Cover Story: Triumph • Rekindling the Magic
Triumph
Canadian rock trio Triumph has recently reunited after 30 years apart to embark on a 50th-anniversary North American tour. “The Rock & Roll Machine Reloaded 2026 Tour” will celebrate the band’s long and stellar career. Guitarist/vocalist Rik Emmett, bassist/keyboardist Mike Levine, and drummer/vocalist Gil Moore have forged a musical bond that has lasted over 50 years.
However, it hasn’t always been a smooth ride between the trio. Emmett quit the band in 1988 rather acrimoniously over musical and business differences. The guitarist/vocalist went on to pursue a solo career and was estranged from Moore and Levine for over 18 years. In fact, Emmett stated when he left that he’d never play with Triumph again, admittedly making him a hypocrite even in his own eyes.
Thankfully, the three septuagenarian friends have put all their differences behind them and recognized that the time was right to celebrate the band’s long history and its numerous accomplishments. “It was the last thing on earth that I ever imagined or contemplated,” Emmett admits during a recent Zoom interview. “But it just goes to show you how time can change things, and I’m grateful to have the friendship and the partnership of the guys again. Especially Gil, which, I’ve had the deepest falling out with him. Mike’s had his own health challenges through this last little bit, and I’m not even sure he is going to be able to make it out for too many of the actual touring dates.” One of the main reasons Triumph decided to reunite was recognizing the effect the band’s classic songs have on people to this day. “Stuff happened where (our) music got used for commercials, downloading, streaming, and all these things that we never contemplated when we were originally doing it,” Emmett explains. “The songs have come along and kind of made it so that we’re going to make this partnership and friendship work again. The songs are demanding it, which is a very strange and surreal position to be in at the age of 72. But it’s all good!”
IN THE BEGINNING
Formed in Mississauga, Ontario in 1975, Triumph—much like their fellow countrymen Rush—graduated from playing high school auditoriums and rock n’ roll bars (including the famed Gasworks on Yonge Street in Toronto) to selling out iconic arenas, including Toronto’s iconic Maple Leaf Gardens. From their 1976 self-titled debut full-length album to their second album, *Rock and Roll Machine*, the following year, Triumph began to build momentum by creating memorable rock songs.
Triumph’s next two releases—1979’s Just A Game* and 1980’s Progressions of Power—the band began to reap some rewards as the track “Hold On” from the former peaked at No. 38 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It also boasts highlights such as “Lay It on the Line,” “Movin’ On,” and “American Girls,” while the latter includes riff-burning rockers “I Live For the Weekend,” “Nature’s Child,” and “Tear the Roof Off.”
In 1981’s Allied Forces, Triumph finally broke out in the US as well as on FM radio with the massive hit track “Magic Power.” The album was a critical and commercial smash that immediately went gold and eventually platinum. The album also featured standout tracks “Fight the Good Fight,” “Fool for Your Love,” and the electrifying title track. Triumph’s following album, 1982’s Never Surrender, which reached No. 26 on the Billboard Albums chart, features the singles “All the Way,” “A World of Fantasy,” and the title track, while 1984’s **Thunder Seven* boasted mesmerizing tracks “Spellbound” and “Follow Your Heart,” which was the band’s highest charting single of the time.
Triumph’s eighth studio album, 1986’s The Sport of Kings, featured “Somebody’s Out There,” which was the band’s biggest hit, reaching No. 27 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts and hitting No. 84 in the Canadian pop charts. However, 1987’s Surveillance, the band’s ninth studio album, was Emmett’s last Triumph studio album that he played on.
TEAR THE ROOF OFF
This current reincarnation of Triumph isn’t the first time the band has reunited. In 2008, Triumph reformed for a show at the famed Sweden Rockfest, followed by the newly organized Midwest glam/hair metal festival destination, Rocklahoma, in Pryor, Oklahoma. The most recent Triumph reunion (minus Levine), was a three-song performance, consisting of the tracks “Allied Forces,” “Fight The Good Fight,” and “Lay It On The Line,” in June of 2025 at the Rogers outdoor concert before Game 2 of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final between the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers in Edmonton, Alberta. “It was surreal; those kinds of things are kind of surreal,” Emmett explains. “We go, and we’re rehearsing in some place the night before, and then the next afternoon, there you are, you’re on stage, and you’re playing these three songs, and there’s a whirlwind kind of cartoony surrealism to all of it. Because it’s just happening way too fast for a guy who’s in his seventies. You’re kind of lucky that you’re even there, and sometimes you feel like it’s moving too fast. There are too many things at play here; I can’t handle this pressure. And then you think, well, there is no pressure. It’s just a rock band playing a gig, you know how to do this.”
