Fifty years after Rik Emmett joined Gil Moore and Mike Levine to form Canada's second-most-famous rock power trio, Triumph is back on the road for the first time in over three decades. The 50th Anniversary Tour isn't a nostalgia cash-in. Nine shows in, the band is still taking post-show notes and chasing shutouts.
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\nMoore spoke with 519 the morning after playing Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg, and the satisfaction was already giving way to something competitive. "Last night's show was really good, I was really happy with it," he says. "It's our ninth show, and Rik just sent us all a text message saying, 'You know, that was the tightest.' So it's been getting tighter every show, but he still has a list of notes."
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\nThat mentality runs deep in this band. Moore says Triumph has revived an old habit of post-show debriefs, the kind they used to hold driving between cities when they were coming up. "I love that because it's a contest for us," he says. "It's like a sports team. Can you score a shutout? Can you hit a home run? It's all those kinds of thoughts going out on stage."
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\nThe biggest question from fans has been the simplest one: why now? The timing made sense on paper. Hockey Night in Canada used Lay It on the Line during last year's NHL playoffs, a three-song Triumph set in Edmonton during the Stanley Cup Finals put the band back in the national conversation, a new documentary is in production and five million social media comments asking the band to tour again are hard to ignore. But Moore is clear that the final push came from somewhere closer to home.
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\n"I said no to doing this for so many years and never intended to change my mind," he says. "It doesn't mean I don't like playing or being in front of an audience — it's just that my family is first. I had a big touring career with Triumph, and my groove after Triumph was, I had to look after my mom because she was elderly, just like she took care of me when I was a baby."
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\nMetalworks Studios — the facility Moore co-founded in Mississauga — had been thriving. A school, a sound and lighting division, a full operation demanding his attention. Touring was a memory, and a comfortable one. "But it was actually my kids that pushed things over the top once this all kind of fell together, and Live Nation was anxious to get us out there," he says. "My kids were like, 'Dad, come on. Let's go, this is going to be great!' Rik is the same. His family probably had a lot to do with the reason he wanted to do this too — the excitement level with his kids and his wife."
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\nThe fan pressure carried its own weight. "You do feel guilty when your fans have been so loyal for so many years, and they keep saying, please, please, please," Moore says. "We must have five million social media comments saying, please tour. And nobody is saying, 'Don't tour.'"
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\nThe reunion has become a full family affair. Moore's daughter Holly has been with him every day for the latter half of the run — a competitive cheerleader who joined after her world championships wrapped. His son Miles was out for the first leg. "Lauren is traveling with my granddaughter and my son-in-law," Moore says. "They made a family vacation out of it, so they've driven almost the whole tour so far. They drove to Florida, drove all the way to Halifax. They skipped Western Canada, but they're picking up the tour again in Chicago, going all the way down through Texas and back through Florida and up the East Coast. It's like a family caravan."
There are no tracks, there's nothing pre-recorded, everything is live and there is zero pitch correction. We don't have any enhancements to what we're doing. It's all real.
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\nThirty years away from the touring grind meant Moore had serious work to do before the first show. "You must remember, Rik never stopped playing," he says. "When we started rehearsing, I said, 'Rocket, you're playing great, you've got it dialled in.' But I had to woodshed like crazy. Fortunately, I have a big home gym. I had to hit the weights and hit the skins. I set up a vocal rehearsal station in my gym as well. So I was singing and playing drums every day, longer than I have in years, and I was really surprised."
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\nTo give fans the fullest experience possible, Triumph brought in reinforcements. Phil X — who joined Moore and Levine after Emmett's 1988 departure and recorded the band's 1992 album Edge of Excess — was the first call. Todd Kerns came in on bass and Brent Fitz added a second drum kit along with keyboard duties. Moore and Emmett are still driving the show, but the extra players are doing something specific to the overall weight of it.
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\n"I'm trying to approach drums and singing differently than I did back then, just trying to find a new groove and a new approach, and it's been fun," Moore says. "Brent Fitz is completely up to date. He keeps me stoked because he's full of ideas, helpful tips about technique. I've found a new fascination in the instrument — like starting all over. I got my first set of drums when I was about 12 years old, and I had to get that fascination back. Somehow, I've managed to rediscover that."
