Jeff and Rik Emmett from Triumph talks US Festival '83 concert

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I'm Jeff Stevens. Thanks for listeningto my Eighties Show podcast. You can

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hear The Eighties Show every week oniHeart radio stations across the country. And
this is where I talked to yourfavorite stars from the eighties and in this
case love these guys. It's thesinger and guitar player for Triumph, Rick
Emmett. Hi, Jeff, Hey, Rick, how are you doing,
man? I'm great. This isso weird to talk to a guy named
Jeff Stevens, because there was whenI left Triumph, there was a drummer

(00:26):
that played in my band and healso played percussion on the First Someone.
He was a Jeff Stevens. There'sanother Jeff Stevens out there. Oh yeah,
jeez, you know, yeah,I know. Well, what can
I tell you? He was asweetheart of a guy, and he turned
me onto some jazz music. Oneof my favorite albums of all time is
Bill Evans and Toots Steelman's and JeffStevens was the guy that turned me onto

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that record. Well, Rick,I didn't know we had this connection,
that's for sure. That's pretty awesome. Well, I hopefully you'll never forget
our interview for the same reason thatyou've never forgot Jeff Stephens. So okay,
fireaway, fire away. First ofall, I just wanted to tell
you I got psyched up for talkingto you by going back and watching the

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US Festival in your performance, andmy goodness. First of all, just
a incredible performance, which is whatwe are celebrating. Hard to believe the
fortieth anniversary of But man, whatwas it like being on stage that special
day. It was surreal, Itwas kind of strange. It was also,

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in another way, just another gig. Yeah, And in fact,
I think one of the reasons thatI had a good day that that particular
afternoon was really hot on stage.We'd waited a while to get on.
We only had to play a sixtyand in my mind, I was thinking,
don't don't let this, the surrealnature and the scale of this thing

(01:57):
affect for what you do. Justgoing out there and play your tunes for
an hour. It'll This is easy. It's not a hard thing. This
is just fun. Play your guitarand sing your songs and everything will be
okay. Now, Triumph would normallyhave been in the security blanket of a
much larger scale kind of production.Lights and pyro and all of that kind

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of stuff, but we had noneof that. But that was okay.
The other thing is in the backof my mind, I'm pretty sure I
was always thinking, you know,Eddie van Halen's coming up. Eddie's going
to get up on stage, soyou better have a good day, you
know. So I think there wasmaybe a little bit of a competitive thing
of not competing. Yes, musicis a weird thing, right, Like

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the best way to be competitive isto try and figure out the best thing
that you can be personally. Justbe yourself, but be the best version
of yourself. And you know,I think it's kind of a lovely aligning
of the stars that I happened tohave a good day that day when there
was team rolling. You know,Oh, my goodness, that's an understatement,

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my friend, as we chat withRick Emmett, guitarist and vocalist for
Triumph, you didn't just have agood day. You were on fire.
I mean, from your double neckguitar going crazy to your incredible voice just
booming across all of those people.You had a fantastic day, my friend.
Yeah, Well, I think Iwas lucky, you know, lucky

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to have a good one in thatcircumstance, for sure. Did you feel
young, wild and free? Becausethat every time you said that, the
crowd just seemed like they went nuts. I am, I don't know if
I felt so free, And youknow, I can tell you it was
a really hot day and the smoghad blown up from LA and was kind

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of trapped by the hills, thesurrounding hills, and so if you ran
up and down the stage a coupleof times, it sort of felt like
it smoked a couple of pack ofcigarettes. Like it was was oppressive.
Wow. I mean there's a momentin the in the guitar solo, I
sort of finished it and I liedown flat on the stage. And it
wasn't because it was like I was, you know, showboating. It was

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like I was out of gas.I just needed a couple of seconds to
try and regroup, you know.Yeah. Well, when you look at
who else was there over the courseof the weekend, do you are there
some other performances that really that reallyjump out? I know you mentioned Van
Halen. Are there some other ones? Did you guys like take in the
whole weekend or were you kind ofjust there for your day? Yeah?

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Just we were just and not evenfor the whole part of the day.
We we the helicopters brought us infrom the hotel motel that we were staying
at and um and so I gotto see a little of the band before
us. I think he was priest. And then the Scorpions were on after
us, and they were fantastic.I thought they sounded really, really good.

