 again on the metal voice Alan, what do we have? We got Rick Emmett himself. Always a pleasure to have Rick with us. And today we're going to talk about this little item here. Lay it on the line. Rick Emmett, I hesitate to say it's an autobiography because man, there's so much stuff going on in this book. Yeah, I mean, I did a lot of research, you know, reading other guys' memoirs and autobiographies and things. And the truth of it is that my life has been a lot more than just being a rock star guy in a rock band. And so if I'm going to tell the story of my life, it's going to end up being the story of family and teaching and, you know, and music that goes much further than just being, you know, kind of in a rock band. Because my musical experience has been much wider than I mean, in one of the things I say, you know, I made a lot more records after I left Triumph than I made when I was in it. So, you know, yeah, it's, it's, it's wide ranging. You know, yak yak yak, you know, once I get started, it's hard to stop. I mean, Rick, you know, any autobiography that sites with Marshall McLuhan and Bertrand Russell, you know, it's going to be different, right? And we're not talking about which member the band took the most drugs or which member the band set fire to the other member. I mean, that's what I personally really enjoyed about this autobiography. It's completely, like you said, it's completely different and involves a lot more than just the great, you know, we recorded this album and this album. It was a pleasant, thoroughly pleasant read for myself. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I've been getting really nice response doing this round of interviews and promo and marketing and stuff. And so I'm a little, I'm humbled by it all. You know, I mean, when you start out and you decide, okay, I'm going to write this thing, I mean, I have a blog on my, on my website, my members forum kind of thing. And, you know, I had thousands and thousands of pages of things that I typed over the, you know, 20 years that I've been running that, that, that blog. So it wasn't like I didn't have a nice chunk of research of, you know, if somebody's a fan of mine, what is it that they want to know? Because people have been asking me those questions every day for years. But I think that was the thing that made me decide, well, I'm going to try and be a little more, I don't know, literate than that, a little bit more, you know, of an author and try and dig a little deeper into the story of living as opposed to just, you know, here's what I did on, you know, this Wednesday in 1980, wasn't that a great gig? You know, like, when I read those memoirs, and guys are, you know, sort of just looking at their daybook and going, yeah, yeah, then we flew to Tulsa. Wasn't that cool? Yeah. Okay, I don't know about that. You know, I think we better go a little few layers deeper. Yeah, you weren't quite a few layers deeper yet. You know, you know what I noticed, Rick, and I told this Alan right before we spoke, that your lyrics tend to be, you know, full of optimism and hope, but you're much more of a complex guy than your lyrics sort of portray you, right? You're sort of questioning things. There's more of a dichotomy there. There's more of a duality there happening, saying, you know, even though the lyrics make, like, if I just based, you know, who you are on just your lyrics, you think you're the most optimistic person there is on the planet, right? But when you dig deep, you're really behind the scenes, I should say, you're a little more complex than that. You know, that's one of the things that I always liked about heavy metal rock was always a type of music that lyrically it tried to go a lot deeper than, and it would be serious. Sometimes it would be like just heavy, you know, heavy duty. And I liked that. Now at the same time, I was the kind of guy that I could appreciate like a band like Yes with John Anderson's lyrics, which were very elliptical and very poetic. And they were not trying to be, you know, song lyrics, he said, as he made air quotes, you know, like he was trying to do something else. And I appreciated that as well. So maybe that optimism, I mean, you know, who calls a band Yes, that's pretty optimistic. You know, so that, you know, every coin has two sides, right. And so if you're going to be optimistic, the reason you're being optimistic is you probably have a streak inside you that's kind of, you know, oh man, human beings, they just they always they constantly disappoint me. You know, but then you realize, okay, if I'm going to get up there and I'm going to, you know, strut around the lights, I think I should probably try and offer folks something that, you know, maybe makes their life feel better or or gives them a sense of purpose or, you know, I mean, long before there was self help, I was writing, you know, motivation and inspiration kinds of things, because it just felt instinctively right to me in the role that I had. Of course, I was in this band that called itself triumph, if you're going to be, if you're going to be triumph, triumph of what, you know, and it can be Debbie Downer. Yeah, you don't want to be triumph of my ego. It was more like a triumph of you folks, the triumph of you people that are, you know, supporting us. And that really sort of became the story of the band and the story of the songs that I tried to write. Now, having said that, man, Jimmy, I mean, I, you'd write 20 songs for an album and then, you know, 15 of them are going into the garbage can, you know. So, you know, it's not like I didn't, I had some Debbie Downer, you know, dark side of the, of the dark side of the Rick, you know, I had stuff like that, but, you know, generally speaking, that would, that would go, wow, that doesn't really fit, you know, so. You know, Rick, I look in the mirror every day and I see receding hairline, I know I got to change my diet, no more spicy foods. I realize I've been older, but mortality and retirement, that's, I haven't given it much thought, but reading your book, I was ready for the retirement home. I mean, was this cathartic for you to write this book? Yeah, in a way, and, you know, I wouldn't want to give folks the wrong impression. I don't feel like I'm going to retire ever from being creative, you know. To me, that was the big point of the book. I was sort of set out on this, you know, voyage of self-discovery to writing this thing. And then, yes, for sure, your closed chapters, you know, you're saying, okay, I'm writing this and now I'm done and I'm moving on. And the moving on has always been a big thing for me. I mean, I moved on from bands I was in, I moved on from styles of music that I, you know, felt like, oh, this is turning into a shoebox, you know, don't want to live in a shoebox, you know. So, you know, I think what it taught me, certainly, you know, I can't hit the high notes I used to hit, get a little arthritis into my hands now, I want to wake up in the morning, I go, fingers no work, but then it's like, well, how will I cope with that? How will I learn to live with that? You know, while I'm still