Original subtitles

(gentle music)

Downloaded from YTS.BZ

Sebastian Bach: All right, here it is,

this is the song.

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.BZ

This

fuckin' rules.

This is-

(guitar strings strumming)

This is beautiful to me, man.

(soft guitar music)

("24 Hours A Day" by Triumph)

♪ I'll tell you sweetly now

♪ Why I can't come to bed

♪ I'm listening to the music

♪ That's playing in my head ♪

Okay, let's talk about Triumph.

(hand clap)

Boom.

Bubbles: Are you rolling?

Fuckin' roll 'er up!

Triumph documentary.

Take one, mark it. (hand clap)

(guitar strings strumming)

John 5: I was obsessed, you know.

I had to see this band live.

♪ I see myself up on the stage and holding ♪

Sebastian Bach: Triumph were gods in our town.

John 5: I knew every song and I bought the shirt.

Oh, that's my old shirt, man.

I think I had the coolest one, though.

Short-sleeved sweatshirts were cool.

♪ It's late at night and I can't sleep

♪ I gotta write some rock and roll ♪

John 5: I was like,

how are these guys not as big as Led Zeppelin?

(crowd cheering)

Announcer: Please welcome from Toronto, Canada,

the rock & roll machine,

Triumph!

(crowd cheering)

Gil Moore: I'd like to see some hands in the air!

I wanna see some allied forces out there

making a little bit of noise,

you know what I'm talking about?

Live rock & roll should be big and great and fantastic.

Rik Emmett: That's the element of rock & roll

that keeps adolescent youth so gonzo about it.

Do you wanna rock and roll?!

Mike Levine: That gathering of 14,000 people in a hockey rink

is the epitome of what we do.

Lawrence Gowan: They had so many lights

it looked like a used car parking lot.

Brian Posehn: A lot of Flying-Vs and feathered hair.

Bubbles: Rik Emmett wore really tight pants.

Danko Jones: And there's Levine rockin' a 'stache in a hockey jersey.

How Canadian can you get?

These guys are from Torontoch:

and they're blowing shit up!

(hard rock music) (explosions booming)

Announcer: Triumph! Triumph! Triumph!

Gil Moore: Overkill has always been one of my philosophies.

(explosions booming) (people cheering)

Fan: Triumph is number one!

Eddie Trunk: And I was just like, whoa!

This jumped out of the radio at me.

♪ Lay it on the line

Steve Wozniak: Triumph stood out a little bit special and different

and put on a great show.

John Roberts: Suddenly people realized this Canadian music is damn good

and we should be promoting it to the world.

John 5: They just kept going and going and going

and then all of a sudden, that's it.

Nancy Inch: That day changed the life of a Triumph fan forever.

Man: We never got to say goodbye to them

and they never got to say goodbye to us.

Paulette Borkowski: And wmissing something.

(loud rock music)

Gil Moore: (shouting) Triumph loves you!

(crowd cheering)

Gil Moore: Metalworks is like Triumph's home.

We came here in the early part of '78.

You know, we're now the oldest studio in the country,

believe it or not, yeah.

Hey, Marc.

But it doesn't feel like coming to work.

You know, I come here 'cause this is where I hang.

("Magic Power" by Triumph)

Gil Moore: This is really the only piece of Metalworks that's as it was.

It's like an old violin or an old guitar.

The character of this room will never change,

it'll be here until the building's torn down.

You know, obviously Triumph was the genesis of it,

but the studio itself has been

part of a lot of recording stories,

you know, over forty years.

All the artists that have come through here

and the music they've made that's on the radio

or Spotify or wherever,

it makes it part of history.

Self-admittedly,

I'm just a pack rat.

The band would be going from city to city to city

and Mike and Rik would always think,

oh, there goes Gil packing a flight case full of stuff

to take back to Toronto.

Just goes on and on and on and on.

We collected an unbelievable amount

of historical information on the band.

Cassettes, press clippings, boxes and boxes.

Not for sale Triumph album.

Master tapes.

A postcard.

Backstage passes.

Piles of fan mail.

A mobile.

So these would hang in record stores.

A Rock & Roll Machine poster.

An original Attic "Magic Power" vinyl.

A dub.

Junk. Sticker.

T-shirts.

This is amazing.

What that is,

is an original first generation Triumph shirt.

I think we sold them for,

if I'm not mistaken, it was about six bucks.

Yeah, try to buy a Beyonce shirt for six bucks.

Oh my God.

I don't think I've heard this for 25 years at least.

This was the very first one for Triumph.

This went number one in Dryden, Ontario,

isn't that an interesting fact?

Who goes to number one in Dryden?

♪ I took you in and tried to make you feel at home ♪

Gil Moore: Sounds like a really young guy.

So that's the first thing that goes through my head.

I never liked my own voice

but, you know, that guy's young,

that's for sure.

Sounds like a kid.

(chuckles)

("Hobo" by Triumph)

Gil Moore: When I was a teenager,

I was trying to get into bands

with musicians who were five, six years older than I was,

and they were far more skilled than I was,

so it took a lot of nerve just to kind of, you know,

show up and try to get in the band.

But eventually I finally passed an audition

and I joined Mondo Plus Four,

went from Mondo Plus Four to Sherman & Peabody,

and Sherman & Peabody morphed into Abernathy Shagnaster,

it was all very hard rock.

We'd come into schools,

full-on Marshall stacks on both sides,

two lead guitar players,

louder than, you know, Iron Butterfly.

(rock music)

Gil Moore: Teachers go like this and go, you know,

can't you play some Beatles covers?

Or agents said,

can't you guys get matching suits

and then we can book you in bars?

So I figured out how to become an agent

and get an agent's licence

and get aggressive about booking my own band.

That was kind of the beginning of me thinking,

when the industry tells you something

and they say go east, I go west.

And that was kind of a pivotal moment.

(explosion) (glass breaking)

Gil Moore: Back then it was experimenting with

different types of homemade pyro,

building speakers, buying amplifiers.

And I bought a truck to move the stuff around.

One thing led to another

and that's how I met Mike.

(rock music)

(explosion) (glass breaking)

Okay, let's get the timeline chart out,

the whiteboard.

Gil may have a whole different timeline than I do, so-

Man: That's okay.

I am always right, he is always wrong.

(laughter)

(groovy 60s music)

Mike Levine: I grew up playing piano, guitar and bass.

And by the early 70s,

I had been in lots of bands

which just went nowhere,

so being a professional gigging musician,

not on my dance card.

(upbeat music)

Mike Levine: So then I started working at a record label.

So I learned a lot about the record business

and I got to know people that made the music

and people that promoted the music,

that had to put the records in their trunk

and put hundred dollar bills into the sleeves

and they gave them to radio guys to get it on the air.

For young a kid to be around these professional guys

that make huge records,

taught me a lot about how the people at the top

don't start at the top, they start at the bottom,

and it's a lifetime of work

up to the point where you're successful.

(70s rock music)

Mike Levine: When I met Gil,

he booked bands and he had a band

and I had a PA business,

the equipment was in his garage

and at that point I was also quasi-co-managing

a band called Motherlode,

and I used to rent stuff off Gil.

Broken down stuff that he rented me,

it didn't work half the time

and I'd have to take it back and get new stuff off him.

But we became kind of buddies

and I realized that he was smart,

except he had lousy PA gear.

♪ Everything I did for ya always turned out wrong ♪

Gil Moore: At that point in my band,

the musicians kept changing

and I knew that Mike was a really good bass player.

So I called Mike and I go-

Can you do me a favour?

I'm in-between bass players,

my guy quit,

would you fill in?

It's not a serious band,

we don't play original music,

we just play some covers.

You know all the songs,

you can play them in your sleep.

I said no. Next call.

(phone rings)

It's only three weeks.

It's really low stress

and we make pretty good money.

I need help, I can't find anybody.

No, not interested.

So I got all this sound equipment.

Sorry, I can't help you.

We got Marshall stacks.

Blah, blah, blah.

We got lots of jobs.

Wah, wah, wah.

I've got jobs and jobs and jobs.

I can't take him calling me

and badgering me about it anymore.

Jobs and jobs and jobs and jobs.

He basically, power of persuasion,

talked me into it.

(rock guitar riff)

Mike Levine: Well, the money was okay.

We were playing cover songs in high schools,

but it was fun

and I realized how much I missed it.

That's when Gil and I started chatting about

let's do something serious.

What if we took one more shot,

like really dug in.

Mike Levine: The vision was to create a superstar,

arena-filling, three-piece hard rock band.

Gil Moore: But our part-time band that we play in,

that's not gonna be it.

Plus, Attic Records had written us a cheque,

we had a record deal.

Sam Dunn: How did you get a record deal without a band?

I have no fucking idea.

Honestly, it's like,

I'm a pretty good salesman.

(upbeat rock music)

Gil Moore: Mike and I really had the eye of the tiger

and we went searching for this, you know, god on gui.

We're picturing like a Jimmy Hendrix,

and, uh, that's not easy to find.

♪ I've been searching since you first left me

♪ Trying to find someone new ♪

(dog barks)

Marc: Hello.

How are ya, man?

No, no, no, that's Pico.

(dog barks)

Rik Emmett: All right, you're gonna go up to your cart.

(soft guitar music)

♪

Rik Emmett: In the early seventies,

I was still living at home with my parents

and my girlfriend and I wad to move out and be togethe.

