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Rik Triumphs On His Own Terms
Local musician has left his rock band days far behind and enjoys going solo
By SUZANNE ELLIS -- Toronto Sun
The Hard Rock Cafe gets almost anything it wants, but it can't have Rik Emmett's broken Budweiser guitar.
"Anheuser-Busch sponsored Triumph's last tour back in '87 and they wanted to photograph me playing this Budweiser guitar as part of the deal," recounts Emmett, who just released the blues-rock album, Raw Quartet.
"It sounded brutal, and was hard to hold onto. We jazzed it up with some neon lights so at least it looked cool. Then one night I spun it around like a lasso, and it crashed into the stage."
After 13 years as Triumph's frontman and three solo albums for a major label, Emmett wanted to create music independently. In 1995, he upgraded the equipment in his home recording studio, and started writing.
The finished product was a three-disc journey of Emmett's musical interests written, performed and produced by him.
"A painter won't just fill in the greens and let someone else fill in the blues," he said of his approach to recording these albums. "He'll finish it himself, and then when he's happy he'll hang it on the wall and let people look at it."
Emmett's first CD in the trilogy, last year's Ten Invitations From The Mistress Of Mr. E., experiments with classical and Spanish guitar. Swing Shift, a jazz album, came out a few months later. Raw Quartet, the edgiest of the three, just hit record store shelves across the country.
Emmett plays a series of upcoming grassroots shows in the States before returning to Canada for summer festival dates. For those shows, fans contacted his Web site (www.rikemmett.com) and requested him to play in their towns.
"It's kind of like MTV's Unplugged or MuchMusic's Intimate And Interactive, in that I'll sit on a stool, play music and tell stories," said Emmett. "It's great, because I can play some of the songs I want, whether they're blues, jazz or classical."
When Emmett tours, he plays four or five shows in a week, then comes home for a couple of days. He says it's "kind of like being a travelling salesman.
"I think you've gotta be 22 years old to be able to ride in the back of the van from gig to gig, and write songs, and play shows that night, and get drunk three times a week," said Emmett. "I can't do that. I need to be off the road to be creative."
Emmett, now 45, lives in Mississauga with his wife and four kids. Shannon, his 16-year-old daughter, plays piano on the CD trilogy, and wants to be a music teacher.
"I told some of my friends that, and they said, 'Man, the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree,' " he said, laughing.
After Triumph broke up messily in 1988, Emmett, bassist Mike Levine and drummer Gil Moore fought legal battles with each other for months. They don't talk anymore.
For that reason, Emmett says a Triumph reunion tour "ain't gonna happen.
"Band reunions happen for either nostalgia or money," he said. "I don't have a very nostalgic feeling for that situation, and I don't see how the money could replace the fun I'm having doing things on my own."
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