here, you know, and the creativity has always been the thing, like the challenge of I got a notebook, I got stuff to, you know, do every day. And then even this, like doing an interview, this is a creative act, you know, I enjoy this, you know, this is fun. So I don't think my life is necessarily going to be less creative and less interesting. It's just, it's going to be different than, you know, going out on the road and living in the back of a bus, you know, and trotting through airports and going, oh, God, why does their Canada's gates have to be, you know, way at the end, because they pay the cheapest rents, you know, in the airport. Rick, let me ask you this. So again, me and Al are talking about this, and it's something I didn't really understand back in the day. So Gil, you know, he's, he does the vocals, you do the vocals, and as fans like me and Al and everyone else, we kind of appreciated the back and forth of having two main vocalists, right? But when I'm reading your book, it seems that it did get under your skin that at some point in time, Gil was, you know, singing as the lead vocalist, it kind of irked you a bit. And maybe I'm reading it wrong. It didn't irk me at all, ever, that he was, you know, I mean, first of all, let's make sure that everybody understands this. Triumph always kills band. He was always kind of the band leader. He was the guy that formulated the concept of the band and the way that the band looked in terms of production and on stage. It was very much a reflection of what Gil wanted the band to be. But, you know, then he went and him and Mike found me and went, hey, this is our guy. And, you know, now you're in the band and you go, okay, well, 33 and a third, you know, three musketeers. Here we go. And I think that the rub that you're talking about was that the Just a Game album in particular, which was the third Triumph album. I mean, let's, you know, put it in this context. The second album was called Rock and Roll Machine, which that sort of ended up being the first album in the States. And it broke us in a way. And it was very much a Gil Moore kind of record. Rock and Roll Machine was a song that he wrote and sang. And, you know, that was how he saw the band. And I think he always kind of held to that sense of what the band was. But then the Just a Game album had the success of Land on the Line and Hold On, which are kind of evergreen songs. And I think the record company then went, hey, the evergreen nature of this thing that we've signed, we think it's maybe it's the blonde guy there out front. That's, you know, that's what we want to, we want to push that, you know, we want to focus on that. And I think when you talk about rub, I think that's where the rubbing began, that record companies are now talking to Gil and Mike and saying, hey, you know, we want more of that, we want more of Rick. And they were going, well, that's not what the band is all about. The band is all about us musketeers. And Mike had been the producer of the early records. And Mike was the guy that sort of, you know, he'd be in the studio and in the control room and sort of saying, okay, a Gil song, a Rick song, a Gil song, a Rick song. And that's how we keep the ball, you know, that's how the Rock and Roll Machine stays balanced, you know. But yeah, I mean, inevitably, you start out a band, right? And that whole musketeers thing. And it's it, that's the way guys, it's easy to do that because you don't have a pot to piss in. So, you know, everybody's willing to make compromises and the collaboration works. And then, you know, time goes on and hey, people get married and they start to have kids and they get their own lives. And they were having success with buying houses because they're making investments. They're having their own lives, you know, and then they go, well, hang on, I want the band to be this reflection of my life. And then the other guy goes, no, I wanted to be this reflection of my life. And those things are, you know, invariably, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are going to have a falling out. It's, you know, it's bound to happen. You know, can you figure out how you're going to make up, you know, kiss and make up and make it work? You know, so it's a struggle. It's a human thing. But I think it's ironic around the time of Sport of Kings that you had this, we must have one lead singer because I always thought that was the strength of trying because having two strong lead singers. And what I took away from the book is, you know, all those years in you were still considered the new guy. And it seemed like the roles that were defined early in the career were still there. Like you were the musician, the songwriter. Like you said, Mike was the producer PR guy and Gil was the motor and the visionary. And it just seemed like you, you couldn't break out of those roles that were designed assigned to you guys early, early in your career. Yeah, I mean, you guys have seen the Banger films documentary that they made, right? Yeah. So, and I think it makes it pretty clear that that's for the Kings record, MCA Universal in the States had assigned Ron Neveson as a producer to say, okay, you know, hey, Ron, you know, the magic, the commercial magic that you worked for Jefferson's airplane, which became Jefferson Starship. And I think even more importantly, the Heart album, which, you know, the year that we started working with Ron, I think that summer he sold five million that, you know, he hadn't sold, but maybe I can't remember who Hart was with Capitol or something, but they'd sold like five million records in less than half a year. So, you know, that guy was pretty full of his success. And he had a way of working, you know, and his way of working was like, okay, I'm going to play the politics of this so that I get Rick to sing the songs that I'm bringing, which are pop songs by outside writers, which I wasn't happy with that either. I mean, there was a lot of politics that was going on there about trying, I think, the record company was trying to turn the trick that had happened with Hart and Jefferson Starship. And, you know, none of Gil, Mike, and I, none of us were happy, we weren't happy with each other necessarily, but we weren't happy with that either. Like, at least we were, you know, that was a bonding thing like, okay, yeah, we're going to have to do something about this. But, you know, the writing was sort of on the wall, because it wasn't just a question of us and our internal politics and Ron Neveson, and I mean, I'm not going to lay everything at his, the whole business was changing, you know, the grunge was coming and Seattle and all of that stuff that was about bands that were, you know, 15 years younger than we were, you know, and that's the truth of it. At a certain point, the demographic shifts, you know, and everybody's getting older and people, you know, our fans, they're getting married and having kids and got mortgages and, you know, they got lives that are moving away from, I live for the weekend, I live, you know, I sleep for the weekend and it's become I sleep on the weekend. Yeah, exactly. You