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An Interview with TRIUMPH vocalist/drummer, Gil Moore

-By Chris Dugan

For the uninformed, Canada has another famous musical trio other than Rush. The band is Triumph, and while not as well known as Rush, I believe they were a much more appealing act, releasing ten studio albums and one live album from 1976-1992. Consisting of vocalist/guitarist Rik Emmett, bassist Mike Levine, and vocalist/drummer Gil Moore, the band had an original hard rock sound that incorporated other elements such as blues and jazz. The band found great success with albums such as Just A Game (1979), Allied Forces (1981), Never Surrender (1983) and Thunder Seven (1984), as well as finding hits with "Lay It On The Line" and "Somebody's Out There," before Rik Emmett left the group at the end of the 80s. Levine and Moore continued without Emmett, releasing the heaviest record of their career, Edge Of Excess, before calling it a day in 1992. While Emmett has continued releasing solo albums and touring in relative obscurity, Moore and Levine left the stage entirely. After a long absence, September 23rd marked the re-emergence of Moore and Levine, as they unveiled Triumph's legendary 1983 Live at the US Festival performance on DVD and CD. Having been a long time fan of the band (thanks to my good friend Greg 'Ratt' Levy), I was truly thrilled to speak to Gil Moore about this and much, much more in the following interview.

METAL DREAMS: The quality of the recently released Live at the US Festival DVD blows away the original VHS release from way back when. How did you preserve the quality of it over the years?

GIL MOORE: It really wasn't preserved. The tapes were pretty much a mess when we started. We had to put them through a thermal treatment. If Metalworks Studios wasn't my studio, I don't know if it ever would have happened because it was so much work. We have an unbelievable mixer in Richard Chycki. He's the brains behind the audio. He's done a lot of great work with Aerosmith and Mick Jagger. He's from here in Toronto and I think he's top five in the world as far as 5.1 [surround sound] is concerned. It sounds like it was recorded yesterday.

Even the picture quality is incredible.

The picture quality is really good and a lot of that is because Steve Wozniak (the person who put together the US Festival) spared no expense. It was a real expensive video crew setup that he had, a very expensive video truck. The pictures were actually in good shape. At my studio we have DVD Video capability so we were able to do a really good job of transferring all the video and encoding it into the .mpg format that they use in DVD's and get a real clean transfer. Our video technician, Cam LeBlanc, he's very good at fixing up stuff that wasn't quite right, improving the lights and color tones. You know in the menus where you see shots of the sky, a lot of that he's actually created. The sky's actually bluer than it actually was. He just dressed it up a whole lot. The guys really put their heart and soul into this thing. It was kind of like spare no expense, just get it so it is as good as it could possibly be. We didn't want to deliver a cheesy DVD to the fans because there's enough cheesy DVD's out there…where they've just taken the VHS cassette and just transferred it to DVD. If I wasn't in the studio business now, who knows if it would have happened. It would have been up to the record company. A lot of times that's why a poor job is done. They're just trying to squeeze it out for the least number of production dollars, whereas with Mike and I, we went "Let's see how great we can make this." That was our objective. We weren't really concerned what it was going to cost to do it. That's why it took forever to do.

I was really surprised when I heard Live at the US Festival was being released on DVD, as well as on CD, because we haven't heard much from you guys in a long time.

You're going to get sick of us real soon because we're putting out two more DVD's in the next twenty-four months, as well as CD's with the same material. We're coming out with an indoor concert that's called A Night of Triumph Live and also a brand new Greatest Hits package.

A Night of Triumph Live was originally released on VHS, right?

It was a VHS title. We did the very same thing with that as we did with the US Festival. We've restored the video, re-edited somewhat, and the audio is a complete re-do. We started right from scratch again with the audio.

You gave us a little sample of A Night of Triumph Live on the bonus DVD that comes with Live at the US Festival CD.

  Oh, yeah, I forgot that. That's our record company's promotional disc that goes with the CD. It has a cut ("Spellbound") from A Night of Triumph Live right on there to give people a taste of what's coming.

Again, I was blown away by the quality of it. It just wets your appetite because it's so good.

It's funny because sometimes we're in the control room when we're re-mixing something like "Spellbound" for example. We put up the original mix from the original album and we play it side by side and we just start laughing because the gear has improved tremendously. The gear that we're on now is the best you can get and Rich, as a mixer, I think, like I said, he's become one of the most people talented in the world. So you get him on the boards that we have and it's scary how good his mixing is.

Are you going to add some extras to A Night of Triumph Live?

