Recently, I had the good fortune to sit down and chat with drummer/vocalist
Gil Moore and bassist/keyboardist Mike Levine of the hard rockin’ Canadian
trio Triumph. Along with guitarist/vocalist Rik Emmett, Triumph came to the
fore in the late 70s and 80s, and were noted for their heavy songs with uplifting
messages, blistering musicianship, album sales, and amazing stage and light
shows.
One of the highlights of the band’s career was their celebrated appearance
in 1983 at the US Festival, a three-day event in California that drew 500,000
people. Playing on “Heavy Metal Sunday,” Triumph was joined by Van
Halen, the Scorpions, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, Mötley Crüe and
Quiet Riot. To date, Triumph is the only band to have officially released their
performance on video.
Emmett left the group on 1988, and after unsuccessfully attempting to fill
the gap, Triumph disbanded in 1993. For years, the guitarist resisted any offers
to reunite, but finally caved in 2008 when the group got back together to play
a couple of gigs.
Now, Triumph have released Greatest Hits: Remixed, a stunning
CD/DVD package Moore and Levine claim is what the fans wanted, and what the
band had wished to give them for so long. With Gil Moore and Mike Levine (and,
by extension, Rik Emmett), Triumph seems to be about friendship and the positive
power of making music now, as it was when they first began. I am thankful for
the time they gave me during this interview.
~
On listening to Greatest Hits:
Remixed, which sounds fantastic by the way, the first question that
comes to my mind is, why now?
Mike: Fan pressure really. In
every e-mail that comes to our web site, the fans say, “We need the greatest
hits! We want this. We want a good package.” But we used to have a motto:
“Why do something today when you can put it off ‘til tomorrow (laughs).
Why do something this year, when we can put it out next year?”
Gil: As scary as that sounds,
it’s not far from the truth. It’s really taken us this long to get it
together. You know you get to a point where if you’re gonna do it, you just
don’t want to put just anything out there. The Classics disc,
MCA’s version, was a contractual obligation, so there is no love for that. They
threw it out there; we had no say in it. It came our turn to do it, and we said,
“Let’s try and get the fans something really good,” responding to
all the things they have been asking us. Technically, there was a lot of work
because of remixing it. We didn’t just remaster it — there’s a big difference.
I read where you have been quite adamant about the
difference.
Gil: The word has gotten bandied
about because of hip-hop and what a remix means. What I’m taking about is in
the classic record production sense — starting all over again, right from
scratch and remixing it. Put the tapes through the console and open up the tracks.
Usually the access to original tapes is very limited because no one can find
them, but we have our two-inch masters. Then our approach was to mix more like
a modern record would be mixed. And we had no one pushing us, so we could do
it the way we wanted, when we wanted.
You guys are one of those few bands who had the forethought
when you signed your record deal to get the rights to those tapes back. How
did this happen?
Gil: It was fortunate. The deal
we made with Universal in the first place when we signed with them was we leased
them our catalog. When we did the deal, we had the forethought of getting the
records back, so they only had them for 10 years. They exported back to us in
’94. Mike was in the record business before Triumph started, so he had some
experience. Not every rock band has a bass player who comes out of the record
business.
Mike: When we were leaving RCA
and going to MCA, the contract had to be signed by midnight on a certain day,
and I was staying here in New York. These guys called me up, I came down, and
there’s ten of them in this room. They’d been going 48 hours straight
in the negotiations and the stumbling block was the revision rights. Our lawyer
said, “You’re not gonna get it,” and I said, “I don’t care
then” and I walked out. I left the negotiations and we got the revision
rights. So we got the rights back in 1994 and we have been able do what we wanted
with the music.
What I love about the package is the DVD. There’s
loads of cool stuff.
Gil: A lot of what held the video
up was we had to make sure it was all uniform and stable in Betacam, the biggest
pro format. We had all the stuff color corrected, had to make sure the original
tapes weren’t falling apart, but the problem with 4×3 aspect is everything’s
gone widescreen now. We had to change the aspect ratio, but not make us all
look hundreds of pounds heavier! So, we had to take the time to stretch the
video to the point where it didn’t look stretched.
I especially love watching the US Festival footage.
I read you played on rented instruments that day?
Gil: We came in from the T. Bowl
in Orlando, got on a plane, everything was rented, but you had your guitars?
