By Jim Barber
Creators gotta create! A person’s age, level of ability, medium, genre, socioeconomic or cultural background is irrelevant. If you are born with an instinct to make ‘something’ original and put the sweat equity in to honing your skills through endless hours of trial and error, practice, episodes of failure and rejection – that irrepressible desire to express what is inside you to the outside world will never cease.
For legendary Canadian musician/vocalist/songwriter Rik Emmett, his creative instinct has literally taken him around the world, in front of millions of fans, emblazoned on the covers of rock magazines and alongside industry heavyweights such as Van Halen, Judas Priest and The Scorpions. Later, after moving on to a solo career, he kept travelling, this time to jazz and blues clubs, intimate theatres, guitar festivals and community halls (yay, Tamworth, ON!) sharing his love for everything six string. Rock, blues, classical, smooth jazz, Americana, flamenco – Emmett’s insatiable desire to explore and express himself through different styles and genres was ever-present.
He still likes to doodle little cartoons, used to write a highly respected and widely read column in Guitar Player magazine, has taught community college as a songwriting and music business instructor, been a clinician and workshop host. So even though it seemed Emmett was ‘slowing down’ upon announcing his retirement from touring in 2019, he was simply following that instinct, that impulse in a new and revelatory direction.
This choice to spend more time in his own bed came on the heels of a dynamic and prolific near-30-year post-Triumph career that saw Emmett release a dozen albums under his own name, three with his Strung Out Troubadours acoustic project with Dave Dunlop, his one-off hard rock album Liberty Manifesto with longtime pal Mike Shotten under the moniker Airtime, as well as his later rock enterprise, RES9 (2016) and even an album alongside master guitarists Oscar Lopez and Pavlo called Trifecta in 2007.
Obviously, the Music never stopped, but its production became more solitary, more thoughtful, more introspective: witness his 2020 project, The Bonfire Sessions.
But then in the wake of the COVID pandemic, and partially because of it, books started to appear. First there was Reinvention a book of poetry released by ECW Press in 2021, followed by his autobiography, Lay it On The Line: A Backstage Pass to Rock Star Adventure, Conflict and Triumph in 2023 (ECW), and lastly (for now) his current work, Ten Telecaster Tales, which has been described as “the most comprehensive attempt at liner notes in the history of instrumental fingerstyle guitar,” also on ECW Press. Even a battle with prostate cancer and the passing of close family members did not inhibit Emmett’s desire to create. It most likely pushed him to explore his creativity on a deeper level.
That’s three books in a short span of time. Which is not dissimilar to the literary output of another Canadian music icon, Geddy Lee, who is about to publish his third book later this year (one was about his bass collection and his love for the instrument, another was his autobiography, My Effin’ Life, and the latest is on his passion for baseball memorabilia.) In both instances, a combination of motivations was at work – a need to create something of substance and relevance, and a desire to start to cement one’s legacy in the firmament of popular culture.
The difference between the two icons is that Ten Telecaster Tales is the companion to a similarly titled album, which features 10 original jazz-oriented solo guitar compositions from Emmett, played on a very special custom-made Fender Telecaster guitar, dubbed Babs, which he not only commissioned but participated heavily in its design.
The music portion for the project was born and nurtured in Eli’s Loft. This is the name of the new studio Emmett, who turns 72 in July, and his wife built in their Burlington, Canada home [read the book to find out the story of the name], one that required extensive renovations to the family domicile, but which got Emmett out of the basement and into the natural light, thanks to some large windows, creating a vibe more conducive to contemplation and creation.
For Emmett, the book portion of the Ten Telecaster Tales is a story of creation and creativity, of incisive observation and self-examination, as well as a memoir of an integral facet of the guitarist/vocalist/songwriter/performer’s life. A desire to create a bespoke guitar led to the creation of new music on that guitar, with the intention of not only recording and releasing it, but also to peel back the layers of how and why instrument, music and book came to be. Hence the reference to it being a long-form version of album liner notes. More about the concept of ‘layers’ later in this piece.
There are indeed some intricate deep dives, so guitar nerds (not meant as a pejorative) will love those, although the non-musician may wince a little bit, because it is very much like reading another language. At the same time, Emmett always brings the narrative back to something relatable, often invoking real life examples from his past history with Triumph, his solo career and even his youth. So Ten Telecaster Tales, the book, is perfect for Rik Emmett fans, those who appreciate a detailed examination of how songs come together, and those who want to be inspired to ‘nerd out’ with their own creative outlet and are looking for some tried and true tips on process, persistence and penning a book about it.
