Rik Emmet recently opened up about Triumph’s split. The rocker spoke to The Metal Voice about preventing the split of the band and shared the only condition that would have prevented it.
When asked what could have been different in the 1980s to prevent him from splitting the band, Emmet revealed that a different mindset would have been a solution. He said:
“I think the thing that could have saved me is if the band had somehow, around 1984, ’85-ish, maybe after the ‘Thunder Seven’ album had come down the pipe with MCA, when we’d started there, if we’d had a conversation about, ‘Okay…’ Remember how Kiss, each guy did their own solo album? Like, if there’d had 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.'”
Well, was the mindset the guitarist offered followed by the rest of the members? He revealed:
“‘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 it will reel you back in when it’s time for us to do the next thing.’ But that was not the mindset at the time.”
He then explained what the mindset was that eventually led to the band’s split:
“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, as opposed to saying, ‘Wait, let’s kind of split it open and let air in.’ It was, like, ‘Oh, no. We’re not letting any air in.’ Nobody was gonna go, ‘Yeah, yeah, here’s a budget so you can do your [solo thing].’ They’re going, ‘No, no, no, no. Give us a hit record. We wanna get our money back.'”
Earlier, the rocker claimed his reason for splitting the band to be feeling like a backup band rather than a part of the originators of the rock music.
A rumor Bon Scott heard sparked a feud between Emmett and Bon Scott backstage. Apparently, Scott thought that Emmett made up a rumor about him backstage, and Scott confronted him later. The feud was then clarified, and the two proceeded to make up, with Emmett clarifying that he resolved the issues ‘a long time ago.’
After leaving the band in 1988, the guitarist focused on his solo career. The rocker came back with his former bandmates in 2007, Gil Moore and Mike Levine, for the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame.
Watch the interview below.
