RIK EMMETT

The former Triumph guitarist discusses everything from those pesky Rush comparisons, the advantages of jumpsuits and the uphill battle of cracking the U.S. market 

- Joe Bosso

DURING THE LATE Seventies and into the Eighties, few bands were pilloried by music critics quite like Triumph. “Faceless” and “corporate rock” were two of the tags regularly assigned to the Canadian power trio composed of guitarist-singer Rik Emmett, bassist Mike Levine and drummer-singer Gil Moore, and those were some of the kinder descriptors lobbed at the band.

Admittedly, Triumph never professed to be anything more than a sleek, well-oiled, turbo-charged outfit that blitzed its audience with smoke bombs, lasers and flame throwers while dishing out headbanging, fist-in-the-air AOR anthems like “Lay It on the Line,” “Magic Power” and “Fight the Good Fight.” Hell, they even called one of their albums Rock & Roll Machine, just in case their subtlety went over anybody’s heads, and to celebrate their razzle-dazzle stage act, they titled a song “Blinding Light Show.”

“We certainly weren’t a critics’ band,” Emmett says unapologetically. “When Mike and Gil started the band, they envisioned a big production with lots of lights and effects. They called it Triumph for a reason — this was a band for the punters in the back seats who were having a hard time in life. We gave them inspirational messages, and we put on a big show. Critics were never going to like us. They didn’t like bands like Styx or Foreigner or Rush. Rolling Stone hated those bands.”