“When I was making albums for the hit parade and hoping that I’d get on the radio, it had its own sort of boundaries and envelopes, shoeboxes, pigeon holes – pick your metaphor. And you did what you did, but they were large audiences. Then slowly but surely over the course of my career, especially as I grew older, it was like, well, I don’t give a shit about that any more. And, in fact, there may be no audience at all. I used to get up on my hind legs at the college and lecture kids about the music business and tell them about the percentages of popular music and how it breaks down. And although I don’t know the current research, I’m going to guess that rap and hip-hop has a certain amount of the market. New country, or urban country, whatever you call it, I suppose it’s going a pretty large percentage of the American Republican radio market. The more you go towards jazz or you go towards classical, or folksy, rootsy stuff, you’re getting into slivers of percentages. And I’ve done all that over my career and I don’t really look at it that much anymore. I have an awareness of the trends, but it’s not like I am going to write to try and target that,” Emmett told Music Life Magazine.
“In particular, with the Telecaster stuff, I’m going back to my own roots of what it was that got me playing guitar in the first place and why I was interested in the fancy guitar licks. And why I was interested in these kinds of guitars and a particular style of playing. And I know there are people that are interested in that music, and in the stories about those kinds of folks; I know that exists but is it driving the market now? Not a chance. Not even close. But I don’t really worry too much about chasing the market. And it’s weird when something like Hockey Night in Canada playing ‘Lay It On The Line’ during the playoffs because I get all these people coming out of the woodwork telling me my music is on the radio. Again, it wasn’t on the radio. It’s in a commercial, but in a way, it is ‘on the radio’ again. And so this viral thing starts to happen and it feels weird, the way life goes. Because I’m the guy that sort of used to be the guy and, yes, I’m in some Walls of Fame, and Walks of Fame and Halls of Fame, so I guess there’s a certain value in what it is that I write and what I come up with creatively, but I don’t think it’ll ever have the weight that happens when you write an anthem like ‘Lay It On The Line’. That’s a much different thing than if you’re writing this very sort of introspective thing about 10 instrumental guitar pieces on one electric guitar.
“I’m sort of making something where it’s not like ‘we’re not just going to look at the lint in my navel, we’re going to get out the microscope.’ And I know that there’s something self-indulgent about that, and I will grant that, you know, it’s not going to be for everybody. And with the world the way it is, where we’re seeing the whole country south of the border literally unravelling their moral fabric under the pretext of being God-fearing folks, it makes me want to write poetry [a second book or poetry is actually on its way.] It makes me want to pick up my guitar. So there’s a muscle that I do want to flex, which is one that is an artist kind of thing.”
As advertised earlier, there are a number of key themes to the reflections and artistic motivations presented in the book, which touch on the notion that creativity, as with most things in life – including life itself – has layers. Some of these layers are thinly ephemeral, clear and easily identified, others more murky, impenetrable and discovered only through a rigorous, contemplative process.
“When I was a kid and I got a guitar, I would learn a few chords. Then I started to write a song, and then l played the song for my mom. And so this whole thing started to happen where this private pursuit, this creative enterprise, it’s starting to have lyrics and melody and harmony and all these things and now, oh, there’s a performance aspect, and now this performance is being rewarded because my mom is there, like, ‘oh my lovely golden son, you’re a genius. You’re amazing. You’re great.’ So now you’re getting this positive feedback and all of these things are dynamic layers of what is kind of organic process. Eventually you realize, ‘ah, this is how it works.’” Emmett explained.
“Later in life I’m in college classrooms trying to teach kids about songwriting and I’m trying to get them to understand that if you don’t put something at risk in this work, if you don’t put something of yourself here, where you’re sort of getting naked and out on the wire, and there’s no safety net, it’s not making it compelling for the audience. That’s what really makes it work. So that layer, which is the mechanics of songwriting, that’s got nothing to do with it. But if I’m teaching you about the soul and the spirit of it, that’s what you really have to try to dig down and find. And the reason why you do that is because sometimes a magical, mysterious thing happens to make it special.
“I remember hearing an interview with Leonard Cohen and the interviewer asks him this really intense question about the process and Leonard said, ‘look, if I knew where the good songs come from, don’t you think I’d go there more often?’ Like, yeah! So there has to be an element of mystery to the process. I can sit here and we can have a conversation about process but sometimes all of the process in the world, all of the knowledge of the process in the world is not going to help you when what you really need is some of that fairy dust to just kind of come out of the sky.”
What Emmett is talking about is another key thematic element to the Ten Telecaster Tales project – the magic, the mystery, the fairy dust – is truth. Elemental, core, unvarnished truth, which Emmett contends is a more powerful element compared to more esoteric and subjective concepts like ‘authenticity’ and ‘integrity.’
“When I was a kid and I was going to church every Sunday and singing in the choir, religion was a thing that mattered a lot to my mom. When I lost my religion, it was because it just did not ring with the integrity of an authentic truth for me anymore. The whole idea of an afterlife seemed to me to be just like stories about Zeus. It just seemed like it was stories and it wasn’t authentic truth. And of course that was at a time where there was stuff like the Vietnam War where the ‘truth’ was functioning on a whole other level,” he said, warming to the subject.