know, Rick, I just thought some of the points you bring up in the book, there's so many, but I mean, I'm reading the book one night, I'm listening to progressions of power and, you know, you're talking about masks, the masks you were forced to wear a public mask. And here, as early as 1980 and taking my heart, you're writing, I wear a song to mask my awkward face. Did it really go back this, this point, A, you can explain what you mean by mask, but did it really go back that far and that early in your career? Always, my whole life. Wow. I mean, I was always a very shy person and still am really internally, but very early on in my life, it became apparent that I had these gifts, I had this talent. I could draw really well, I could sing very well, and I was a pretty good athlete. So there were these things that I could do publicly, which other people would go, ooh, you know, oh, pat me on the back and my head would start to swell. And I think you end up sort of becoming a performer, you know, I mean, my mom would take me to Sunday school and then I would be the guy that would be the lead actor in the Christmas play, you know, in the church. I would go to the choir practices with her and before you know it, oh, there's little Ricky's going to get out and he's going to sing a solo on Sunday, you know, the first soprano, you know. When you got it, you got it, Rick. When you got it, you got it, right? You're natural. Certainly, I had natural gifts that, you know, kind of said, I'm sorry, buddy, but you know, the spotlight is a place where you better learn to get comfortable. And so that's the whole thing of masks. Now, John Updike, there was a quote that, you know, celebrity is the mask that eats into your face, you know, and that's the truth of it, that, you know, you put that mask on in order to hide this shy introspective, perhaps a little too verbose and articulate kind of a person that you are, you know, I'm very comfortable sitting all alone with my guitar and a notebook and a pencil and just creating and writing, reading a book, I'm happy. You know, I don't need much else to be happy. But, you know, my talents and abilities kind of led me into a life of, well, you're going to be a showbiz guy. And then of course, the ironic thing is that that mask starts to turn into, you know, in my book, you know, I show pictures of, you know, glam bands and I'm wearing makeup. And now I'm in triumph and here's this larger-than-life thing which is all about lasers and flamethrowers and, you know, and unashamedly, you know, unabashedly kind of, man, we're going to stick it right in your face and we're going to blow it up, you know, which, you know, that was Gil's idea of what a rock band should be. And, you know, here's Rick going, well, how about the Blinding Light Show? How about we make it be so that the lyrics are ironic and there's a classical guitar solo in the middle. And the other guys go, oh, Rick, you're so weird. Okay, yes. We'll let you have one song. Yeah. And so, you know, you talked about Take My Heart on Progressions of Power. That was kind of one of my one songs because I had suitcase blues on Just a Game. And so Take My Heart was the one that was on Progressions of Power. But, man, there would be reviews in the daily papers when that album came out. It would be like, what the fuck is this song doing on this album? Like, this song doesn't, I could hear this on a Burton Cummings record, maybe. But in a rock band, there shouldn't be a song like this. So there was always that thing of defying conventions, which became a thing, a part of my mask. Later on, it was like, well, you know, I'm going to make left turns. I don't care what you people think. You know, I'm going to do it. And then that was a little easier for me to be comfortable about that I was this eclectic kind of guy that was going to play lots of different styles of music and wasn't going to necessarily fit. And if that meant that the music business didn't like me, I went, don't care. You know, like, if the guys from Metal Voice didn't like me, I'd go, well, you know, I can live with that. I can live with that. I'll just find some way down. So just a follow up question is that, so has the mask been retired? Is what you're saying? I don't think anybody ever retires their masks. I mean, come on, seriously, do you act the same way with your wife at the dinner table that you act when you're hanging out with the guys having a beer? No, you know, like, no, everybody has masks. It's just, you know, Rick, of course I do. Of course I do. Okay. Okay. All right, Jimmy, what did you want to have? Southpaw. Let's talk about this. This that's how it starts the book, right? It starts about how you're left-handed. Wait a second. Is it your left-handed, but you can play right-handed and you're forced yourself to play right-handed, which strengthened your fret-hand. That's right. Yeah, well, no, my fret-hand is already, my left hand is my, it's gross motor control. So Jimmy, if I was going to punch you, this is the one I would throw, like a hammering a nail or throwing a baseball. Your left hand, your left hand. Yeah. But when I pick up a pen to right, I do it with my right hand. When I picked up a fork to eat, I used my right hand. So fine motor control was my right hand. So naturally, and this is called being dextrose sinister. You could be sinister or dextral, which is the right hand does the gross motor, and the left does the fine, very rare. And it's like 10 people in 100 are left-handed. One person in 100 has this. It's not ambidextrous. Ambidextrous, I could take a couple of pieces of chalk and I could write on a board. You have fine motor control with both hands or gross motor control with both hands, which I suspect a guy like Eddie Van Halen probably had a little bit of that. But there's a lot of guitar players. It's not as uncommon that in the course of life, guys that are dextrose sinister like me, and they find their way to a guitar, then the guitar really becomes this magnetic thing because you're good at it in a hurry. Your left hand can. Now, I wanted to play like McCartney when I first picked it up, but I had a teacher that said, no, no, no, no. I was in the Mel Bay book, number one, with a guy named Jack Arseno, and he was a left-handed guy who played in the right-handed way. And he said, you should learn like this. Trust me. Give me a month. You're going to get better than all of your other pals that you play in the basement with. And it was true. Because I had this hand to be doing bar chords, and I had much more strength to be able to do endurance things, legato technique where you're doing pull-offs and stuff, a lot easier for a left-handed guy. And I think Richie Blackmore was probably a little bit left-handed or dextrose sinister, waddy-walk-tell. I mean, the list goes on and on. There's all kinds of these guys. I was watching a thing. The Everly Brothers, one of them was a left-handed guy that played right-handed. And when I was watching the old clips of these guys, one of them, he's an exceptionally good guitar player. He sounds fantastic. I'm going, I'll bet you that's the leftie that's playing right hand. And I can't remember which one. Phil or Don, one of them. But anyway, that's cool. I got just another point that you bring up about the disillusionment. In the 60s, you had the, let's get back to nature, the Woodstock movement. In the 70s, you had the Coke-Cola generation. 