By this time,

I'd been in bands that had played

straight mainstream-ish kinds of music,

so I was disenchanted.

Plus, I-I really wanted to be

in something that was playing progressive rock.

(rock guitar music)

Rik Emmett: Act III, and it was progressive,

but we were playing way over our heads.

Yes medleys,

King Crimson,

Gentle Giant.

(hard rock music)

Neill Dixon: Because we booked so many clubs

and I was out looking at bands every night,

as soon as I came across Act III,

I knew that this was going to be a happening band

and they were building a reputation

quite quickly because of Rik,

so there was some notoriety.

If you're looking for a guitar player,

there's only a handful of great guitar players

and he was one of the best.

(rock guitar riff)

Rik Emmett: Gil and Mike,

they had posters already printed

and the word was out along the grapevine

that there was this thing called Triumph

that was trying to find guitarists.

I remember playing that Hollywood Tavern

and there's two lanky, skinny guys with long hair.

Those guys look like musicians.

Why are they here?

Levine just looked like something biblical,

like really, really long hair

and then this incredibly thick beard.

And Gil was a tall, skinny guy

and he was wearing one of those hats of his.

He knew we were looking at him

and his playing was phenomenal.

Mike Levine: Visually, he was awesome;

singing, he was awesome.

Rik Emmett: During my performance I did a flying kick

and my shoe came off.

Gil Moore: And the shoe goes flying across the stage,

miraculously he doesn't miss a beat.

I look at Mike,

he looks at me and we go,

that's him.

Mike Levine: He's the guy.

He's a little short but, you know, that's okay.

♪ I'm all right

Rik Emmett: At some point I got called over to their table.

Mike Levine: We sat down with Rik and had a chat.

Rik Emmett: At a certain point,

Mike Levine slid an Attic Records cheque

for me to look at and say, we're legit,

we've got a record deal,

there's a record company cheque.

So if I join this band

the ability to make records is not that far off,

it's a strong possibility

'cause they know how to make it happen.

And Triumph said, whether we work or not,

we'll guarantee you 175 bucks a week.

And so, that, with my girlfriend's earnings,

we could rent a crappy little house.

Act III would not have made that possible,

there wasn't a consistent 175 a week.

So, meeting them, I went,

maybe there's a stronger marriage here

in terms of a common ground

that's going to be a partnership.

(rock music)

(boat horn tooting)

(acoustic guitar music)

Nancy Inch: My name is Nancy Inch

and I am a Triumph junkie.

I am probably one of their greatest fans.

And in my spare time,

I participate in Facebook groups

created for Triumph fans exclusively,

and we celebrate everything Triumph,

videos and pictures

and concert footage and stories,

and we live vicariously every day through the page.

I wrote a letter to Gil really just letting him know

that the magic power of Triumph is alive and well

and thriving

and that they are celebrated.

And we're here, we're supporting you,

we haven't gone anywhere.

("Magic Power" by Triumph)

Gil Moore: From time to time,

fans come in from out of town and visit Metalworks

and it fascinates me how strong their feelings are

after all these years, for the band.

Fan: Annapolis, Maryland.

Triumph's Metalworks Studio.

It's a rock & roll studio.

The band Triumph.

Thanks.

Gil Moore: This idea of a fan event started with Nancy Inch,

who said,

would you let a group of Triumph fans tour Metalworks?

And it was such a heart-warming kind of requ.

And we've always felt this huge debt to our fans,

um, always will,

and I went, of course we'll do it!

We're really lucky in the sense that

we have a big live event sound and lighting company

and audio visuals.

So to do the kind of event we're talking about

it's all there in our warehouses.

This is a great warehouse

because it's a double wide for starters,

so a little more elbow room

and we'll clear the whole floor area

and dream something up

that we think will be fun for the fans.

Mike and Rik and I have talked about it

and if we can play a couple songs,

absolutely we want to try to do that, you know,

to play loud and to play strong,

it's an endurance contest,

so that's the tough part.

Mike Levine: We haven't played in a long time,

me personally,

in a band.

I did practice a little bit

but, uh, we'll see.

Rik Emmett: I think it'll be nice from a,

you know, sort of closing a chapter for the band.

There's a lot more history now behind it,

but it's still kind of just a similar process

where we're going to build up

and then just play a little gig.

This is about the three of us having an integrity

for what's happening.

And, you know, that'll take

several more rehearsals to get the thing to gel.

Well, I've done the wah-wah thing, right?

(guitar jamming)

(cymbals ringing)

(vocalization)

(guitar riffing)

Gil Moore: Back in the 70s when we got Rik

we went, oh my god, we've got it,

like we've got the exact group that we dreamed of

but we know it's going to be bigger

and more exciting and more dramatic

and we're going to do things that other bands don't do.

So, yeah, Alice Cooper's cool,

KISS is cool,

and the psychedelic bands from the sixties were cool,

and we're going to take cues from every one of these eras

and do something completely different.

John Roberts: Back in those days,

I was working for CHUM Radio

and all of the kids in the neighbourhood

I was only 18 at the time,

knew that there was a rock band

that was living down the street

because we would hear music emanating from the basement

every once in a while.

And there was always trucks that were coming and going

and putting things into the garage

and taking them out of the garage.

Most bands were travelling around in minivans at the time,

well, they had a minivan for a little while

but then they bought a 10-ton truck

and they ended up with a tractor trailer

that they would roll up to these small venues

in and around the Toronto area

and they would start unloading all of this equipment.

(horn honking)

Rik Emmett: When we played high schools,

no one had ever seen an act that did what we did

on the scale that we did,

at that level.

(rock music)

Rik Emmett: It was like...

(truck honks)

Rik Emmett: They're bringing a transport trailer truck

into our school parking lot,

what the hell?!

(rock music)

Rik Emmett: We had principals that got mad

because the trucks wrecked their grass.

(loud rock music)

Yeah!

Rik Emmett: And loading this gear in

and setting up and teachers and students going like,

oh my god,

something amazing is about to happen!

♪ Don't take my life away from me ♪

Gil Moore: We had a desire to be theatrical

and be somewhat outrageous

but we had no budget, or very little,

so Mike and Rik would come out on stage

with sparklers on their guitars.

We had the mirror wheel,

which was this rotating disc of broken mirrors

that we'd shine a spotlight on.

And we had so much dry ice

that there would be this wall of fog on the stage.

Rik Emmett: And people are going, whoa,

they have dry ice in a high school, you know.

And they're in a cloud!

(loud rock music)

Gil Moore: I can't believe it.

This is the Triumph torch.

This was a beauty.

It's built to last.

This thing is like heavy duty.

One day I decided we needed a torch.

(laughter)

So I did what any torch seeker would do

and I looked in the Yellow Pages under "torch".

And I found a company called Rexo-Therm.

I drove down to Rexo-Therm,

a guy comes out of the back and he comes up,

can I help you, sir?

I said, yes, sir, I'd like to buy a torch.

What type of torch would you like?

The biggest one you have, sir.

What are you going to do with it?

I have a rock band named Triumph,

we need a torch.

He's got this thing,

he brings it over,

and he goes, stand back.

Gas comes in here through a hose.

This is a gate valve

that controls how much gas goes in.

This is the manifold.

This thing that looks like a spark plug

is the igniter switch that fires this baby.

And this is where the gas comes out and woosh!

(laughter)

He does this, then he goes over with, uh, an igniter.

(booming explosion)

This flame goes like fourteen feet.

And I went, I'll take it.

(laughter)

(loud rock music)

♪

Gowan: In the seventies,

there was a club scene in Toronto that was so vibrant

and so vital to the rock music that we know

that-that arose from that era,

and Triumph falls squarely into that period

and that's when I first saw them.

Right off the bat I noticed

they had enough gear to play Maple Leaf Gardens.

And although that sounds like,

I'm not making a joke about that,

that was really important

because they had declared themselves above the pack.

("Rocky Mountain Way" by Triumph)

Rik Emmett: Canadians loved cover bands,

they just loved them,

so you couldn't find and build an audience

unless you played the game that the audience wanted.

So we were playing led Zeppelin

and Deep Purple and Hendrix.

And in our rehearsals we had decided

that the closing number of the show would be

Rocky Mountain Way because it had that

bam bam!

(guitar riff)

Rik Emmett: Bam bam!

Gil's thing was like,

you could have flash pots on both sides

and you could either go boom, boom

or you could go a boom, boom!

♪ Rocky Mountain way

♪ Is better than the way we had ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah

♪

(soft guitar music)

Gil Moore: We started in the era where

getting in the studio

was like getting to meet the Wizard of Oz,

it was something you hoped would happen to you someday,

and the transition hits you like a ton of bricks.

So, all the chutzpah and all the energy and the stage slides

and antics that we would do live,

were meaningless in the studio.

That's when you have to learn how to be a better musician.

Rik Emmett: Gil and I had written a few songs

but we just, we didn't have enough material.

And Mike and Gil would say,

well, was there something that you played in your band

before you joined us that's an original?

I went, yeah, you know, "Blinding Light Show", maybe.

I'm telling Gil, no, no,

you're going to have to play a floor tom roll,

it's gotta sound like a tympani,

(imitates drum roll)

You know, like, and Gil's going like, what?!

These are the dreaded mallets of death.

