How Lifeson Convinced Emmett to Bring His 'Fat Bastard' on Tour

Triumph fans have been happy to see and hear so many of the group's historic touchstones during its Rock & Roll Machine Reloaded tour dates this spring. And one of those is the white double-neck Gibson guitar Rik Emmett is brandishing -- as he did in the past -- for "Blinding Light Snow."

Emmett tells UCR he actually wasn't sure about bringing the heavyweight instrument on the road again but was inspired after touching base with his counterpart in another famous Canadian trio. "(Alex) Lifeson calls his double-neck 'the Fat Bastard,'" Emmett relates.

"When (Rush) announced they were going back out and (Triumph) was going back out, I sent Alex a text -- 'Are you taking out your Fat Bastard?' He went, 'Hell yeah!' and I went, 'Oh, s---. I guess I'm gonna have to be shouldering mine as well, for at least one song.'"

Believe me, that's all I wanted to do is one song. I'm happy to be able to take it off, but it`s a great guitar to get to play; the six-string neck of that may be one of the best-sounding electric guitars I've ever had."

Triumph is about halfway through the tour, which began April 10 in Florida and runs through June 6 in Boston, plus a June 10 makeup date in Quebec for postponed May 1 show.

These are the group's first full concerts since 2008 and its first full tour since 1988 with Emmett and drummer Gil Moore.

Bassist-keyboardist Mike Levine is sitting out due to health concerns, but Emmett and Moore have been joined by guitarist Phil X, who replaced Emmett during the early '90s, as well as bassist Todd Kerns and drummer Brent Fitz from Slash's Conspirators.

Derek Sharp (the Guess Who, Lawrence Gowen) filled in for X while he was temporarily away with Bon Jovi.

Fighting The Good Fight

Emmett, 72, acknowledges some physical issues -- "My back and my neck and my lower back and my knees, they're sore" -- but he's absolutely pleased to have the rock 'n' roll machine he joined 51 years ago in Toronto reloaded and revved-up.

"I come off stage and my cheeks are sore from smiling -- so that's good," he says. "It's been a little overwhelming. There are moments where I feel like, 'Omigod, this is so great. Why wasn't I doing more of this sooner?'

"But then there's other moments where I go, 'I'm not sure my knees can take it...' But what a beautiful thing to have these audiences come and the lights come up and I see their shining faces and they're singing my songs, and their cheeks are gonna be sore from singing, I can see that. What a beautiful gift to get in your 70s."

So, Emmett adds, is the expanded edition of Triumph, which is allowing the group to cover guitar and vocal parts that it never could as just a trio or even, briefly, as a touring quartet.

"I get goosebumps because I was never in a band that had vocal harmonies this good," Emmett explains. "Triumph was not a band that was this good, and that's a beautiful thing. It got reloaded in a way that's better than it ever was -- and that's not a slight to Gil and Mike, or me. Now I've got three guys that can absolutely sound like angels; we get to the chorus of 'Lay It On the Line' and 'Somebody's Out There,' 'Fight the Good Fight'...and it's just great. The musicians are gracious and incredibly professional. They've very experienced. It's very easy.

"Even Gil seems rejuvenated, acting like a teenager, dressing like he should have a skateboard under his arm. It's so funny, and so much fun."

Among the highlights, Emmett adds, was the hometown performance on April 24 in Toronto, which Emmett's entire family attended.

"My whole family rented one of those prom bus things, this gigantic stretch limo bus, and they all came together and watched in a private box. That's a very special kind of thing," he recalls.

"My grandson, who's 14, on the way home he was saying to his mom, 'I know I haven't been practicing guitar, but if I started tonight and I really buckled down, do you think I could be a rock start like bubba?' She goes, 'Yeah, if you want to try it, sure, we'll try to facilitate that.' That's kind of a col think, your grandkids want to do what grandpa does."

Moore, who's family also attended the Toronto show, has yet to make it to any of the shows in person but has been watching video postings.

And Emmett says there's neither pressure nor expectation that will change. "We'd be glad to have him," but I think he feels like, 'I don't want to do it unless I can do it justice.' That's who he is. And it's up and it's running now, so I think he would say, 'Why would I want to mess up a good thing.' He sees the clips online; he sends me texts, 'You guys are killing it.' That`s a nice thing to hear -- but I do think it's kinda the truth. We ARE killing it."

Laying It On The Line

Will there be more? That's a question Emmett isn't keen to entertain. "I told (the band's manager) I'll go till the first week in June, then I want two weeks off and I don't want anybody to phone me or anything. I want to climb down off the horse and see how that feels," he notes.

Emmett and his wife will be celebrating his 50th anniversary during July, while she and the rest of the family are taking an extended vacation to Japan while he's "staying at home to take care of the pets...and I'll have a chance to sort of wait for the smoke to clear and see how I fell.

"I will say this; I wasn't sure if this (tour) would happen and it has and I'm really having fun and it's really great. So that probably speaks well for the future, but I don't want to start speaking for the future yet. I don't want to go there. just want to enjoy this and see how I feel at the end."

Emmett takes much the same stance to the prospect of new Triumph music coming out of this. "I'm always writing," he says. "Do I have songs in the box that I wrote a year and a half ago that might be a good Triumph song? Yeah, sure. Do I want to go in the studio and make a Triumph record? Not now, thank you.

"But would I want to go in the studio and make a record with a guy like Fitzy playing drums and Todd Kerns to be able to sing shit and Phil X playing guitar solos, where I'm in the control room playing producer? That would be fun. I would like that. But that's more than I want to think about right now."