80s denim and leather. Is there a role for a musician to play in today's, like you said, digital world? Yeah. But I think the digital universe, never mind world, is one where it really does aid and abet that sort of chameleon shape-shifting mutant kind of thing. Here we are sitting and having a conversation and using our iPhones that are ubiquitous now. They're constantly in our lives. And this digital thing has now entered into every aspect of music, the writing of it, the recording of it, the way we disseminate it, the way it gets distributed. So there's a part of me, as I get older, where I kind of go, I would like to reject that. What was the Woodstock thing? Get back to the, whatever, get back to our roots. But I don't think it's possible anymore. I think change occurs, and then there's just no way, especially technological change. When it happens, you can't go back. You've literally cracked. The Pandora's box is open and the universe has changed. And in truth, even in my own writing and creativity, I mean, I'm constantly using digital tools in order to create and generate what I want to do, because it's so much easier. There's just no other way to describe it. That's not to say that I don't pick up a pen and write on spiral notebooks or in three-ring binders. That's the way I work. It will always be the way that I originate stuff. But when it comes to actually capturing it, it's like I just spent money to redo the hard drive in my computer here in the studio, because I'm going to start recording some new finger-styled guitar jazz things, and this is the easy way to do it. So that's the world we've got. So just a follow-up question. I mean, a lot of the books talking about you teaching as well. So what is the role of a professor in today's educational system as far as you're concerned? I don't know because I quit. I'm getting too deep into it, but was there a reason for that? Yeah. I honestly felt like I was burning out on it. And that thing that I joked about earlier about humanity disappointing me, like the cohorts that would arrive in my classrooms, they had a kind of an air of expectancy, an air of that they were entitled to something that I was not necessarily willing to meet them on the level that they were saying, like, hey, this is what we expect from you. We are the customer and the customer is always right. And I would say, I'm sorry, I teach music business, and I'm going to tell you, the customer is not always right. Sometimes the customer is shoplifting. So I'm sorry. I can't buy into the way that you guys think. Now, is that generational divide? I think, yes. I think I was maybe getting a little too old for it. And I was thinking, somebody younger should be teaching this. And that's the other part of it is the music business that I knew didn't really exist anymore. It had gone. And so I felt like I'm wasting everybody's time here now. I'm wasting my own. I'm wasting these folks. Yes, I can keep trading on the fact that I was a rock star back in the day. But that's a kind of an empty thing now in this marketplace. And it's not doing these students any favor. I mean, having said all that, I loved the challenge of it. And I love teaching it. And I was perfectly willing to accept that 70 to 80% of a classroom was going to disappoint me. But I was going to get plenty back from that 10 or 20% that were just, they were living and breathing it and they really wanted it. And I went, okay, you folks, you're meeting me on my level. This is what I, you know, this is what I did. And I could have kept going. But, you know, my health was starting to fail in certain ways. And I don't know, like just the whole idea of, I mean, as you guys sit there in your own houses and get to be able to do this, you know, like this is a lot easier to do than getting in the car and driving to the college and, you know, and hanging out in the staff room and going to the office and then being in the classroom. And I went, oh, you know, I don't think I want to grind that anymore, you know, like, you need a younger man for that. I feel the same way. Rick, so the big cliffhanger from the last time we interviewed you was the documentary did not present who you are as you'd liked it to present. Not to say that it didn't have a lot of great stuff. And it's an amazing documentary. I loved it. I loved the whole thing. But your here side kind of was a little bit more ignored. You felt correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, well, what, what, here it is. Here's a question. Now, what does the book, where does the book fill in that gap? Yeah, what was missing? How's that? Okay. Yeah, it's a good question. It's a fair one. I would not choose the word ignored. I would say just, you know, it was impossible for banger to try to tell each guy's story in full and even tell the whole story in full, because how are you going to fit that into a 90 minute window? And I think they might have pushed it beyond 90 minutes. It might have been almost, you know, an hour 45 or something. Like it was going beyond the broadcast window, as it were. And I, right from the get go, I'd said to them, this isn't your, the band, you know, we broke up for 20 years. We didn't talk to each other. You know, what are you going to do about, you know, crossing that great divide, that great space, and then, oh, the resurrection and the, you know, like it was a challenge for them to do that. And I wasn't sure that I was, I wanted to even write a memoir. So let's start there. I just, Mick Jagger was just talking about, you know, the Stones have got a new thing out and he's out doing the rounds and they go, and he goes, memoir, I'm never going to write a memoir. I am not a memoir writing kind of guy. You know, I'm not going there. Like I'm interested in the business I can do today and tomorrow. And I totally get that, you know, but I think part of the thing of trying to sort of close chapters and move on in my life was, it made me feel like, no, I really do want to write a memoir. The other thing was I started writing poetry, right? And when I was then shopping the poetry book, not to make this sound too, you know, premeditated, but I kind of knew if I went to a publisher and I said, hey, I'll throw in a memoir here because it wasn't like I was, that's it, because no one's going to sell a lot of poetry books, right? But a publisher would be, they would put out a poetry book if they thought a memoir was the next book on the contract that was coming along. So you know, I went, okay, you know, I will commit to it. And then I felt like, because of the banger thing, I think I can do a memoir that's maybe different than a lot of other rock star memoirs. I think I can do something where I can sink my teeth into it and chew it pretty good, you know, get a lot of the juice out of this. So that