(background laughter) And, uh, every Rik Emmett's song ever written

(background laughter) requires these mallets of death to be utilized, you know,

in a sort of a whoosh kinda thing, you know.

That's why we did well together,

I have the mallets, he writes the songs.

Man: Can we hear a sample of that?

(rolling cymbal)

Rik Emmett: And then the wind literally is me going-

(blows heavily)

And then doing another track of-

(softly blows)

And then putting the tracks together and making the wind,

'cause we didn't have anything to make wind.

("Blinding Light Show" by Triumph)

Mike Levine: "Blinding Light Show" is a very cool song.

It's heavy, it's light,

and it's got all kinds of different changes through it.

It opened the door for us as a band

to step out whenever we wanted.

We could, you know, have an acoustic guitar thing

anytime we wanted, you know.

We could have an orchestral sounding piece

whenever we wanted.

It was a little bit different.

♪ And from where I stand, I reach my hand

♪ To catch a love blow

♪ But the selfish stare through electric air

♪ Is a blinding light show ♪

Bubbles: I got into Triumph 'cause I was playing the guitar back then

and I was into Rush.

Same band.

What?

Same band.

Bubbles: Rush and Triumph, they're two different bands

with six different people.

You could easily turn these guys into Rush,

no problem, with some makeup.

So you think that's Geddy Lee?

And he's just glued on a big fuckin' moustache.

It just, it could be.

You never saw them play together.

Never saw them in the same building,

Same band.

(rock music)

♪ And while the crowd keeps Calling out "Hoorah" ♪

Danko Jones: There's elements about Triumph,

that trump elements of Rush.

But as a Triumph fan growing up,

I had to deal with like people going,

why do you like Triumph?

Because they're amazing

and they've got a guitar hero that slays,

so fuck you!

I like Triumph.

I've chosen Triumph as well as Rush.

It's not an either/or thing.

I'm not on a home team or a visiting team.

They're both from Toronto.

John Roberts: Triumph unfairly get compared to Rush

because Rush came out a little bit earlier

and Rush got success in the United States

a little bit earlier.

And then the fact that,

oh, here comes another power trio from Canada,

and in the same way that Rush broke out in Cleveland,

when they delivered a copy of "Working Man"

to a local radio station,

San Antonio was the kickoff for Triumph.

(hard rock music)

Radio DJ: In San Antonio, Texas,

this is KISS, K-I-S-S FM at 99.5.

Mike Levine: There was this radio station,

KISS FM,

and there was two hard rock freaks,

Joe Anthony and Lou Roney,

and they started playing "Blinding Light Show".

The phones lit up and kind of became a hit

and it spread from San Antonio into Austin,

into Corpus Christi and to those areas.

And then one day we get the phone call.

(phone rings)

Will you guys come down and headline a concert?

(hard rock music)

Gil Moore: Sammy Hagar's headlining with The Runaways

and Yesterday & Today on the bill,

at the Municipal Auditorium in San Antonio,

which is a 5,500 seater,

so not a small venue at all.

Sammy bails out on the show.

And so the proposition to us is,

can you take Sammy Hagar's place?

And we realized that

we don't really know what we're doing, right?

(stammers) We're capable of playing high schools

and bars at this point

and here we get a shot at the big time.

♪ We've been five years working in a rock and roll band

♪ Blasting heavy metal out across the land ♪

Mike Levine: When we came on stage

the audience went absolutely ape shit.

Gil Moore: They were just out of their chairs

and standing up the whole time.

Mike and Rik and I kind of looked at each other like,

this is really happening!

Mike Levine: So the confidence level,

the meter went, errp,

you know, just like deep in the red.

Rik Emmett: How do they know these songs?

You know, the album hasn't been out that long.

Well, they must be getting so much rotation,

so much airplay exposure,

that they know these songs.

(hard rock music)

♪ What's another day of rock and roll ♪

Gil Moore: Record Week,

which was the trade mag at the time,

they put us on the front cover the next week

with a map of Texas,

a circle around San Antonio

and Austin and Corpus Christi,

so that recognition kind of went

across the whole music industry in Canada.

It's a great moment.

Michael Cohl: The late seventies was the early renaissance,

greatest time for rock music,

whether it was within Canada or internationally.

So whenever a Canadian group started getting a buzz,

most of them you went, meh,

not very good, not very good,

oh, pretty good.

And then there was a buzz on Triumph.

Gil Moore: Michael Cohl now thinks we can play Massey Hall,

so we're going to play a real concert

in a real historic venue.

This is like a dream.

So, we put our tickets on sale,

there was a really strong response,

sold two thirds of the tickets.

Twenty-four hours later the fire marshall says,

no Triumph,

Massey Hall is a tinderbox

and those lunatics are going to burn it to the ground.

"Triumph's smoke bombs too hot for Massey Hall".

"Triumph, the local heavy rock trio,

"was forced to cancel its Massey Hall debut tonight

"when the hall's management discovered the band

"was planning to use smoke bombs as special effects."

After we found out

that they weren't going to go along with our-our pyro,

and let's face it,

pyro is mandatory,

so we went, okay, that's a deal breaker.

And I said, well, of course,

we just go to the big venue,

that's all, we're just too big for Massey Hall.

So we call CPI,

get Michael Cohl on the phone.

(phone rings)

Gil Moore: And we said we want to play Maple Leaf Gardens.

And he went, "You out of your mind?

"You haven't even played Massey Hall yet,

"you can't possibly play Maple Leaf Gardens,

"we'd lose a zillion dollars."

Most of the time you would play

two Massey Hall shows,

that'd be five and a half thousand people,

and depending on how your record did,

you could jump to the Gardens and do 10,000.

Gil Moore: This back and forth ensued.

We went trust us,

the band is going to somehow magically

bring all these fans in,

you got nothing to worry about.

Michael Cohl: And they were very pushy.

Now they were pushing at a level of they were here

but they were really only here.

I had more confidence in their business sense

and their pushiness and their aggressiveness

helping them get along,

than I was about whether I was sure about their show

or their music.

(hard rock music)

Rik Emmett: You walk out on a stage

in Maple Leaf Gardens Concert Bowl

and you look out and you're going,

man, are we going to be able to do this?

I had, and this was Gil's idea.

I had a transformer

inside my guitar so that I could run like 135 feet of cable

without losing any guitar signal.

(hard rock music) (crowd cheering)

Rik Emmett: And so from that stage,

we had a set of stairs

and I went down and out and into the crowd

and the crowd went crazy

and I had sort of a bodyguard with me, you know,

like, as I'm doing this, you know.

So when I came back to the stage after that, I went,

we got this one in the bag.

(hard rock music)

♪

(crowd cheers)

Riley O'Connor: Massey Hall and Maple Leaf Gardens

were the milestones.

If you can play Maple Leaf Gardens,

you can play anywhere,

'cause it was the centre of the universe

as far as the music industry in Canada was concerned.

(crowd cheers)

Mike Levine: Maybe six record labels came up to see us

and after the show they're all talking deal

and how much they loved the band

and wah wah wah wah wah.

Five of them get up in the morning

for the-the early flight back to New York.

The Globe and Mail,

which is out at five or six in the morning,

just slaughtered us.

It was horrible.

Okay, so here we are.

Headline: "Triumph:

"all the trimmings but...

this does not start well.

"This three man Toronto based rock combo

"has been hovering in our peripheral vision

"like a winged insect.

"Let's hope one swatting is enough".

(laughs) My god, I forgot how bad this was.

So all of these guys read the newspaper

and took a pass on the band.

And Warren Schatz from RCA Records slept in

and he's reading the Toronto Sun,

which gave us a glowing review.

So he's thinking that he better get on the phone

and make a deal.

So, he ended up making a deal.

Announcer: Triumph. Triumph. Triumph.

Experience the kind of rock energy

you've been waiting for.

Rik Emmett: We had film footage from that concert

and we went on this Canadian tour

and we cut together a TV commercial.

Announcer: Their mission is to blow up the country.

(loud rock music) (booming explosions)

Announcer: Triumph.

Rik Emmett: This was the masterstroke.

Buy time during Star Trek reruns,

after the high school-

That was my idea.

That was genius.

Announcer: Triumph, the three-man rock and roll machine is coming.

(loud rock music)

Gil Moore: We gotta be the first rock band

that's got its own TV commercial

that sells the big theatrical performance

because you could see it 'cause it was visual.

Announcer: Rock & Roll Machine,

a new perspective in power.

(explosion booms)

Announcer: Available on RCA records and tapes.

(crowd cheers)

(gentle music)

Announcer: August 26th, 1978,

the biggest outdoor rock concert ever held in Canada.

Mosport Park racetrack,

where revving engines were replaced

by the hard pounding beat of rock and roll.

This is Canada Jam!

(loud rock music)

John Roberts: Everything was coming together

at the right time for Triumph,

and this was their biggest gig to date.

(drum beats)

John Roberts: Suddenly, Canadians were saying

this is an act that you need to pay attention to.

Gil Moore: We were on a pretty good roll

but the whole goal from day one

was we're going across the border.

If you were going to make , you had to make it in Amer.

And we just saw that as the Goliath that you had to slay.

(crowd cheers)

(loud rock music)

Sebastian Bach: I saw Triumph when I was about 10 or 11,

and here's my most amazing memory of that show:

Gil Moore comes down off the kit

and grabs the mic and goes, what's up,

we're gonna rock this fuckin' place down!