There are bonus features on all three DVD's. We're trying to put as much stuff on as we can that we think is good quality. We want to give something to the fans. I feel so grateful to the fans for being so loyal to us because like you said, we haven't done anything for them for a long time. We still keep getting letters. Even on the Metalworks website, we get hits from Triumph fans all the time. We just put up a Triumph site - www.triumphmusic.com. There's not much up there other than a link to www.Amazon.com to get the US Festival but we're going to develop that site over the next year. It's going to become a good fan site. We're gonna put a lot of stuff up there because it's been amazing how loyal people have been to us and I feel like, in a way, we haven't shown the same interest in the band in return. We've been lucky that there's a lot of fans that have put up their own Triumph websites that are actually really interesting and have all kinds of great stuff.

Watching this old Triumph material, does it renew your excitement in the band?

Yeah, it has. It's been kind of like a rebirth. The [Metalworks] studio was Triumph's studio originally. It was one studio. We've now built six studios, and we're doing all these other bands, so I really got into that because it's a lot of fun. We just finished doing Rush's new DVD. We did the audio mix for that, Rush In Rio. That is incredible by the way. We did Our Lady Peace just recently, so I love doing all that. I love that side of it. But as far as Triumph, when I got in there and got my hands dirty working on these DVD and CD releases, yeah it got me back into the band. It brought back a lot of memories. When I went off the road, my main issue was wanting to raise children and look after them and not be an absentee parent. My kids are all getting into school now and they're doing well so the band is starting to loom a little larger in my thinking.

Watching and listening to Live at the US Festival, I said, "My God, there's just nothing like this anymore!"

The music has really changed. The bands have really changed. You know, a little perspective is in the eye of the beholder, really. When I think about bands, I still go, "Geez, nobody really replaced Deep Purple for me, nobody really replaced Aerosmith." There are bands that I just hang onto because I was always into them. I hear a lot of new music that's great but I don't seem to see the continuation, the song after song, album after album. I don't know whether that's a function of the video generation of "hit it while it's hot and then get rid of it." It seems like entertainment is more disposable. Our agent's always telling us, "The only thing that really sells is all the bands like you guys that have been around and have a dozen albums out and have a following." It seems to be the best concert business.

What material is going to be on the Greatest Hits DVD and CD?

The CD and DVD will be a little different because there's some songs that will be on the CD where there was no video and alternatively there will be some songs on the DVD that don't appear on the CD because there is a video. The DVD will have every promo video, every MTV type video clip that we did.

Even going back to "American Girls"?

Yup, and "Just A Game."

These are long lost clips.

Yeah, you got a good memory man.

I'm totally into Triumph. You shaped my whole college existence.

And you survived it.

I did!

Chris, I'm proud of you buddy.

I remember there was a video for "Mind Games." Will that be on the Greatest Hits DVD?

It's a candidate. I'm not sure whether we're going to include that one. We might. There's a video clip for it so I suppose there's a real good chance.

I will tell you this, if you leave "Mind Games" off the DVD, you're going to hear a lot griping. Mark my words, you'll say, "That guy Chris told me!" Just remember that.

(laughing) Okay.

What do you think all this focus on Triumph will do for Rik Emmett?. Obviously, there was a falling out with him. Would this open the door for him to come back to Triumph?

I don't know. Rik's a funny guy. He's the guy that left the band in the first place. He's the guy that provoked the litigation with us. I think he's been very, very angry for a long time. I don't have any anger, myself. I'm over it. Stuff happens. Get on with your life. Have some fun. Who knows if he'll change his view of things, and if he does I don't know where Mike and I are at really. We don't really talk about it. We don't sit around and think, "Geez, wouldn't it be great to go and play." Live at the US Festival came out on September 23rd, so since September 23rd we've had a lot of fun talking to a lot of people about Triumph, and for the year and a half before that, watching all these tapes and listening to everything was a whole lot of fun. So, I don't know, if we ever patch it up with Rik that would be great. And if we don't, I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it.

Is Rik's anger more monetary related or personal?

It's like any musician that leaves any band, they think, "I'm not getting as many royalties as I should be." It doesn't matter if it's Rik Emmett or David Lee Roth, whoever it is, it's always the same thing. He got what he was entitled to. He just thinks he's entitled to more than he is.

And his initial reason for exiting the band?