was really the thing. And here's what I think the book does. I think it lets people see the guy behind the guy. They get to see the Rick Emmett that was not about the spotlight and was not about fancy licks and was not about, you know, tossing his hair around, you know, dancing between the laser beams, like, which I think that's like, you know, the most of the folks that might be interested in the book, that's why they're going to pick it up. That's why there's a picture of me, you know, on the cover with the guitar and in the spotlight. And that's what brings people to it. But I felt like that that's not, if they read the book, that's not what they're going to walk away with, you know, and that's worthwhile. Whether I make any money off fronties or not, I don't really care. You know, if the people that read it walk away going, had no idea that the, you know, and here's talking legacy here, of course, you know, I've got four grandkids and another one on the way. So, but when I look at that book, I think, what are my great grandkids, the kids of my grandkids, they might have, you know, enough curiosity that they might pick up the book and then they might go, son of a bitch, what a weirdo, great grandpa. Crazy bastard. Exactly. Rick, you know, first of all, this is a must read for anyone that's thinking of becoming a working musician, but I also see a lot of, you know, you speak about leadership. There's a lot of things you can apply to sales or other occupations. That's a good point. You know, and we're talking about songwriting, the last section of the book's mostly about songwriting. Is there a song that you find most out of biographical? That one you've written? You know, let me tell you this. That's a fairly standard question, which I get asked a lot, and my fairly standard answer to it is the most important song to me is always the next one. You know, that's my standard answer because to me, I think that's the spirit of an artist and it should be, you know, that I'm always like Jagger. You want to be sort of moving and you want to be moving forward, you know, like a shark that needs to get the oxygen or the water through your gills. Like, I really do think you have to be looking at the horizon and going, what's beyond that? You know, but, you know, the question is a fair one. Let me just put it in this context. I have a new album I'm working on, 10 guitar pieces, and I'm calling it, the working title is 10 Telecaster Tales because I'm playing it all on a Telecaster. I want this guitar actually ready. This is the one I'm using, which was custom made for me, and this is, you know, an amazing instrument. And I have a lot of other tellies here beside me, but because I've been on a real Telekick lately. But every one of these pieces is a story. And I decided, you know what, I think there should be an accompanying book, like either 10 short stories or 10, like maybe longer stories with some poetry in them. Because I'm a writer, I should do two things at once here, the guitar pieces, but then the story of these guitar pieces and the story behind these guitar pieces. All right, so I'm writing that stuff and I'm thinking, every single piece that every writer writes is autobiographical in some way. They're revealing themselves in some fashion. And, you know, something is happening there where they're getting their, they're taking off all of their clothes and they're climbing up on the high wire and they're walking out under the spotlight and they're going, hey, get a good look at me here. You know, this is me and I'm putting it on display. That's kind of what art does. You know, whether you're painting a painting or writing a poem or playing a guitar piece, that's what you do. You reveal yourself in some ways. So, you know, obviously, you know, and you mentioned this earlier, the idea of, you know, take my heart and the mask and suitcase blues and, you know, the musician on the road. I mean, how autobiographical was that? Here's Rick Emmett in a rock band coming up with a song based on a Joe Paz guitar study out of a Joe Paz book. And it's about being a musician on the road. Like, it's autobiographical in a way that almost nothing else in the triumph catalog was like that, you know. But, you know, you could easily look at, I had a fan that wrote a thing on my forum and said, Rick, remember the song In the Night from Progression to Power? What an incredible vocal that is. Like, what an unbelievable guitar solo too. Like, man, you know, where did you, how did I, and I, I had listened to it, I don't know, 35 years, you know, I go back and I listen to it and I went, holy shit, I can't believe I would have, you know, pushed myself to do something like that. I can't even imagine doing it now. So, there was an autobiographical thing to that song that was tied to that moment in time, that project, those guys that I was in the studio with, you know, whatever was going on there, that was a picture of me from, you know, 1980, you know. Yeah. So, you know, but, and that's the weird thing about memoirs, right? Like, trying to choose the pictures and decide which ones, you know, because there's hundreds that you could choose from. And you go, yeah, well, this one's got a good story behind it and it tells the story, you know. So, and, you know, sometimes the picture's not me, you know, that picture of my wife is the story that needs to be there, you know. So, sometimes autobiography is not necessarily the best thing, it's not the most revealing thing in a song. Sometimes the most revealing thing in a song is for me to say, I was looking at the world today and this is what popped into my head or this is what this is what I arrived at, you know. Any of you folks out there feel the same way? You know, does this hit you that way? And that becomes the strength of the tune, you know, that becomes the strength of the song. So, you know, go ahead and ask my fans what they think is the most autobiographical one. You're never going to get the same answer. Well, yeah, that's the beauty of music, right? It's subjective and everybody sees a little piece of whatever they are thinking of in that song. Exactly, yes. When Phil X comes into play, like, okay, you quit the band, Phil X comes in, did you, how did you feel at that moment? This is not triumph or, you know what, this is pretty cool. You know, this is, I'm happy they're carrying on or was there, or you just didn't pay attention whatsoever? A little bit of all of that, you know. I mean, there was a part of me where I'm going, well, you know, I left. What do I care? You know. And, you know, another part of me was, I mean, I admired Phil X as a guitar player. I think the first I'd heard of him was he played some guitar on a Frozen Ghost album, which was a Canadian band that had Arnold Laney behind him or somebody like that. And I thought, man, this guy's a wicked guitar player. So I was, I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again. Jim Norris of Canadian Musician Magazine had put together a guitar seminar in the winter of, you know, 1989, I guess, you know, so maybe February, March, something like that. I remember