I go, the drummer is the frontman!

Down in the United States,

if anybody says to me,

what do they call you up in Canada?

What name do they lay on you,

what's your ID,

what do you sign on your moniker,

I tell 'em,

(screaming) everywhere we play,

it's one name,

'cause I know that you people gave us,

the rock and roll machine!

(crowd cheers)

("Rock & Roll Machine" by Triumph)

♪ Ooh baby, you're crazy

♪ If you try to steal the show

♪ Get set, get ready

♪ Time to watch the Rocket go! ♪

Sebastian Bach: I wanted to be that.

Triumph really created a rock star.

("Rock & Roll Machine continues)

♪ A fireball steamer,

♪ heavy metal screamer

♪ Playin' licks hotter than hell ♪

(screaming)

Rik Emmett: In order to communicate

to the people at the back of the building,

you have to kind of be larger than life,

you have to become a cartoon kind of character

and there was a lot more of that going on inside the b.

Like Levine's hair was starting to get down to here

and he was moving around like the lion in the Wizard of Oz,

you know, making faces at the crowd.

Everybody was starting to understand

the energy of how this worked.

You know, we belonged to them,

they belonged to us

'cause we belonged to this song.

And if all three things are...

you've got a cyclone going on here, you know.

(rock guitar riff) (crowd cheers)

♪ Rock and Roll Machine

♪ Faster than you ever seen

♪ Rock and Roll Machine

♪ Everybody's eyes's just lookin' at you

♪ Yeah, ooh, ahh, ahh!

(drum roll)

Fuck!

("Rock & Roll Machine" continues)

Rosie Levine: Oh my Gothe spandex.

Jeannette Emmett: That was the white spandex.

Sunny Moore: Oh yeah, yeah, I like that one.

I've got a copy of that one downstairs.

That is quite a spandex.

Jeannette Emmett: Yeah. Ooh, isn't he cute?

He is, he is.

Kind of fond of this.

Sunny Moore: The world tour.

Those I found in a tin box at his mother's house.

Jeannette Emmett: Oh, that's cool, all the ticket stubs.

Rosie Levine: I think the fans are going to be really surprised.

I think for some of these fans,tt:

it's going to just blow their minds,

especially because they are going to play

a couple of songs, which nobody knows about.

So I think that will just be,

that will be really, really cool.

Sunny Moore: They rehearsed the other day.

Gil played drums for three hours straight.

Rosie Levine: Well, I saw him playing the bass,

I was like, wow, this is serious.

Oh, look, this is awesome.

Jeannette Emmett: You can see the evolution, right?

Yeah.

And you go, okay,

we're-we're starting to become this mega thing.

The hair, it's all about the hair.

Well, no-

(in unison) That's all about the hair.

(laughing)

Oh yeah, hello honey, hello.

Gil Moore: So, this is gen two

of the Triumph sign, which we lost gen one,

it ended up in a warehouse in London, England

with one of Blue Oyster Cult's Godzillas,

probably there's an Iron Maiden Eddie there as well.

Yeah, we'll haul her out, dust her off,

fire it up and enjoy.

(soft upbeat music)

Man: You ready?

Mike Primeau: When this thing turned on,

it would bake you.

You know, 81 aircraft landing lights hitting ya.

Brutal and bright.

I had forty-one here already

and it looks like we got another eight or nine.

There's the T, there's your R,

there's your M.

Hopefully it works

and we don't find any issues like this.

We've got to find out where this came from.

We'll just have to chase it down.

But we should be able to get it going,

we got a couple months, right?

(cowbell clanging)

Announcer: Now "Just a Game",

the new Triumph album.

Rik Emmett,

Mike Levine,

Gil Moore.

Triumph's "Just a Game",

on RCA records and tapes now.

(rock music)

Gil Moore: Everything was going north.

Our phone lines were burning up

with this offer and that offer,

and can you do this and go on this show

and go on that show,

and these guys want to talk to you.

So Mike and I were fending off the wolves

and the industry was kind of pounding on us

because we didn't have managers.

(loud rock music)

Rik Emmett: Gil is spending more and more time in the office

doing managerical stuff.

And Mike knew how he was going to be able to

leverage the record company to spend more money

on us than they were spending on other bands.

Mike Levine: And we had a motto,

if the door's open a little bit,

a little crack in the door, you drive a semi through it.

♪ No I'm talking about American girls

♪ They got what I need, American girls ♪

Rik Emmett: We make a record deal

and then the first thing Mike and Gil are figuring out is,

how do we get more money out of the label?

Gil Moore: We had this crazy idea that we would film videos,

you know, and this was before there was MTV.

Mike Levine: But I convinced RCA

to give us a couple of hundred thousand dollars

so we could go to a soundstage

and film the band live and make four videos.

Gil Moore: And they really kind of lit a fire

everywhere we went in America.

And I would go,

these guys are fucking geniuses.

("American Girls" by Triumph)

♪

Gil Moore: We all kind of had a role to play.

So I think Rik saw

somebody's got to really concentrate on music here,

so he shouldered that responsibility.

(soft rock music)

♪

Rik Emmett: I grew up listening to everything from Deep Purple

to Crosby, Stills and Nash,

and I'd written pop songs for Triumph

and Gil and Mike would both go no, no, too wimpy.

But when I presented "Lay It On The Line",

they both went, yeah, yeah,

no, this is, this is good.

(soft guitar music)

Mike Levine: Rik became better as a writer

and proof was in the pudding

because he wrote one of the "evergreen" Triumph songs:

"Lay it on the Line".

(soft guitar music)

Oh.

Wow, where did you dig this?

Where did I put my glasses?

(laughing)

Kids, he's got to put on his,

they're progressive lenses.

♪ It's the same old story all over again ♪

It's the same old story all over again.

You turn a lover into just another friend.

I want to love you. I want to make you mine.

Won't you lay it on the line?

♪ I want to love you.

♪ I want to make you mine ♪

Rik Emmett: I've written two drum holds.

So those are those

(imitates drum)

♪ I'm tired of playing foolish games

♪ I'm tired of all your lies makin' me insane

♪ I don't ask for much, truth will do just fine

♪ Won't you lay it on the line ♪

♪ Lay it on the line

Rik Emmett: As a songwriter,

I was starting to realize

it's not just a question of the earworm,

it's a question of where the earworm gets placed,

so I was now figuring this stuff out.

Okay, we're going to make these choruses come

and I would be saying, okay,

we're going to have a triad

and then we're going to double the triad.

And then we're going to go to another triad

and it's going to be already doubled.

So, those choruses

♪ lay it on the line

♪ don't waste my time

Like radio is going to go for that.

♪ Lay it on the line

♪ Don't waste my time

That's when album radio really embraced Triumph.

Announcer: Over a year in the making,

eight new songs,

one great group:

Triumph.

♪ Hold on

Gil Moore: "Just a Game" went gold in the US in 1979

and that was a big deal back then.

It meant bigger venues, more ticket sales,

and a lot more fans.

♪ Listen to your heart

♪ Hold on

♪ To your dreams

Matt Hoffman: All right, I'm going to take you down to the, uh,

the walls of Triumph.

A lot of rearranging, a lot of nails.

This is the only room in the whole house

where there's no children's toys.

This is my sanctuary

and this is my collection of Triumph stuff.

It spans the whole career of Triumph

and these walls here have t over 200 photos in them,

if you can believe that,

but I figured this was my little way of paying homage to them.

(loud rock music)

Matt Hoffman: Back in the eighties,

every time you turned on MTV,

it was Triumph,

and seeing those explosions, those lights,

the double-neck guitar, grabbed me

and that's how I really discovered Triumph.

Yesterday, I got onto the computer to check my emails

and I actually had an email from Triumph.

Now I'm like, but I had to double-check.

I'm like this can't be happening.

So I'm actually invited to go to Metalworks for a fanfest.

Maybe there's a chance they'll play a song or two,

I don't know, that's a fingers crossed wishful thinking

but heck, I can't wait.

This-this day can't happen soon enough.

Best email I ever got.

(birds squawk)

Paulette Borkowski: I'm just waiting for them to announce the dates

'cause I already have the hotel chosen,

close to Metalworks,

so that I can book the hotel that we need

and then book our flights, yeah.

I'm Paulette Borkowski

and my number one job is to be a super Triumph fan.

I fell in love with Triumph when I was 15 years old

and it's 35 years later

and I'm still in love with Triumph.

When I got my driver's licence on my 16th birthday

I knew that there was only one thing I'd want

on my car for my licence plate

and that was going to be "Triumph".

When I applied for the licence plate,

it was taken

and T-R-Y-U-M-P-H was not taken.

So the next opportunity to go backstage

I had all three members autograph them.

Triumph kicks ass!

There's times when I thought,

is this overboard?

You know, some people like to go out to dinner every night

or every other night,

some people like to buy a new car

every two or three years,

I drive a 12-year-old car but I have a Triumph addiction,

so it's kind of what I do, yeah.

(soft dreamy music)

Rik Emmett: 1981 is when everything was really solid

and the success of "Just a Game" taught me

time is an important thing,

you can't be worried about the clock.

Gil Moore: If we had our own place

that was beyond a rehearsal hall,

where it encompassed recording,

we could, you know,

really work harder on the songs.