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And of course, you Triumph isa trio. I always kind of
loved bands where you had two guitars, and so the Scorpions, the sound
of that band, to me,it was just like a moving sonic wall,
you know, It's just like reallypowerful. And I thought, well,
I'm glad I didn't have to followthat, you know. Yeah,
but it was it was like Isaid, it was, It was a

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good There was a surreal situation therewhere our trailer was. There was this
much larger compound behind us that waslike something out of the Lord of the
Fly, like a set from theLord of the Flies, and it was
the van Halin compound, and therewere all of these Chopez you know,
Hollywood because Eddie was married to ValeriePernelli at the time, so you know

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TV actors and actresses that are comingand going, and you're going, hey,
well look at this. Oh,you know, you're just gonna don't
don't let this get to you now, don't you know, don't don't get
lost in this moment focused on playingthe gig man. You just get a
gig, you get it, getthrough. Well, you you certainly did
that, and then some and weare celebrating the fortieth anniversary of your incredible

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performance at the US Festival. There'sa new two record set. So how
did all of this come about?Well, the record we don't it did
come out as a DVD kind ofthing. It didn't never come out as
a vinyl album. And there werealso fans and this was a big one
actually, fans that were saying,you know, on the DVD, Rick,
you're playing your guitar solo, andthen they cut away at these interviews

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and stuff, and we don't getto hear your whole guitar solo. Right,
when are we ever going to getto hear the whole solo? You
know without all of the you know, the interviewing the sheriff and the mayor
from the town, and was thekind of like, who cares, where's
the guitar? So that was somethingthat they wanted to get fixed. And
yeah, you know, it's justa weird thing that there's a kind of

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a cult. Well, I don't. I'm not gonna say it's weird.
I'm gonna say again, I'm gonnasort of say this is just luck.
When Triumph figured out And when Isay that, I mean me, when
I figured out that I was goingto write songs like hold out of your
Dreams and fight the good fight andnever Surrender and the magic power of the

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music. I kind of figured out, if we're gonna call your band Triumph,
then it's got to be about thetriumph of something. And it was
the triumph of audiences and music loversbeing able to connect to something that a
band was offering, and and thatkind of became the secret mojo ingredient that

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has allowed Triumph. Now, Imean, we're four decades on and there's
still people to go, hey,can we get that music? But can
we get it in vinyl? Canwe get it in colored vinyl? Can
we get it in a gate fulldouble album colored vinyl? Okay, all
right, sure, you know,we'll see what we'll see what we can
do. But there's a bond thatexists between the band and its fans,

(07:59):
that it's as strong as it everwas. It's it's just a lovely gift
to have later on in life.It's a beautiful thing. Well, and
you did that. You you absolutelydelivered for the fans. Limited seven hundred
and fifty copies either in black,red, or blue vinyl of the US
Festival two records set. So that'sI mean for a fan, I mean,

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the people are just going to eatthose things alive. I mean that's
and I know, my friend,my friend, I gotta shout out my
best friend from high school, Tony. He has always been the biggest Triumph
fan. And he was like,you know, he's like, you know,
let's fight the good fighting, likeall those positive, you know songs
that you were just referring to,you know, just he was an incredible
fan, still is and it wassuper jealous to find out I was talking

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to you. So we got ashout out Tony. Well, I you
know, if Tony was here,then I would pay for his beer.
And the reason I can say thatis because I heard a great story the
other day. I was in thestudio doing some stuff and it was about
a guy had gone to Dublin,and he was in a pub in Dublin
and he thought he was like,over there in the corner sitting with another

(09:09):
guy. Isn't that Bono? Ithink that's Bono over there in the corner.
And so he asks the waiter youknow, hey, is that and
he goes, yeah, yeah,that's him, and he goes, oh,
man. And so then Bonno getsup and goes to the cannon.
He goes over to the table theguy that's sitting with Bono and he says,
hey, man, like, doyou think Bono would find something for

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me? Do you think I think? Guy goes yeah, yeah, and
love DADDI be flying sure, he'llwhatever. You like to take a picture?
Yeah, yeah, whatever. Sothen they get to the end of
their thing and they go, okay, we need our bill, and the
way it goes oh no, no, that's been taking care of He goes,
oh, man, did Bono payfor my meal? He goes,
no, No, his pal didover there, and he goes, oh,
who's his pal And the guy goes, that's Bruce Springstein. Wow,

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who's his pal? That a greatstory. I love that. You know,
if Tony was here, I'd buyhim a beer. But Rick,
we're going to end on that.We could talk for a long time.
Congratulations on the fortieth anniversary, andman, you have made some great music.
We are so thankful for nice talkingto you, Rick Emmett, Thank
you. Jeff Stevens