Mike: Yeah,
I had my bass, but that’s about it.
Gil: It’s really ugly playing
on rented drums. It sucks.
Mike:
We switched slots with Sammy Hagar at the Tangerine Bowl thing
so we could get to California. There was only one flight, right off stage, into
the limo. There’s these three guys getting out of sweaty stage clothes in the
back of the limo, get there, wash up, then get on stage.
Gil: It was a special day. I
don’t know if there has ever been a festival in California before or since with
that scope. From the hard rock perspective, you had Mötley Crüe, Ozzy,
Scorps, Judas Priest, us, Van Halen. If you were into that kind of music, that
was heaven.
Mike: You’ll
never get all those headliners together on stage again. It will never happen.
So, I guess the big question when something
like a greatest hits package comes out is what’s next for Triumph?
Gil: Well,
we went and played Sweden Rock and then Rocklahoma 2008 — that was a mini
reunion. We decided we wanted to play together as a band and we wanted to play
for the fans who were patient and loyal and just do it. Our agent, who has been
with us forever, asked, “How many dates will you guys do?” We said
we’d do anywhere between one and dozen, depending on what made sense.
The way the logistics worked at one point, there was maybe four or five of them
that were being considered, but we finally decided on one in Europe and one
in the States. As of now, there is no official plan for more shows.
Mike:
When there is no plan, a plan pops up.
Things have definitely changed since the 70s and
80s. Can you tell me the difference you see in the music scene today and how
it differs from when you guys were coming up?
Mike: I’m
so far removed from the everyday operations of the business these days, but
I can tell you, I’d hate to be a new band right now. How horrible it would be
to try and get anything done.
Gil: I think these
days you have to be a marketing person as well as a musician, and be very net
savvy. When we started, you needed to play your instrument. That is a lot of
the problems, that musician ethic is not what it was.
Mike: I
think of all guys like us who were in bands in the late 70s and 80s —
you had to play.
So then, how does one sell a record these days?
Mike:
Go on a road trip like the old days, park a car outside the
radio station, and sell the records out the back of a truck. Best Buy doesn’t
stock music — it’s tough to find a physical store that takes product.
They will take the Top 10, anything other than the current record from anybody,
and you might find it at like Vintage Vinyl in Jersey or Rolling Stones Records
in Chicago, but that’s about it really. That’s why places like Amazon are so
wonderful for that.
Gil: You gotta hope that with
something like a greatest hits, fans will find us. The information on the net
is disseminated so quick and so broadly and so wide that the coverage is so
great. And we’re doing a little press tour right now — four, five,
six days. And the other thing is, why we’re doing it. We’re not doing it to
get rich. We’re doing it for posterity. We’re doing it for the fans and our
kids — a whole lot of reasons. We just want to have it there for the people
who appreciate it. We’re not overly concerned about the commercial side of the
record industry to be honest.
Mike: At
the end of the day, the people who want it will be able to find it. They can
buy it off our web site. It’s just the way it is. We’re not looking to sell
a million units here or anything like that. If we sell a 1,000 units, 2,000
units, or 10,000, it doesn’t really matter as long as it lands in the right
hands.
You guys seem quite settled with your 35-year legacy.
There doesn’t seem to be such a need to worry about touring or making more records.
Do you feel no real need for more reunions or to sell huge units of product
because basically you’re content with what you’ve accomplished?
Gil: It’s
probably different for all of us. We were separated for such a long time, when
we got together in 2008, it was like really starting over.
Mike: It really was.
Gil: We
really like hanging around one another, but we have all gone in different paths
in our lives (Gil Moore owns his own studio). It’s not like a lot of
bands who get back together. They have been trying to get back together for
a long time and fighting, then finally one guy gives in and all of a sudden
they’re gonna play, which isn’t our case. We’ve all lived
our own lives, done different things. Ric is the only one who has been playing
through all this time. It’s just different dynamics. We’re all in different
stages with our families.
Mike: Us getting back with Rik
was very key for Gil and I. We were the three musketeers for so many years,
then not the three musketeers, and I don’t know if we’ll ever be the three
musketeers in the old sense of it. But at least we’re good buddies again.
Gil:
That to me is the most important point. Every time we get together,
it takes a couple minutes and we’re laughing our heads off, talking about the
times usually when things went wrong.