Mike Levine: Sometimes Gil's the guy, you know,

you ask him what time it is,

he tells you how to build a watch.

And so Gil asked himself what time it was

and then decided to build a recording studio.

We decided to build a control room,

that was the first thing.

You know, then one thing led to another and we're like,

well now we've taken it this far,

maybe we should just build a studio

to go with the control room,

and it just gave us the ability to record,

you know, on a whim.

Mike Levine: Okay, we're ready to roll...

Rik Emmett: On "Allied Forces",

I'm feeling my oats as a writer

and I'm thinking I can write almost anything.

I want to take the "Just a Game" album

and bring it into, you know, 1981

and what radio's doing

and our post-Zep kinds of influences.

("Fight The Good Fight" by Triumph)

♪

Rik Emmett: "Fight the Good Fight" grew out of the band,

pre-production, in the studio together,

writing together,

coming up with parts together,

taking our time,

we were in our own studio.

(rhythmic rock music)

♪ Days grow shorter and the nights are getting long

♪ Feels like we're running out of time ♪

Rik Emmett: I just felt like I had found my home away from home

and I would sit there and e the hockey game on the TV

and I would just be doing overdubs all night long,

and I loved it.

♪ Don't get discouraged

♪ Don't be afraid

♪ We can make it through another day ♪

Gil Moore: I do remember Rik spending an inordinate amount of time

in the studio and-and Mike too.

I mean, Mike spent a bajillion hours in there

mixing and refining stuff and that sort of thing.

Mike Levine: We've always produced our own records

and some of my background comes out of record production,

so that becomes my responsibility within the group

when we're making a record.

We worked well creatively together

and those two guys listened to me

when they were singing and doing overdubs.

As a producer,

when I had my producer's hat on,

they-they performed very, very well for me.

Okay, are you ready, sir?

Rik Emmett: Okay!

Mike Levine: Okay, one time from the top.

Let's do this in one take, okay?

Rik Emmett: Okay. If I've got it in me, I'll get it out of me.

The band found its true heart,

as a musical entity in that studio.

("Fight the Good Fight" by Triumph)

♪ Fight the good fight every moment ♪

Eddie Trunk: I remember the impact hearing Allied Forces

on the radio.

It was a very stark contrast to what was

part of, um, a lot of rock and metal at that time.

♪ Show the way

Eddie Trunk: There was a very uplifting message,

a very unifying message, which is important to fans,

especially when you're discovering music.

Brian Posehn: This was the one that I just remember playing over

and over and over.

To me, this is the-the quintessential record.

They wrote a couple of big anthems

and those were the songs that really appealed to me,

You know, "Fight the Good Fight",

where you could, you'd be alone

but you could picture being in an arena full of people,

just, you know,

it had that sing-a-long element to it

and a positive message too.

As a teenager and as a rock fan,

you have bands that just disappoint you,

you know what I mean?

And, and Triumph never did that.

♪ I can tell you where to start

♪ Take a look inside your heart ♪

Joey Scoleri: Triumph connected with one person at a time.

Every song that they wrote felt very personal.

And when you were a Triumph fan

and you met another Triumph fan,

it created this bond

because you heard the song on the radio,

they heard the song on the radio

and you both felt the same way.

Rik Emmett: The teenage high school experience is one where

there's an awful lot of people that feel lonely

and ostracized and feel like they don't fit in.

There are an awful lot of bands that were saying

let's get hammered, let's get laid,

you know, let's die young.

And so, we were going to be a band that gives kids

a positive sense of themselves.

Mike Levine: Our lyrics were uplifting and positive

and a lot of times giving people hope

and changing people's lives,

and that's something that, you know,

I'm forever proud of.

Like we did get letters about how people were gonna

you know, this girl was going to commit suicide,

she couldn't live anymore and then she put on "Hold On"

and it changed her life.

You know, that kind of stuff,

like you can't buy that, right?

There's no price you can ever put on that

except feeling really good.

♪ You're the master of your own destiny

♪ So give and take the best that you can ♪

(loud rock music)

Nancy Inch: Triumph's music has seen me

through some of the highest points in my life

but there has been more times than not

that Triumph has brought me from a really dark place,

kept me from, I was in a dark place for a long time.

Um, yeah, and these guys, oof,

these guys, uh, gave me a reason to keep going, you know,

reminding me that it's going to be okay.

They mean the world to me.

Matt Hoffman: A couple years ago I got this tattoo

with the motto Fight the Good Fight,

which is part of the reason I'm here right now,

little reminder every single day,

people should always, uh,

when things get bad fight the good fight.

I was diagnosed in 2010 with stage 3 rectal cancer

and every single day that I went to the-

to the hospital for my chemo treatments

I would have Triumph playing.

"Fight the Good Fight" was always the first song

going into the subway,

it just really, really took on

a whole new meaning for me.

Less than a month after I got diagnosed

I sent an email to Rik Emmett.

"Hi Rik, hope all is well.

"I just wanted to take a couple minutes

"to tell you some things.

"I have recently been diagnosed with stage 3 cancer.

"I am only 42 years old and just got married.

"Your music has always been

"a very important piece of my life,

"especially now during this difficult time.

"Thanks for the inspiration.

"All the best, Matt Hoffman."

And less than 24 hours, I got a reply from Rik

and this is what he had to say.

"Hi Matt, I'm very sorry to hear of your difficulties

"and these challenges.

"My heart goes out to you and yours.

"I can only offer you the same advice I gave my own brother:

"Don't let the disease or even the fight against the disease

"become your defining characteristics.

"Stay true to the best parts of yourself.

"With love, Rik."

(Matt sobs)

You guys are making me cry.

That's cool.

This is my rock hero writing that message to me.

Doesn't get better than that.

(soft guitar music)

("Magic Power" by Triumph)

Rik Emmett: That's a pretty strong thing that happens in music,

the bonding thing that occurs between the band on stage

and the audience in the seats

and the music that's in the air.

♪ Something's in the air tonight

♪ Don't know what it is

Rik Emmett: You write a song and it becomes a hit

and then you go and you're playing it for an audience

and they start singing it back to you,

is that song the same thing that you wrote?

Not anymore, it belongs to them.

Along comes MTV and it's changing the nature

of all of these things

and we hated that a video was going to create a set of images

and people are going to see that image

and they're never going to hear that song again

without seeing that thing happen at that point in that song,

with that imagery.

But we had to do it.

We had to make videos.

Interviewer: Okay, so what we have here Gil,

this is, if you press the space bar and just...

Uh oh.

("Magic Power" plays)

This is the dreaded birthday cakes in space.

(laughing) Oh my God!

♪ Something's in the air tonight

♪ You don't know what it is ♪

John Roberts: MTV was brand new,

people weren't really sure what to do about videos.

Concert videos were great

but then they wanted to start doing these conceptual things

and in some cases

the concept went way so far off into left field,

as you would wonder how it ever got there.

♪ I'm young, I'm wild

I don't remember this video, though.

I've never seen this!

Gil Moore: Well that was complete unmitigated disaster.

(Gil laughs)

The director...

We come to the video

and there's this gigantic white guitar

that looks like a birthday cake.

So he goes, okay, that's the stage,

you guys are going to go up on there.

And we went, no, no, we don't do that,

that's stupid looking.

But now you've got this thing,

it exists.

(tape rewind effect)

♪ Something you will hold

(tape rewind effect)

It's built, so we go, reluctantly,

kind of looking at each other, like,

ah, I don't know about this.

Whoa! The drums just came out of a black hole!

(imitates otherworldly effect)

Ricky: Whoa, what the hell is going on here?

Julian: Now we're talking.

Where did she come from?

She's a space chick.

On a, what is she sleeping on?

Bubbles: Space bed?

Ricky: A space floaty bed.

(guitar riff)

♪ She's young

Now the guitar- Oh shit.

Sebastian Bach: Now the guitar's in her bedroom.

I didn't see that coming.

♪ Got the magic power of the music in me ♪

Gil Moore: That's logical, right?

If you had a spaceship, where would you take it?

("Magic Power" by Triumph)

(tape rewind effect)

Gil Moore: The minute it came out we went,

oh no, we gotta pull this,

it-it-it can't come out.

this is like too, this-

wanna talk Spinal Tap,

this was serious Spinal Tap,

that's what I'm talking about right now.

John Roberts: Concept videos really were great fodder for MTV rotat,

but they're awful in retrospect,

whereas what has longevity

and what will last

is this idea of just a good old honest concert presentation.

(hard rock music)

Announcer: Triumph. Critics call it the best rock and roll show

of the year.

Announcer 2: Come see Triumph's brilliant stage production.

The pride of Canada, Triumph.

Live in concert tonight at 8:00 PM

at the Convention Centre Arena.

Mike Levine: Hi, this is Mike Levine of Triumph

and we'll be playing centre field

at the World Series of Rock,

Milwaukee County Stadium on May the 28th.

Gil Moore: Thank you very much, Cleveland!

You're hot tonight!

(crowd cheers)

Gil Moore: Our tours back then would be, you know,

close to a hundred shows, mainly in the United States.

Mike Levine: Madison, Thursday.

Milwaukee, Friday.

Chicago, Saturday.

In the big buildings, in the big cities.

MTV VJ: A great triumvirate, Triumph,

in concert Saturday night, only here at MTV.