Prior to the Stanley Cup performance, Triumph’s last performance took place at an invite-only event in November of 2019 in front of a couple of hundred diehard fans at the band’s own creative workspace, MetalWorks Studio in Mississauga. The original trio played a three-song set consisting of “When The Lights Go Down,’ “Lay It On The Line,” and “Magic Power.” It was Triumph’s first performance in 11 years, and portions of the show were included in the band’s 2021 documentary Triumph: Rock & Roll Machine, which was produced by the well-respected Banger Films and directed by Sam Dunn and Marc Ricciardelli. Emmett admitted that in the initial stages, he wasn’t sure the documentary’s footage would be very representative of the band. “I had reservations, and I was not sure, but of course the track record (of Banger) was such that I said I’ll trust them and we’ll see how this goes. But then I sat down with a screenwriter kind of guy that was involved, and I had a couple of phone conversations with him in a meeting, and we just talked about my initial feeling, which was how are they going to possibly be able to handle this? That it was such a long story, well over 40 years—for 20 years we didn’t even talk to each other. So there’s going to be the rise and the fall, and then the rise again. How do you document all that in an hour and a half of movie time? But they’re good at it, and they know how to do it. Triumph was this thing that could just keep climbing up off the mat and finding another life. So, I think they captured that in the documentary.”
NEVER SURRENDER
The success of the documentary and the release of the dynamite tribute album, Magic Power: All-Star Tribute to Triumph (released on June 6, 2025, through Round Hill Records), sparked a ton of interest and influenced the impetus for the tour. The 15-track album features rock luminaries such as Triumph’s own Phil X, Sebastian Bach, Slash, Nancy Wilson, Lawrence Gowan, and Alex Lifeson, among many others, and was produced by Mike Clink (Guns N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe, Whitesnake), who also produced Triumph’s 1986 album The Sport of Kings.
“The Rock & Roll Machine Reloaded 2026 Tour” begins April 10 with double dates in Florida before trekking back to their homeland for an extensive Canadian expedition. The band will then head south to the US, kicking off the tour right here in Chicago on May 13 at the Allstate Arena, with special guests and fellow Canadians April Wine. The level of curiosity and excitement from fans and critics alike is through the roof. Emmett admits that he feels right at home in Chicago and sees several similarities to his hometown, Toronto. “(After Triumph) I kept playing as a musician for years, and I would come to Chicago regularly,” he admits. “In the last stage of my life, I played at the City Winery in Chicago, and I loved those gigs. Chicago’s very much like Toronto; they’re very similar because they sit right on the lake. So at a certain point, traffic can’t go in one direction because the lake is there, which means there’s traffic all the time. Toronto and Chicago are very similar in the same kinds of things. We don’t have the same blues history, but we did have a very active bar scene that allowed bands like Triumph to come into existence. So, I feel at home in Chicago.”
Joining the original trio on the tour will be three additional musicians to help flesh out some of the band’s songs and to bolster the overall production. Former Aldo Nova, Triumph guitarist, and current Bon Jovi guitarist Phil X, drummer/keyboardist Brent Fitz, and bassist Todd Kerns, both current members of Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators, are not necessarily strangers to the band.
Kerns filled in for Levine at the Stanley Cup performance, while Emmett’s replacement for 1992’s Edge of Excess album was Phil X (real name Theofilos Xenidis), who, in all fairness, filled the original guitarist’s shoes admirably and brought an edgier sound to the band, while also retaining its original spirit. “I had nothing against Phil, I liked him,” Emmett says honestly without a hint of spite. “I met him at a guitar workshop, and we shook hands, and I wished him all the best because no one on the planet Earth knew what he was stepping into more than me. So, he was going to have the added burden of the baggage of songs that I wrote, songs that I sang, and guitar solos that I played. Phil is a rock-and-roll animal, a showbiz kind of guy. All three of them are rock stars. They’re just really talented, and it’s really a pleasure to get to play the songs again and give them new life. My only concern is, is the bus going to be a party bus, or when we go on the bus, is it like a retirement home?”
ALL OVER AGAIN
At the time of this writing, Emmett still wasn’t sure how the songs would be performed live; whether there would be two drummers in unison, or both guitarists sharing harmonies, or if there would be shared vocal duties, or if all six members would be on stage at the same time. “That’s a good question because we haven’t necessarily figured it all out yet,” Emmett says with a chuckle. “Brent’s the guy that can play keyboards as well. So he’s kind of the jack of all trades guy in the band. I’ll have to figure out how things happen where, there’ll be an exchange of things, and we’re talking about doing. For example, the song “Spellbound,” Phil said that’s one of his favorite solos, and asked if we could make it twice as long. The other guys are going to make suggestions or have ideas, and we’re going to take those ideas seriously.”
All roads lead to the question of will there be a new Triumph recording and are they permanently reuniting? “I don’t know,” Emmett says without pause. “I’m going to wait and see, philosophically. I think especially at my ancient stage, Gil’s ancient stage, and Mike’s ancient stage, it becomes a question of… It’s like golf. You hit the ball, then you go, and you find wherever it is. And then you have to play it where it lies. We’ll find out when we get there, talk about it, and make a decision. So, I think that’s a pretty good analogy.”
Although the future of Triumph after this tour is still undecided, Emmett believes the band still has a future. “Once somebody pushes you off the top of the icy mountain on your toboggan, and it’s picking up speed as it’s going downhill, there’s a momentum that will be generated by all of this,” Emmett explains with another colorful analogy. “I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you, Kelley, if there wasn’t momentum that was being built up. I could see that Triumph could become something because it’s not necessarily about me and my personality. I mean… it is, and it was. But it’s more about the songs.”
Appearing 5/13 at Allstate Arena, Rosemont.
-Kelley Simms
Category: Featured