because it was a bad snowstorm the day we went downtown to do it at the Phoenix in Toronto. And Phil was on that same, he was going to be doing it. And Jim said, are you comfortable with this? Are you okay? I said, it's fine. I got no problem, you know, being on the same, you know, event with him. And when I saw him there, I walked right up to him and I shook his hand. I said, Phil. And as I was holding his hand and shaking it and smiling at him, I said, there's only two people on the planet Earth right now that understand and know what it's like to be working with those other guys. I said, so you have my complete support, you have my complete sympathy. You know, I mean, I know how hard it's going to be for you. And also you're stepping into my shoes. And I, you know, I don't want to sound self-aggrandizing here, but I knew that, you know, a big part of the triumph legacy has to do with the songs that I wrote and the songs that I sang. And I'm thinking, how are they going to do that? Like when they do lay it on the line now, you know, when they do fight the good fight now, how are they going to make those things happen? Phil's not a singer like me. So that's going to be a hard thing for them to do. And so I had a lot of sympathy for Phil just because I thought, man, it's going to be tough. They remind the fact that, you know, fans, they've got their preconceived notions, you know, their expectations that they bring to gigs. And I thought, you know, how is he going to carry the house? You know, like when those folks are out there in the seats, like that becomes a really, really tough thing. And, you know, I mean, if you're, say, you know, Paul Rogers and you're replacing Freddie Mercury in Queen, you've got a certain amount of weight you can toss around because you're Paul Rogers, you know, even if you're Adam Lambert, you know, you're bringing something to it that it's a card you can play. And Phil had a little of that. He didn't have a lot of it. He's got a lot more now that he's been a Bon Jovi guy, too, you know. But at that point in time, I don't think he necessarily had the weight to throw around. So it's a tough thing. You know, I wouldn't know. I mean, I got asked to be in Asia, Dan Yankees, Boston. I turned them all down. I didn't want to have to become a guy in their band, you know. I got a repairman at the door of this stuff. Yeah. Well, Rick, it's okay. We could continue as Alan takes care of his repairman. But so you're Boston. I mean, I know that Michael Sweet from Striper joined Boston. I mean, is that the same period? Is that they asked you and like, oh, how did that go down? Yeah, I can't remember the exact time period. I think there's a guy that I've worked with Mike Shotten. And I think he's saying on some stuff that was on that studio album that came out. And I'm thinking it might have been around, like my absolutely album had already come out, because Tom said, hey, you know, I'll go to the gym and I'm doing workouts. And I listened to some of your tunes on my headphones when I'm working out ago. Great. I think it must have been, you know, 91-92 sometime around there. And it was kind of weird. I'd got a call from, it was like a lawyer kind of manager guy who said, hey, Tom was interested in having you come down. He's thinking he might want to work with you. And I thought, oh, he's looking for a co-writer. He's looking for a guy to sort of join the band. And wow, I'm starting to think, hey, you know, like the co-publishing mechanical royalties like, hey, this might be a good thing. And so I went down there and I was laboring under a false, you know, he was really only looking to audition guys to become singer guitar players in the touring band that was going to go out in the summer. And then I went, then when the lawyer called me back a couple of days later and said, hey, congratulations, you know, Tom was... You got the gig. You got the gig. And I went, I don't want the gig if I had only known. Thank you, no. Yeah. What about Asia? Did you replace Steve Howe that they want you to replace? Is that when Steve Howe? No, I think the way that one played out was that my album had been shopped by my manager to John Coladner at Geffen who had passed on it. And I think Coladner kind of knew, hey, charisma records went bankrupt. This guy's floating around now again. And then Asia was going to put out a greatest hits, you know, you had a couple of tracks. And then they were going to go and do, in particular, they had a couple of big outdoor things that they were going to do in Europe. Like there was one in Berlin or something. And so they needed a guitar player because I think the guy that they used, Pat Thorol, was maybe a guy that they'd used on some things in the past. Maybe it wasn't available. It wasn't available. And so they were looking for a guitar player to plug the gap. And I kind of went, you know, and the thing that was weird was I got the call and I think it was a manager first. Then I got a call from Carl Palmer. And then I got a call from John Wetton. And you know, John Wetton has now passed away. But I don't know if you guys have ever interviewed him or talked to him. But he had sort of one of these incredibly, you know, sophisticated British accents. He sounded like he was, you know, from the royalty, as he was speaking. That's the Queen's English. That's the Queen's English. Yeah. Round, plummy toes. He was kind of Shakespearean, you know, and I'm Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going, Oh, this is impressive. Like, this is he, this guy really sounds like a rock star, you know. But I said, I'm sorry, John. I don't want to try to want to be in your band, you know. So that must have been like about, I would guess, 92-ish as well. I think so. Yeah. It was all in a very short time period. And the Dan Yankees thing, I don't think they'd even picked the name yet, you know, but I knew that Ted Nugent and Tommy Shaw were in the band with Jack. And so when I got that call, I would guys, you got enough guitar. The Dan Yankees, how would that work with a Canadian? It would be like exactly. Those Dan. Dan Yankees and the Canuck. Yeah, it would have been Dan Yankees and then in Brackett. And Loyalist. Crazy Canuck. That would have been cool. Did you get any, so that was just like in and out, right? That was no thank you. Yeah. I got a couple of phone calls. I think Bud Prager was the manager of Ted and he called me. And then I got a call from Jack. Jack and I know each other. Like Night Ranger and Triumph had done some outdoor shows where we were on the same bill. And I got to meet those guys and know those guys. And then in later years, I got to know Jack and Kelly Keegee very well from doing shows with them with Jim Peterich from Survivor and Eye of the Tiger guy. He would put these world stage shows together and hire singers from other rock bands to come in. And, you know, these would be like variety shows almost with all of these rock stars. And they were so much fun. Like the singer from Toto, Bobby Kimball, he was that guy was nuts. He was crazy. And Mike Reno from Loverboy. And he was like, he could still