Announcer: Triumph on RCA records and cassette.

JD Roberts: Are you all set?

Crew: We're all set.

Okay. Anyways, you've been on the road since, uh, January.

How are things going on the tour?

We've gone from being popular and happening

to being suddenly, you know, larger than life.

And we decided that it was time

to really break the United States.

You know, we wanted to end up on the US Festival.

(80s pop music)

Steve Wozniak: For the US Festival in 1983,

I wanted all people of all music types

to find kind of their days in this event.

And I love good heavy metal music.

And I even understand

how they're somehow relating

to other human beings in playing it.

But I didn't realize

how incredible our heavy metal day was going to be.

Festival Goer: Over 300,000 people just getting along,

having a good time, no trouble.

It's California,

it's where it's at.

Mike Levine: I think the event is bigger than any one band,

you know, there's so many fans,

there's two or 300,000 people out there.

Some of them are here to see us.

Some of them are here to see Van Halen,

but more-more than that, they're here for the event.

It's a gathering of people.

John Roberts: I remember flying in over the US Festival

and it was an amazing adrenaline rush,

I can only imagine what it was like for those guys,

it was the biggest venue they've ever played.

Rik Emmett: I'm sitting in the helicopter

and we're going over these fields of all of these peo.

I was going, oh shit!

What the fuck have we got ourselves into here?

(crowd cheers)

Gil Moore: There were so many people,

the security and the throngs of press and media,

it was just a circus.

(cameras clicking) (crowd cheering)

Gil Moore: I met Steve on the afternoon of the show

and we hit it off and I said,

why don't you introduce us when we go on stage?

Have you introduced any bands?

No.

Would you introduce us?

Oh, I'd love to.

So, we literally walk on stage together.

Steve Wozniak: That was very rare but I mean I was glad to do it.

(chuckles) I'm so glad now that I did it!

Okay, there's more to come.

Here's one of the groups that really believed in this event

as we believe in them, Triumph!

(crowd cheers)

I'd like to see some hands in the air!

I want to see some Allied Forces out there

making a little bit of noise!

Rik Emmett: For the heavy metal day,

it was mostly guys and it was broiling hot,

so they'd all taken their shirts off,

so it was just pink flesh t went as far as you could s,

out and over the hills.

It was surreal to be playing that gig.

("Allied Forces" by Triumph)

♪ I've got something on my mind

♪ I want you to know

♪ Rock troops are on the move

♪ It's startin' to show

Eddie Trunk: The US Festival in '83

can be looked at as one of the defining greatest moments

in the history for hard rock and metal,

and it was an incredibly important stage

for Triumph to be on.

Their inclusion sent a big message

about how far they had come

in their career at that point.

Danko Jones: If you go down the list of the heavy metal day,

Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne,

Judas Priest, M tley Cr e,

these are bands that look dangerous

and then here are these three guys from Canada

who are on the same stage but they're all in white.

Rik Emmett sounds angelic, even Gil,

and they looked like they went to boys choir school.

So it situated Triumph as the good guys

in an era that was meant for the dirtbags.

Here's what I want to do,

I want to see everybody now

putting your hands together like this.

(loud rock music)

(crowd cheers)

Gil Moore: Louder!

(crowd cheering) (loud rock music)

Gil Moore: Louder!

Triumph was a well-oiled machine that day.

The singing, the playing, everything.

And you could tell they wanted perfection.

And that was rare.

(guitar riff)

John 5: I was definitely connected to this band because of Rik.

It was kind of like if Eddie Van Halen

was this lead singer too.

(rock guitar riff)

Rik Emmett: I remember thinking I gotta try and play this good

because there's all these cameras here.

They had them on arms, they had them on tracks,

you couldn't escape them, they were everywhere.

And sometimes I'm going to run

and I'll look like a tiny little guy

running all the way over in front of this giant PA

and it'll look a little goofy.

So I thought, wow,

there isn't a human within a hundred yards,

except the cameramen.

John 5: I remember watching this on TV

and I was like this is incredible,

and he was running around entertaining

these couple of hundred thousand people,

playing perfectly.

(rock guitar riff)

John 5: But then he sat down

and entertained a couple million people,

the people at home,

and it was genius.

(soft guitar strumming) (crowd cheers)

♪

Gil Moore: The US Festival represented a realization

that we had reached a point

where our fans were unequivocal in their support.

(crowd cheers)

Steve Wozniak: Gil Moore, Rik Emmett and Mike Levine!

Triumph!

(crowd cheers)

Gil Moore: We felt grateful and legitimized.

♪ Happy birthday to you

♪ Happy birthday dear Triumph

♪ happy birthday to you

("When the Lights Go Down" by Triumph)

♪ When the lights go down ♪

♪ When the lights go down ♪

♪ We're ready to light the fuse ♪

(rock music)

♪

♪ Oh when the lights go down ♪

One more.

♪ When the lights go down

Now.

♪ It's time to light the fuse ♪

(vocalization)

(electric guitar strums)

So, yeah, we're remembering it the same way, right, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, just don't let this one throw you off though.

(electric guitar strums)

Don't let that throw you off.

It's years of going...

(electric guitar strums)

Gil Moore: Yes.

(hard rock music)

♪

Rik Emmett: It's not supposed to have bang bang.

That was two, yeah.

Gil Moore: Does it seem to you that I'm pounding the crap

out of the drums?

Playing regular, no. That's fine.

Gil Moore: I mean it's like-

No, it's good.

It sounds good.

It all sounds, it's gonna be fine.

Reporter: Who did you come down to see in particular?

Fan: Triumph!

Fan 2: Triumph.

Great Canadian band.

We're here for Triumph, man, Triumph.

(rock music)

Gil Moore: In those years after the US Festival,

we'd reached the stage where we were part of this wave,

in the United States particularly,

but it was really kind of worldwide,

of hard rock just dominating.

(crowd cheers)

Mike Levine: We were starting to realize

that we were in that lucky 1/10th of 1% of the populan

that gets to live their dream.

(rock music)

John Roberts: Triumph, in the early 80s,

they were as big as Van Halen,

they were as big as M tley Cr e,

they were drawing equal crowds to them

and they were really kind of riding high.

And then from a business perspective,

things crashed.

Gil Moore: When we started with RCA,

they were very supportive

but we saw this shift

and they seemed like they were going

in a different direction musically.

And we really didn't think that they believed

in hard rock,

or for that matter, in Triumph.

Mike Levine: RCA fired the president

and replaced him with a guy named Jose Menendez.

And Jose broke the news that he was signing Menudo

for tens of millions of dollars,

of which a big chunk of it

would have been our marketing money.

So we got into a contractual dispute.

Rik Emmett: Mike and Gil decided we're going to figure out

how to get away from RCA.

And I was going like,

well you guys go to New York and fight that

I'll go in the studio and see if I can record some stuff.

(guitar riff)

Gil Moore: We had a very, very high profile lawyer represent us.

He represented the Rolling Stones

and Yoko Ono

and he found a deficiency in our contract

but the judge just dismissed it,

looked the other way.

Mike Levine: At the time, RCA was still a big name in America

and we're are these long-haired musicians from Canada

in front of a 75-year-old judge

who probably owned an RCA TV, an RCA telephone.

I grew up with a RCA dishwasher,

an RCA this, an RCA that.

Gil Moore: You know, Elvis is on RCA

and how dare these Canadians challenge these guys,

that's the feeling that we got in court.

We had this lawyer

that was full of courtroom theatrics.

And at one point he got so animated

that he kind of goobered

and then this spit goober went right towards the judge

and it was disastrous because all of a sudden our lawyer

is spitting on the judge.

(Gil laughs)

True.

(rock music)

Mike Levine: Now we've lost in court.

We have to buy the contract out from RCA.

How much does RCA want?

Three million.

Rik Emmett: That money was on advance,

we were going to have to sell,

you know, 5 million, 6 million records

on the next record

in order to start getting back to level again.

♪ Spellbound (spellbound) ♪

♪ Dreaming of you all of the time ♪

Mike Levine: We had already recorded "Thunder Seven",

so we figured whoever liked that album

was going to sign us,

if they came up with the dough as well.

Gil Moore: Irving Azoff had just taken over MCA,

which was not the greatest label at the time.

Irving Azoff: When I went to MCA,

it was this joke of a record company in the valley

that nobody wants to sign to.

Um, so, you know,

we had nowhere to go but up when we started.

And having been a manager,

I believed that the core to a band's longevity

was the ability to tour well and sell tickets.

Triumph was an arena sellout, headlining mega star.

They kind of checked all the boxes

for what we were looking for in those days.

Gil Moore: So we went over to meet Irving.

We sat down for lunch and Irving said, okay,

so I got the worst label,

but I'll pay the most money.

So what do you guys want for lunch?

(rock music)

Gil Moore: It seemed like the start of phase two of Triumph.

Reporter: For five months of the year,

touring is a way of life for Triumph.

This sold out concert at the Spectrum in Philadelphia

is just one of 94 stops on the '85 tour.

Altogether, a million people will pay to see

and hear the high tech extravaganza

that is a Triumph show this year.

♪ Rock and roll lives and breathes ♪

Joey Scoleri: When Triumph came out with "Thunder Seven",

they're firing on all cylinders.

And they were writing songs that got on rock radio.

Levine had the promotion down to a science

and they finally started making really good videos

that were getting a ton of play on MTV.