I can't get inside his head and I can't speak for him, but my impression of it is just that we were just getting more and more pressure from the record company to come up with hit singles, and we were never a hit singles band. So what ends up happening is that you kill the goose that lays the golden egg, that's the way I look at it. Triumph was a hard rock band. We had loyal fans. The record company is saying, "They're selling platinum, maybe we could sell double platinum if we bring in this producer or get this fancy single that doesn't even sound like Triumph." Once they start meddling with your music…. A lot of bands have gone through this same thing. If we could live our life twice, we would have done what we did along, which was every time a record company came around and tried to tell us what to do we'd tell them to get lost. Towards the end we started to listen to the record company a little bit. They were really putting a lot of pressure on us and really getting in our face, and I think that was a huge mistake. I think that's what started to spoil things for everybody, not just Rik. So, when he was thinking about leaving there was no real feeling from Mike and I to try to keep him in the band. It was kind of like, "You wanna leave, leave." There was no feeling of "Everything's great, we've got to keep things rolling." It was more like "We're exhausted." It's like playing too many football games in a row and you feel beat up. You're in the locker room and you just go "Hey, you know what? If I never play football again, I don't care." That's why I walked away from it and I was actually kind of, in a way, happy that he pulled the plug on things because I got to do what I wanted to do, which was spend time in Toronto and raise my family. I got married and had babies and thought, "This is great." The studio side of things was fantastic for me to be on the other side of the soundboard for a change. Ya know, watch all the other projects come and go. We've done everything from Anne Murray to all the vocals for the movie Chicago. I got into music because I love music and the music lifestyle was conducive to having fun. Triumph was a phase of my life that I loved every minute of, I have no grudge whatsoever against Rik. It's hard to predict the future that's all.

Well, we'd like to see Triumph again there's no doubt about that.

Yeah, well, who knows.

You did try to continue on with 1992's Edge Of Excess, which was a terrific album.

That's my favorite album actually.

Didn't the record company pull the plug on the album?

The record company pulled the plug on themselves, and then we pulled the plug on the record company. We were with a very short-lived branch of Polygram, which was called Polygram Label Group that didn't last for more than eighteen months. We came out with the record, the first record we ever released in history that all four radio tip sheets had us as #1 most added in the United States. We had about one hundred-fifty stations in the first week on that record. Three weeks into it, we go to release the first single and Polygram Label Group imploded. All the guys that were working our record got fired. They'd already put a hundred thousand records out in the stores, and they were selling. Our contract wasn't signed and we went, "Why are we gonna sign this thing? These guys (Polygram Label Group) are going out of business." We called our lawyer and said, "Don't sign it." We didn't sign the contract so what they ended up doing is they didn't send anymore records out and they basically just pulled it out of their catalog.

My Edge Of Excess cd says the label was Victory Music.

Victory Music was the actual imprint. Polygram Label Group was the distributor but they were more than the distributor, they did all the marketing, all the radio promo. Victory just basically signed the group.

Is Edge Of Excess in print, now?

That record's not available. It got tied up in legal mumbo-jumbo because of that whole shmogle with Polygram. We can't even release it. Maybe in the future we'll be able to if our lawyer could ever unravel the technicalities. That's got some phenomenal tracks on it and Phil X. is a wicked guitar player. There's a video for "Child Of The City," which is a really good video.

I was just going to ask you about that! You see, I knew that.

You know everything!

I was going to say, 'Hey Gil, is "Child Of The City" going to be on the upcoming Greatest Hits DVD?'

I'd like to put it on there if we can legally. It's a smokin' video.

Was the hard rock style of Edge Of Excess in response to what MCA had done to you on The Sport Of Kings?

Yeah, well, I would say so. It was also that Mike and I felt Rik was writing lighter and lighter songs. He was buying into that and we weren't. If there was a musical difference of opinion that you were referring to earlier, that was it. We just didn't like those kinds of songs. So when Mike and I were in charge of making the record we got a real heavy guitar player. The record's got a couple ballads on it but for the most part it's a really heavy record. The first track that came out, "Troublemaker," was in Hellraiser 3. We were headed in a heavier direction with the band. If we did a new record, that's the road I would go down again, a hard rockin' record. If we come back, it would be with an edge for sure. Mike and I have talked about [doing a new record]. I think I may be more inclined to be in favor of doing that than Mike. He says, "Ah, you can't really do a new record, now it's been too long. You and I take too long, we'll take forever to do it. It'll never come out."

I was surprised that you sang a couple of ballads on Surveillance.

That was still in the zone where we were getting songs shoved down our throats. A few of the songs on there, I look back on them, I'd just like to flush them down the toilet.