really bring it, man. He would get up on stage and he would just wail. And I would go, man, you know, meanwhile, I'm talking to the band, I'm going, hey, can we tune the guitars down to half step? Hey, can we trans, can we, you know, transcribe the key to, but yeah, they were a lot of fun. And Kelly and Jack, when we did that, trying to do that Rock La Homa thing, those guys were on the bill that day too. So, and they played in the, in the blistering heat of the afternoon. And I thought, Oh, God, you know, how could you even survive this? But they had Joel Huckstarr playing guitar in the band. Joel is a Palomine and a tremendous guitar player. And yeah, so I had a connection there, but I just never wanted to be, you know, in another guy's band, you know, if it was going to be a short-term project, I might have considered it, but it was like, well, come on, you got to join. You know, here's the contracts, here's the partnership agreements. Stranges, it sounds. You're saying all this, it seems like Triumph was your home at the end of the day. I mean, it's full circle. It's like, you didn't want this, you didn't want that, but you know what, at the end of the day, it was kind of like your home. Well, certainly it was, it was the thing that had been the biggest chunk of my professional career. That's for sure. But, you know, I hasten to add here, Jimmy, I, when I went back in for reunions and, and filming documentaries and stuff, I was not re-entering the partnership. I was not getting a piece of Triumph back. The other guys own it. I was just coming in as if I was like a sideman, a friend participating in purely out of friendship and stuff. There were no deals being cut that I cared about. You know, they were saying, oh, if there's any merch, we'll give you, I go, yeah, whatever. I don't, I don't care. Let's just do this. I'll do this for friendship and I'll do this more for the sake of the legacy of the name of the brand, which I don't even own anymore. It's, I don't have a piece of that, but I don't care. You know, it was like, I think everything that I do in a good spirit towards the whole Triumph thing, it only benefits me in the life that I have, you know, the books that I write. I mean, you know, come on, Triumph is, the word is on the front cover of my book because, you know, it helps me in the marketing of my own stuff. You know, there's no way around that. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing will you help build that legacy? There's nothing wrong with that. Not many people would eschew the rock and roll machine at harder and successfully. You did, you basically start your own career. So looking backwards, there'd be anything that could have been different to save you in Triumph or the need to be your own artist with your own music as you've alluded to throughout the interview. Was that too strong to ignore? Well, you know, I'm not necessarily the kind of guy that likes to play what if, you know, games about the past, because, you know, this is conjecture that, you know, you can waste a lot of productive time, you know, nevertheless, you know, this is media. I will play the media game. And it's just between us. And everybody that's going to read this and then start gossiping about it later, and then the edits that you guys are going to do and put up a clip that says, why didn't Rick leave Triumph? Oh my God, that's true. So I think the thing that could have saved me is if the band had somehow around 1984, 85 ish, maybe after the Thunder 7 album had come down the pipe with MCN, we'd started there. If we'd had a conversation about, okay, remember how KISS, each guy did their own solo album? Right. You know, if there'd have been something where it'd be like, hey, you know what, let's allow the partnership, the Triumph brand, to allow guys to step out. You're not going to be quitting, you're not going to be leaving, but you're going to be given enough rope that you can go out and hang yourself. And then you will reel you back in, you know, when it's time for us to do the next thing. But that was not the mindset at the time. And of course, the mindset was, because it was the whole three musketeers thing that it had been based on from the get go, there was always the desire, the energy to try to save that, to try and hold on to that, you know, as opposed to saying, wait, let's kind of split it open and let air in. You know, it was like, oh, no, we're not letting any air in. With the $3 million debt hanging over your head. Yeah, yes. And so, you know, this what if game there, you kind of touched on something where nobody was going to go, yeah, yeah, here's a budget, see if you can do here. No, they're going, no, no, no, no, no. Give us a hit record. We want to get our money back. Describe in the six minutes that we have left, describe that feeling of being an artist and expected to bring in, you know, songs that would generate revenue and the pressures all on you to pull that off. If not, you're kind of like you're done. I think you sort of feel that, you know, at the same time, when your career's starting, you feel that along with this burning ambition, that's like, I can do this. Like, you know, you're full of yourself. And, you know, you have this chutzpah that you go, I am the man, I can do this, you know, so they're they're kind of balancing each other out. And then you start to have some success. And then it's like, okay, so this can work. But how do I, you know, keep evolving it and making it grow? Because of course, that's what the record company wants. And that's what your partner's wanting. That's what your ego wants. You know, so everybody's sharing in the, you know, the ego rocket fuel that's going to make this, you know, supersonic roller coaster go on its ride, you know. So then I think later in your life, when you start to feel that that as you described it, I think you're now you're more mature and you're going, well, you know, I also want to try and evolve it so that I'm in there more. And it's more satisfying for me, I'm going to try to find this balance between, you know, I'm not going to sell out necessarily. I'm going to find the parts of me that I'm comfortable to sell. And then I'll merge that with the selling out thing, you know, so that you're at least trying to be a modicum of yourself is at stake in what you're doing. And then I think if you're, if you're any kind of artist, there's more and more of that starting to happen all the time. You're starting to say, look, I'm sorry, but I really don't give a shit about what the marketplace with the record company decides that they want. They don't have a good understanding of what I want to try and reach people with, you know, even this record producer that, you know, this promotion guy, this marketing guy, like there's all of this pressure that exists. And of course you're getting older, you're going, I'm not sure I agree with my partner anymore, you know, that should start. Do they pull you into a boardroom? They go, okay, Q3 was a little soft. We need a hit for Q4 because we want to end the year off with a, you know, a lot more revenue and we need trying