♪ Keep your dreams alive

♪ Follow your heart

♪ You've got to follow your heart ♪

Riley OBy that point,

Triumph was delivering big arena numbers in the United States

because they would go into as many markets as they could

possibly put their show in

and all the audiences were just lapping it up.

You were driven into the show experience

from the opening number and then it became a journey.

Let me hear you out there.

(crowd cheers)

Joey Scoleri: Triumph's "Thunder Seven"

it was the envy of the touring business.

And at that time,

Michael Jackson and his brothers

were looking to have the biggest show in pop.

I think it was Jermaine and Tito,

or maybe it was Marlon,

I can't remember which ones,

but those guys went to the Triumph show in New Mexico,

saw the show and went holy shit!

And then they hired Triumph's lighting guys.

What better way to have the biggest show in pop

then just to steal the biggest show in rock?

(rock music)

♪ Yes I know

♪ You've got to let it go ♪

(rock music) (crowd cheers)

Gil MooreThank you!

Triumph loves you!

Reporter: This year's Triumph tour is now over,

but next March after a new record's released

the band will be back on the road again.

Ninety more concerts in ninety more cities.

Rik Emmett: There was so much touring and so many gigs

but the whole landscape was changing.

AOR radio did not mean what it had meant before

and MCA said "Thunder Seven" was too album-oriented.

It's the MTV era, we-we need hits,

we gotta get outside writers.

So we gotta get a producer

that had those kind of connections

and brought those songs.

Ron Nevison: A lot of people like the engineering work I did

on Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, The Who, Quadrophenia.

And as a producer, uh,

I was on the charts,

I was, had a hot mid-80s.

Summer of '85,

my Heart single exploded, "What About Love".

Rik Emmett: Ron was the guy that got parachuted in

to save these things commercially

and now his reputation with record company presidents

was he's the man,

he's the guy that can do it.

Ron Nevison: In those days,

the albums that had rock hits that could cross over to pop,

that was the big success,

that was what we aimed for,

uh, hopefully without compromising the band.

I had read that Triumph was a faceless band,

so I pushed them a little bit to have Rik sing mostly.

It had a lot to do with MTV,

lead guitar player, singer, frontman.

I thought it would be a better look.

Ron's job was to make records,

not to supply an image for a band.

Ron has a particular way to work

and, uh, he can be a little heavy-handed,

which is good with a band,

but Triumph was used to doing records on their own,

so it was a little backwards for them.

Mike Levine: Traditionally in Triumph, you know,

Gil would sing some songs and Rik would sing some songs.

Now it became, you know, almost a war.

Ron would play Gil off against Rik

or Rik off against Gil,

and, you know, about who's going to sing what

and he'd tell them both they were going to sing this one song

and they both learned it and then,

no, Gil, you're not going to sing it,

or Rik, you're not going to sing it.

I'm thinking this is not going to end well.

Rik Emmett: We'd cut all the beds in LA

and Ron pulled me aside

and said you've got to be able to sing all these songs.

And I went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I know that it's Gil's band,

really in the end, it's Gil's band,

and Ron doesn't understand that.

On the flight back I sat with Gil

and I broached the subject.

I kind of feel like we should give this a shot.

And Gil was not happy with me,

I was a traitor.

And so it was like, oh man, you know,

I think I even had tears on that flight.

Gil Moore: It's enough of a problem for us to figure out

how we're going to write a really good song

and how we're going to perform it,

we don't need somebody else in here

mucking around with a formula that we already know works.

Mike Levine: We're flying home and nobody's happy

and we're arguing about stuff.

You know, as we called ourselves,

the Three Musketeers,

all of a sudden we weren't really

the Three Musketeers anymore.

That was the very, very first time

that I felt isolated from Mike and Rik,

I mean, just in every way,

we just felt like, you know,

all of a sudden the brotherhood just seemed to feel fractured.

♪ Hold on to love

♪ Just one night

♪ Don't try to fight about it

♪ Take me I'm yours

Gil Moore: We ended up firing Ron because it was like

if we don't get away from this guy,

we won't even get a record.

And aside from his technical skills,

Mike Clink was cheering us on saying,

you know, hey the world hasn't come to an end,

we're going to make a great record,

let's pull this together.

He was our Dr. Phil, you know,

that was pulling us back from the brink of the abyss, really.

Mike Clink: We completed 90% of the record,

yet we were still shy of that one song

and maybe possibly that one single,

so it was up to the band to write that song.

Irving Azoff: It was a difficult time for rock bands in the 80s

that weren't making three and a half minute jingles,

but I never expected pop hits from Triumph.

Now I can't tell you that our, you know,

one of our promotion heads didn't say to them,

give me something I can put on the radio.

Mike Levine: Every promo guy wants hit singles,

so we had to deliver and Ron's gone,

what are we going to do?

Rik, go home.

Go home and write.

It was 11th hour.

(clock chimes)

Rik Emmett: I gotta write about something,

somehow, some way, some buddy, somehow,

something, somebody, someway.

(crashing)

Rik Emmett: Uh oh, somebody's out there.

Somebody's out there somewhere.

Hmmm,

that's something.

("Somebody's Out There" Intro)

♪ Is it fate or random chance

♪ How can I decide

♪ Are we victims of circumstance

♪ When destinies collide

Rik Emmett: "Somebody's Out There" didn't involve outside writers

and was just Rik going you wanna pop single,

I'll give you a pop single, here you go.

Joey Scoleri: That song had all the elements

that radio loved at that time.

It had keyboards,

harmony, vocals,

a huge chorus.

♪ Somebody's out there somewhere ♪

Joey Scoleri: Every rock station played it,

it crossed over to pop radio,

and you heard it every 15 minutes on some radio stat.

The song was massive.

Rik Emmett: Triumph seemed to me to be like

this cat that had nine lives,

it just kept pulling itself up off the mat

and I would go,

I guess we're going to have another round of this.

Announcer: Five semi-trailer trucks,

over 100 stagehands,

set to bring you the biggest show in rock, Triumph.

John Roberts: Gil was always thinking

about how to make the band better,

how to make the show bigger,

and he had the drum riser t comes up out of the ground

and it looks like an alien spaceship

taking off with all of these lights.

(drum beating)

John Roberts: He really understood the power of technology

and how to apply that to Triumph's live show.

(crowd cheers)

Gil Moore: We were still completely viable,

our popularity on radio wasn't suffering,

our concert touring wasn't suffering,

but the communication broke down within the band.

Mike Levine: Everybody was somewhat burnt out

because of all the bullshit

around the "Sport of Kings" record.

The fallout from that was-was horrible

and reflected from that point onwards

in the band's career.

Rik Emmett: It was very unsettling

that record companies somehow could lose that faith

and that even your partners might lose that faith,

you know, like, why are we losing faith in ourselves?

Sometimes I ask myself, how can I maintain this?

And the answer is that I don't think that I can.

The spectre of huge tours

that last really long periods of time,

they just bite too big a chunk out of my life.

And I need time

to be able to do some of the other things that I want to do.

(upbeat guitar music)

♪

Rik Emmett: Music is an infinite challenge.

Creativity is an infinite challenge.

I want to chase that

and Triumph was feeling like a box to me.

(rock music)

♪ Keeping the faith is a constant fight

♪ We live and we breathe it

♪ And when you feel the cause is right

♪ You gotta believe it

Gil Moore: Triumph started to feel more like we were working

and we had an obligation to continue as a band

but for me personally, you know,

everything changed with my father,

so, um, I don't know that I would have survived,

uh, you know, my father's passing any better than I did.

(sombre music)

Gil Moore: He was my mentor and my best friend

and suddenly he's not there.

When Triumph started, he took such a keen interest,

documenting every single show,

handling all our financial matters

and teaching me all his business skills.

And he was really proud of the band.

He was really the fourth member of Triumph.

All I can remember was how horrible it was

to actually have to play shows

and had not made a-a recovery, uh, psychologically,

and just go through the motions like a ghost.

It adversely affected Mike and Rik

because they had to put up with the fact

that I was essentially completely silent

and we played maybe ten shows under those circumstances.

I remember once, in a conversation with Rik,

and he said that Triumph felt like an empty house.

I knew what a house full of love was like

and how it made me feel

and when he used that expression I thought,

I think he's got a point.

Rik Emmett: My own unhappiness with the circumstances of the band,

the parameters of it,

the way that it had played out over 13-odd years,

I'd had enough.

I didn't see a future for myself there anymore.

This is, "band splits after wowing 12,000 rock fans.

"Last show for Triumph guitarist".

Yeah, this was the end.

"Triumph guitarist and guiding light Rik Emmett

"played his last show with the band yesterday

"in a bittersweet homecoming.

"Shortly after a show that left 12,000 fans

"standing on their feet at the Kingswood Music Theatre,

"Emmett announced he was quitting the band

"he helped found nearly two decades ago

"in the city's west end,

"and took from beginnings in the Gasworks Tavern

"to the heights of the US Festival in California.

"Emmett's backstage announcement capped weeks of rumours

"that Triumph's end was near

"and spelled the end of one of Toronto's most successful

"and influential rock bands".

Rik Emmett: I only ever wanted to be good at music.

I only wanted to service my talent

and I only wanted to honour my talent

and Triumph had become something

where I could no longer honour

in the way that I wanted to...

that gift that I possessed.