"Never Say Never" was heavy, "Long Time Gone" was relatively heavy.

Yeah, yeah they were. There were some good tracks on there. I wasn't too crazy about the ones that I was singing. Whatever. Every band has a few songs they'd just assume chuck.

I remember that there was another Triumph concert aired on MTV in the early 80s.

You're absolutely right. That's another potential DVD. The audio has not been touched for that but the video we took a look at to see if it would be suitable. It's actually really good. It was recorded in Baltimore and it was cut on 16 mm film so it has a real grainy look to it. It's really cool. We look like young yahoos in the thing. I laughed my ass off looking at myself when I saw that. We look like wild, angry, young men in that one.

Are you guys planning on a documentary DVD, where you could take us through the history of Triumph, album by album?

That's an interesting idea. I'm going to take that up with Mike and see. Maybe that's what we should do. We've got a whole video library at Metalworks, where we've got hundreds and hundreds of reels of tape. We've got tons of old interviews, backstage stuff. One thing we talked about was putting out an authorized bootleg DVD, which would be a whole collage of concerts that were shot with single cameras and side stage shots. It would all be dark and grainy but it would also be neat.

What has Mike Levine been up to since the band broke up?

Mike was doing all these Internet companies for awhile. He's become this Internet guru. Matthew, his son, is incredible with computers and the Internet. He's the guy that will make sure our website doesn't look hokey. Mike's got a house in Jamaica, so he spends a lot of time in Jamaica just chilling out.

Can you live off your royalties?

It depends on how high you want to live. We're doing all right. I'm not complaining.

How did you maintain the rights to your albums? A lot of bands have signed their records away.

We weren't as dumb as we looked, I guess. When we were with RCA, we got into a real wicked fight with them. We thought, "We gotta leave this label. There's no way we can stay here." Our lawyer said, "Well, we'll get you off the label and we'll get you to go somewhere else." That was fine and dandy until we got into court and they whipped our ass in court. Then the bad news was we were sitting in our lawyer's office and he says, "Well, the good news is you still have a record deal. The bad news is that it's with RCA and they hate your guts." MCA came along and Irving Azoff, the manager for the Eagles, was running MCA at the time. He had a huge bank account and he wrote us a monster check, which we in turn politely handed over to RCA, so we bought all our masters back off of them and got off the label. We said, "What can we do now because we're in huge debt to MCA?" Our lawyer said, "I've got a great idea. We'll just give them the records for ten years and after ten years you guys will get them back." That's why most musicians are bitching about not getting enough royalties, because usually they just gave the stuff away.

Mike had his "Triumph Loves You!" line that he'd say at each concert, and you had your drum stick crossing technique. How did that begin?

(laughing) I don't know why the heck I did it. I was an idiot, ya know.

Hey, we loved it. It was simple, but we loved it.

And then people expect it and you keep doing it. I was the world's worst stick twirler. Neil Peart and Tommy Lee can really spin sticks, but I'll tell you what, Gil Moore in baton class would have failed.

So your stick crossing technique was much safer.

That was much safer. That was as close to a stick twirl as I could do. That was not my specialty.

When was the last time you played drums?

I haven't played drums since the last time Triumph played.

Are you serious? You haven't even played around with them?

No, I won't. That was what I did, and the minute that we walked off stage for the last time that was kaboom. I play drums in my mind. I listen to drums all the time but if I do it, I have to do it for real. I can't do it to pretend or to monkey around, so if I ever do it again, it's into the woodshed and bash, bash, bash every single day, and get the chops back. That's how I would approach it.

Is it something you lose?

I don't think so. You lose the physical dexterity. The thinking part is the hard part. Guys that are learning how to play don't know what to play. They don't know how to control what they're doing to make it sound good, so a lot of times they over play and when they try to articulate certain things, they don't have the dexterity to articulate it in time and make it swing. So if you know all that stuff, then it's just a matter of getting your fingers and your arms and your feet to go back and do what they did before. I don't think it would be any problem, but I couldn't do it in one week I can tell you that. You'd be looking at five to six weeks for me.

So you're saying it's been about eleven years since you played drums.

Yeah. I sing all the time because I sing to my kids, so that part I enjoy. But yeah, it's been like eleven years or something since I played drums.

Do you torture your kids with Triumph songs?

No, they torture me because they ask me to play the stuff. My six-year old girl, she really likes the US Festival DVD. We've got a Navigator with one of those swing down DVD things in the roof, so she says, "Dad, play your song." It's hilarious. Kids are beautiful. They're your biggest fans.