to be that sort of money making machine. Those conversations happen for sure. But in the old paradigm of the music business, they didn't like to have those conversations with artists. They wanted artists to have managers so that there were gatekeepers and there were middlemen so that they could sit in a room and say all of the shit that an artist doesn't want to hear and they don't want to have to say to an artist like, hey, this is what we think you're weak at. This is the shit about you. We don't like, you know, this is the hard business. And, you know, as you're saying, you know, fiscal quarters and deliveries of things. And, hey, you know, we've got Springsteen album that's coming out for Christmas, so we don't need you. You guys are going to be, you know, second quarter. And you go, second quarter. No, that's the kiss of death. Don't put us out second quarter. You know, you know, oh, you're going to come out second quarter. You must, we need a summertime hit. We need a summer song. You know, like, if you think about the career of somebody like, say, Cheryl Crowe, and she had that song that was like Sorry. Okay, go ahead. What was the car in the sign or something like that? Yeah. Santa Monica Boulevard. Wasn't that all I wanted to do? No, that was the first big hit. But then there was one later in her career that was like, your life is something wrong. And it was like a long and winding road. Yeah, it was a summertime song. And, you know, and I bet you any money, you know, the record company went, well, let's wait and let's put it out in like March or April, because we can work the song. And if it catches, then in June and July, man, it's going to get it's going to be getting played everywhere. And, you know, your average person doesn't really think about that's how the business actually works. But that's how the business actually works. You know, and it doesn't matter if your killer dwarfs are Metallica or, you know, there's always that thing that's going on, you know, well, when are they going out on the road? When are they going to be able to get to Europe, you know, to tour? Oh, are we going to put the album out in Japan? You know, are they going to come to Japan when they tour there, you know? So, you know, Triumph used to do a thing where in the summer times, we'd go out and hit those big outdoor shows that they all started on the Memorial Day weekend kind of end of May. Like the Us Festival thing was it was a Memorial Day weekendish kind of thing, you know, and those shows would be happening end of May and into June and all the stadium things. And that was one of the biggest times of Triumph's touring career was that summer of 83. And a lot of times they weren't our shows. Journey was the headliner, you know, or the two in Texas, the World Music Festival. It was Sticks was the headliner on those shows, you know, and Ted and Sammy and us, we were up the bill, but we kind of stole the show because we rocked a little bit harder than Mr. Roboto, you know. We're wrapping up with Rick. Lay it on the line, his autobiography. Rick, just a last question here. Do you still feel like you're on an extended summer holiday and is there for see any reason that you would ever get back on stage? There are moments where I still do get up on stage. Like I went out to Penticton and I did a songwriting workshop thing, picked up an acoustic guitar, you know, and now there's like thousands and thousands of hits on the little moments where I was just, you know, being me with an acoustic guitar, singing some tunes. And I think I'll still do that. There's things to promote the book where people go, hey, will you come and to be interviewed and bring a guitar and maybe sing a couple of things? And I go, yeah, okay, I'll do that. You know, if the moment had arisen, I might have picked up one of these guitars and played a couple of things for you guys. So we'll save that maybe for next time. But I did a podcast thing yesterday where I picked up a guitar and did a bunch of playing. So I don't know if I would necessarily go out on a tour again, where I was playing night after night after night. Oh, two nights off in a holiday in Des Moines. You know, oh, now night after night after night. I would never do that again. All right. On that note, I was going to ask you about Steve Hackett. I just saw him, but we'll save it for next time. All right. On that note. Is your wife allowed down there? You made a note in your book that you have way too many guitars. She believes you have way too many guitars. I'm looking behind you. I'm thinking she might be barred from entering that room. No, no, no. Everyone's welcome here. And I'm gonna, I'll do this just so you guys can see. There's guitars here, but you know, when you go around here, you see that? That's my studio area. And there's a bunch of guitars up there too. And then on the wall, like over here, there's a guitar from 1860 right there. And there's one of the first Yamaha's that they ever made for me right there. Can you see that one? I love that. Yeah. And one of my favorite acoustics. Yeah. And here's a, here's a telly. I have this custom made. It's an Ed Bickert styled kind of aged telly. And that's kind of one of my favorites. So Yamaha's that they made for you? Is that the one on the back? No. Yeah. Yeah. The blonde arched top. This one here. Yeah. That's what I thought. Yeah. Yeah. And that guitar, incredibly versatile guitar. Like that was the finger style jazz stuff that was on the song out of the blue. But it was also the song that I used for the power chords, the Rolling Stone kind of power chords on the song bang on, which people go, you're kidding. But you know, do you guys remember the song Blinding Light Show from the first album? Yeah. And you remember there was a section where it had a like a heavy riff guitar that went bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. That was a Guild X 500 arched top. That was a jazz guitar. But it sounded amazing when you beat the shit out of it. Those guitars are good for, you know, did you guys know that Pete Townsend on the, who's next album, that's a Gretz 6120. Most of that guitar was like an arched top F-hole hollow guitar. And he was hammering those openings. That was great, right? Yeah. I have a picture in my phone somewhere of him. Mid, he says, you're about to take a Gretz 6120, which they'd be worth, I don't know, 20 grand now, 30 grand. And it's halfway on its way to the stage. It's about to get smashed. Randy Backman's got them all. He's got all the grashes. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I think he sold them back to Gretz, a lot of them. I think that they have a museum in Nashville now. And I think a lot of Randy's guitars went back where they came from, not without him necessarily getting a good price for them. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Bye. All right. All right. We've got to get out of here. Thanks again. Rick, we'll be right back. Thank you so much. I'd recommend it highly to anybody that wants to learn about the music business and Rick's life. All right. Thanks guys. Thank you. See you soon. Bye.