And I don't say that.

I say it with all humility.

It's called "Say Goodbye".

(soft guitar music)

♪

Gil Moore: I wanted it to end on a positive note

but we went into a dark place for years.

Mike Levine: All those special things that we did together, uh,

it was really sad when we weren't doing them anymore

and there was acrimony and that's never any good.

♪ Say goodbye

♪ Cuz I'll be leavin' in the mornin' ♪

Gil Moore: It's a strange place to find yourself in

when you've played with the same three guys

for years and years and then the guitar player leaves.

Do you keep going? Do you replace him?

It's a tough decision.

So we decided to give it a shot

and that led us to Phil X.

♪ Child of the city

Phil X: I was a huge fan,

so it was cool to go into the studio,

be holding a guitar and looking at Gil and Mike.

So it was kind of like, is this really happening?

(rock music)

Phil X: We were all in new territory

but everybody had the same goal:

let's make a great record.

And I think it was eleven shows we played,

and obviously it's a tough gig.

People want to hear the hits

and if I was in the audience

and I didn't see Rik Emmett play with Triumph,

I'd be like, who the fuck is that?

(rock guitar riff)

Mike Levine: It was a great experience working with Phil

but it was kind of weird being on stage without Rik,

it didn't really feel like Triumph.

Gil Moore: For me it was a turning point in my life

and I wanted to spend time at Metalworks,

go behind the scenes and get off the stage.

Mike Levine: We had paid our dues,

had a lot of success,

and there's other things in life to do.

Rik Emmett: After I left Triumph,

I was really trying to figure out

what kind of an artist did I want to be

and how much did I want to evolve,

because Triumph had had enough success at a level

that it was probably going to be almost impossible

for me to overshadow it,

so I knew that there was a legacy there

that I would have to honour,

not the least of which was the songs.

♪ Hold on

♪ Hold on to your dreams

♪ Hold on

Rik Emmett: I was touring and writing and eventually making records,

so I got to scratch a lot of things off my bucket list.

If I'd stayed in Triumph,

I never would have had an opportunity to do those things.

(crowd cheers)

Rik Emmett: I was really starting to change who I was.

But the thing that changed the world for me was

my brother Russell got sick in 2006

and passed away in the fall of 2007.

And he was the one that said,

you gotta clean up this baggage.

My dying wish, you gotta fix things with Triumph.

And the olive branch was there

and I said, okay, I'll try.

(crowd cheers)

Tom Cochrane: Ladies and gentlemen,

it's a great pleasure to welcome the newest members

to the Canadian Music Hall of Fame

and my friends,

Rik Emmett, Mike Levine,

one of my best friends,

Gil 'The Impaler' Moore, of Triumph.

Yeah, lets hear it for Triumph!

(crowd cheers)

Gil Moore: Being inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame

in 2008,

turned out to be a catalyst

to get back together with Rik.

Rik Emmett: And I didn't realize it meant that much to me.

Now I know that it does and that it did.

(crowd cheers)

Gil Moore: Through that process it just seemed like

we got to get a couple of shows on the road

to show our kids what's going on

and interact with each other.

Mike Levine: The fun part of it was there,

which was always part of the Three Musketeers,

when we were on the road all the time.

Rik Emmett: You know, I'd lost my brother

but the beautiful thing about the Triumph reunion

was I got other brothers back that I'd lost for decades,

so that was kind of like a sweet miracle.

Twenty years is a long time to not talk to each other.

I-I broke their hearts, I know I did

and I felt, you know, it's a terrible thing.

Um, there was a lot guilt.

I had a lot of anger

but when you're angry, in the end,

who are you angry at in those circumstances,

you're angry at yourself

for not being able to figure it out and move past it.

And you try to be angry at other people

and blame them and you go, but it's not them,

this is all on you,

you're the one that has to figure this out.

So, it took me a long time,

but in the end I think I'm better for it.

And I think Triumph fans are better for it.

(rock music) (crowd cheers)

♪ I know that I can survive just fine

♪ I said I can survive

♪ I said I can survive on my own ♪

♪

Wow.

I'm from Honolulu, Hawaii.

I came up from Connecticut.

Dripping Springs, Texas.

San Antonio.

We are the only one from Brazil

that are enjoying this,

it is such a huge privilege.

Nancy Inch: There's photos that I've never seen.

This is like early seventies.

I've only gotten ten feet and I can't breathe.

I wasn't sure what to expect for this fan event

and I'm in it and I'm still not sure

what I'm supposed to expect because this is beyond

any of my wildest fantasies that I could have dared dr.

Matty! -What's up Nancy?

Nancy Inch: Did you see-did you see this?

No, I haven't seen that one.

Okay, take it in.

It's the handwritten lyrics to "Lay it on the Line".

Get the hell out.

Yeah.

Matt Hoffman: This is blowing me away.

Man, I'm so glad I stayed a Triumph fan

and I'm part of this experience.

This is, this is truly amazing.

Paulette Borkowski: We all have that same common thread of the commitment,

nobody would be here if they weren't committed,

but Triumph breaking up, you know,

decades and decades ago,

there's people that still wanted more.

Gil Moore: We really were connecting with each other

more than with our fans in Sweden and at Rocklahoma,

and so the fan event needed to be intimate

because really it's for the hardest of the hardcore

Triumph fans who were the most loyal,

the most dedicated

and stuck with us for years and years and years,

so it's about being able to give something back to them.

Joey Scoleri: Good afternoon, everybody.

How are we doing today?

(crowd cheers)

Joey Scoleri: Triumph super fans!

(crowd cheers)

This is awesome.

Mike Levine: Unbeknownst to the fans, they had no idea we were there.

They hadn't seen us and they're all seated

to watch a thank you video that we put together.

Direct your attention to the screen here,

I think you're going to really enjoy this video.

(crowd cheers)

Mike Levine: We're hiding behind the screen

and we can see out but nobody can see in.

What we're feeling backstage is, boy,

these are the top fans that we have.

We may never play again.

We better be really fucking good.

Gil Moore: We've always felt this huge debt to our fans.

It fascinates me how strong their feelings are

after all these years with the band,

it's hard to get over, really, you know,

I want to see them,

I want to shake their hands.

Thank them.

(crowd cheers)

(rock music)

(crowd cheers)

(rock music)

("When the Lights Go Down" by Triumph)

♪

♪ Spotlights

♪ Houselights ready to cue

♪ Backstage smoke is risin'

♪ Steaming like a witch's brew

♪ I wanna play some rock 'n' roll

♪ I wanna sing the blues

♪ But I've had enough

♪ I feel it comin'

♪ Left the party roll

♪ When the lights go down

♪ We're ready to play the blues

♪ When the lights go down

♪ It's time to light

♪ Time to light

♪ Time to light the fuse

(crowd cheers) (loud rock music)

Rik Emmett: Talk about surreal,

it was like all of those kinds of moments

of like being on stage at the US Festival,

being on stage at the Aragon in Chicago

or Maple Leaf Gardens,

they're all part and parcel of this tsunami

that's coming over you from the fans.

Mike Levine: How's everybody doing today?

(crowd cheers)

Mike Levine: Being on stage with Rik and Gil again,

I mean, that was quite an emotional experience

and I think it was a validation

as to what we actually meant to people's lives,

how we could thrill them with our music.

It was pretty incredible.

It's like really special for us.

We want to thank you guys for coming.

I think you know what to do right now.

Gil Moore: In a band there are milestones,

if you're lucky enough to be successful

the first time you get a gold record

or your sell out a concert,

and the fan event was in that realm

of life's greatest moments that you'll never forget.

♪ Come on and sing now

♪ I'm young now

♪ I'm wild now, I want to be free

♪ Got the magic power of the music in me ♪

♪ I'm young now

♪ I'm wild and I'm free

♪ Got the magic power of the music

♪ I got the music

♪ Yeah yeah

♪

(crowd cheers)

Mike Levine: Thank you everybody!

Triumph loves you!

(crowd cheers)

(crowd cheers)

(crowd cheers)

(crowd chants "Triumph")

Joey Scoleri: All right, everybody.

Let's hear it for Triumph!

How did ya like that?

(crowd cheers)

Joey Scoleri: That was pretty amazing, right?

(rock music)

I just cannot tell you how much you meant to me

as a young person starting to play music,

how much you inspired me,

how much you made me believe

that coming from Toronto, Canada things could happen.

Rik Emmett: Credit and thanks goes to my two partners,

Gil and Mike,

who invited me along on their quest for success.

Interviewer: What have you got planned?

Is it going to be more spectacular than anything ever?

Absolutely.

Mike Levine: We'd like to share this award

with those in the music industry

who helped us do the heavy lifting

at the very beginning of the band.

We know who you are and we thank you.

Crew: We take a lot of precautions.

JD Roberts: Do you ever have accidents?

No.

(explosion booms)

No, not too often.

You must think to yourself that eventually

the rock and roll machine is just gonna

sputter out and run out of gas.

(laughs)

Gil Moore: Mike and Rik,

thank you for your enduring friendship.

We're a team.

We'll be a team forever.

Thank you.

(crowd applauds)

JD Roberts: When you walked up the ramp

and you looked out into that amphitheatre

and saw 300,000 people, what did you think?

It's good to see California is into Triumph.

I mean you didn't go, holy shit.