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\nPerforming in an arena after 30 years, Moore says the rush people associate with being onstage isn't quite what he experiences from behind the kit. "If you're in an SUV sitting in the back row, you know where it's going and you're enjoying the ride, but you're looking at the backs of the guys in front of you," he explains. "As a drummer, there's always a barrier between you and the audience, which is your drums. I don't get that rush. What I get is more of a mindset of digging in."
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\nThe pursuit is entirely internal. "I'm looking for the oily feel in my hands and feet," Moore says. "I want to feel that fat back sound coming in, in a very solid kind of way. I'm focused on the groove, and the groove can never be good enough. It's just a pursuit of trying to make it perfect, and nothing's ever perfect."
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\nOn this tour the other musicians pushed Moore to step out from behind the kit for a few songs and come downstage to sing — a new sensation entirely. He checks the room differently now, too. "When we do Hold On, I don't play in that song, so I go out in the audience during sound check and I listen to the band play," he says. "Oh, man, it is fat! We've got this big rockin' PA system and the guys are just so dialled in. I just love the sound. It's too bad it doesn't come through like that on YouTube. It sounds like a tinny little transistor radio."
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\nMoore's favourite track to perform right now is Allied Forces — and it's partly because he doesn't sing it. Phil X handles the lead vocal and Moore gets to lock in on pure drums. "Brent and I work out the drum parts and one of us takes the lead on each song," he says. "On Allied Forces he takes the lead and I'm riffing off him, trying to make our combined groove sound like a single groove. It's a cool test because I've never played with a double drum setup ever in my life. We go from that into the songs where I take the lead, and it's like somebody hands you the steering wheel and says, 'You're in charge. Hit the gas!'"
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\nThe song's steamroller quality plays right into the expanded lineup. "Allied Forces, being the sort of steamroller kind of track that it is, really plays into the two guitars and two drummers," Moore says. "It really is an asset in terms of the crunch factor in that song."
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\nBacking tracks have never been part of Triumph's identity and Moore is emphatic that nothing has changed. "There are no tracks, there's nothing pre-recorded, everything is live and there is zero pitch correction," he says. "We don't have any enhancements to what we're doing. It's all real."
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\nAbout Emmett's vocals, Moore doesn't hesitate. "He hits some very high notes. There's a couple where he passes the torch over to Todd or Phil and me as well, but he's singing his ass off right now," he says. "A couple times in the first few shows I've said, 'Rik, why don't you lay out for this verse here and just let Todd carry it,' and he says, 'No, I think I can do it.' His enthusiasm is fantastic."
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\nThe harmony picture is different from any previous Triumph tour, and Moore knows it. "Phil, Todd, Rik and Brent — their voices blend so well. You never heard that live with Rik, Mike and me in the past," he says. "We're playing our butts off on this tour. To me, the word is fat. You can't do that with three guys, but with five — we've got lots of torque."
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\nTriumph brings the 50th Anniversary Tour to Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill in Sterling Heights on Sat., May 30 at 8 p.m. with April Wine opening. The last time this writer saw them live was in 1984 at Timber Ridge Ski Area near Kalamazoo for the American Rock Festival — a bill that included Ozzy Osbourne, Quiet Riot, Night Ranger, Ratt, Accept and an early-career Mötley Crüe. Moore remembers the Michigan connection going back further than that.
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\n"Michigan, for me, has always been home turf," he says. "It wasn't just Detroit and Joe Louis Arena or Cobo Hall. It was going in and playing Saginaw and Flint and Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo, where they just love Triumph. So much so that I think we started at least three of our tours at Wendler Arena in Saginaw. Where are we going to rehearse? Where are we going to put the show together? Someplace that feels like home, like friends."
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\nMoore isn't ready to call this a one-time thing. "Getting that start in Michigan always felt really good, so it's going to be great to come back and play the amphitheatre," he says. "I hope we can, if the tour does get extended — and I don't want to get ahead of myself — but if we were to come back, I would hope to play more in the great state of Michigan. There's just so many good cities and so many good people there, and they've been so good to Triumph forever."
