand and Deliver" and it had vocal kind of, I don't know what you'd call them - fugues or rounds or something and finger style guitar. It had a lot of stuff and I'm thinking it will be pretty interesting to see what Portnoy comes up with next, now that he's made this step, now what does he do - what's his definitive statement? That's all I've got to say about that.
I don't want to dwell on it but you're right, when he made his announcement, it was really shocking to me - I wasn't so much shocked that he did it, but it's one of the biggest departures and lineup changes that we've heard about in a while.
Yeah, and it was his band for crying out loud. That band was his band and his dad was the one that came up with the name for it, for crying out loud. So that's a real shocker.
On the future of Triumph:
Final bit - what's the current word on Triumph?
We had a dinner this summer with the guys from Live Nation and had some conversations about potential tours and what might happen and then since then, nothing. In truth, I think honestly Gil Moore has that whole Metalworks empire - you know he's got a studio and a school and a production company and it's growing and it's doing gangbusters and I think he probably - Gil always did have a very strong workaholic kind of nature and I have a feeling that he's just sitting there now going "love my life, love my job, love what I'm doing here, don't necessarily need to try and gear myself up as a drummer to play a 75 minute show, sing half the songs, [and] go on and have to do that, would rather be doing this."
I'm not sure anything will ever happen. If someone came along and said "look, can't you just do this one [show]" and I imagine it might be Canada too that somebody would come and say "hey, we're having this huge outdoor Canada concert thing, will you guys just reunite and come on out more time for a million dollars?" And then I think Gil and Mike might go "yeah, that sounds pretty good, sure!" Until that happens, I'm not sure. They don't want to go out and do a tour where they're just going to take a small production and play casinos or something. I just don't think that's going to happen. It doesn't matter to me - I'm quite content taking my acoustic guitar and going and playing acoustic shows in places like The Winchester. For me, I just want a chance to play every now and then and gig, write new tunes and get a chance to air 'em out. So I don't necessarily need Triumph to be able to fulfill that and I get the sense that neither do the other two guys.
Read the complete interview via the following link: addictedtovinyl.com/blog/2010/09/13/the-atv-interview-rik-emmett/