“Authenticity and integrity have become buzzwords, right? We’re into a situation where, culturally, some of these words become more like slogans. And when you’re trying to decide what it is that you want to have in your work, the other things, the idea of integrity and authenticity, they’re more like self-evaluations. You’re saying, ‘this is me. This is all about me.’ And of course when you’re writing songs and you’re writing books that’s what you’re doing. But truth is more of a universal thing. I want truth in the story. I want truth in the newscast. I want truth from everywhere. I was being interviewed on a morning radio show in Edmonton. And because of the fact that I wrote the song ‘Lay It On The Line,’ and because that was also the name of my autobiography, she asked me, ‘Rick, what is ‘it?’ in the context of the title. And I said, well I think it’s truth. That’s what the guy in the lyrics of the song is asking for, ‘the truth will do just fine.’ Thank you very much, I’ll just give you the truth. And that search for the truth, I think, is why some people get into the law; that’s what they’re looking for. I think people that get into religion, that’s what they’re looking for. I think people that really deeply get into music, that’s what they’re looking for. Art, poetry, music, you’re just looking for truth. So, if that’s what it is, and that’s what you are about, then you are probably going to be a person of integrity. If that’s what you really care about, you’re always going to be walking and acting as your authentic self.
“But there’s levels or layers to that too, returning to the idea of layers. That’s not to say that I am the same authentic self when I’m alone with my wife, when I’m with my grandchildren, when I’m meeting my neighbour and we’re talking about the fence line. In social situations, your authentic self has to be modified given the circumstances and that only makes completely, logical, practical sense. There’s this whole thing about ‘logical’ and ‘practical’ that enters into the whole discussion about truth. Am I going to tell somebody they’re really ugly? At a certain point it’s going to be counterproductive.”
In many philosophies, the concept of three, the power of three is a powerful talisman: the balance created with having a three-legged stool is used to teach entrepreneurs, there’s the Holy Trinity in Christian theology. And of course two of Canada’s most important and successful bands, were trios – Rush and Emmett’s former band, Triumph. The concept of triangulation and needing each ‘leg’ of the stool for an entity, or idea to stand, also comes to the fore throughout the Ten Telecaster Tales book, particularly in the context of music and songwriting.
“When you’re a teacher, as I was for a while, and you’re doing research in order to be able to pontificate in front of your class, you realize that, oh my God, there’s nothing original on the face of the earth. I’m not very original in arriving at these kinds of concepts but the idea of triangulation was always an organic thing for me. And then one time I was on a panel for the Songwriters Association of Canada during Canadian Music Week or something, and Bill Henderson [founder/vocalist/songwriter for Chilliwack] was there, and he talked about the ‘magic number three; three verses, three choruses, the magic of three.’ And I knew he was reinforcing what I had already known and felt. Even when I was describing something to my wife, I would reach for three adjectives and she would always say, ‘why do you always have to try and tell me how to build a watch. I only want to know what time it is?’ And it’s because I want to be complete. I want to make sure that I’ve sort of corralled the idea and I need three things in order to build that corral – in order to build the triangle,” Emmet said.
“That’s the way I like to think of it, even if it’s a flowery way of going about things, but it’s what I personally like. But, and here we go again, there’s truth behind that way for me. The three-sided thing, the legs of a stool, and even a speech expert would say to tell people what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them – three. It’s in art, it’s in storytelling, it’s in everything.”
As mentioned above, Emmett retired from touring in 2019, just before the global pandemic would have put the kibosh on touring anyways. Family has come to the fore, especially since he has lost significant family members in recent years and wants to spend as much time as he can with those he loves – particularly his wife, kids and grandkids. Music is important, but it will not come at the cost of time, effort and engagement with the people who are closest to him.
“I am lucky to be a grandfather. It’s a really beautiful, glorious thing. Just the other day I saw this article about the health of seniors, and it’s a proven fact that if you live close to your grandchildren, so that you can get to visit them and see them often, you’re happier and you’re healthier and you live longer. So there’s certain things that are now more important. My wife loves gardening, so we went to the garden centre the other day and dropped several hundred dollars. I didn’t do any planting but she did, and the next day I walked around the garden and thought, ‘oh my God, this is just so beautiful. This is so lovely,’” he said.
“Those things are compelling me more and more and the idea of chasing a career or a work vocation, is not as appealing. I just did a couple of shows at the Redwood Theatre in Toronto because I wanted to play the songs from the album live in order for this to feel 100 per cent real to me. But I understood that I was going to have to run the gauntlet of performing all 10 pieces. After the first show sold out, we added a second, and when it sold out they asked if I wanted a third. But I said no, because two of these is already pushing the envelope, and I was not sure the stress and the anxiety of it is going to be something that I could handle. It was a test in sense. I wanted to do this live gig, do a thing and how much was I going to enjoy it? And I did like it, but how much do I want to do it again, and again? That’s the question. Right now, I’m going to spend a couple of weeks just puttering around the garden and doing this marketing and promo for the book and blah, blah, blah. And I’m just going to wait and see if I feel like doing another show. I’m in no hurry. And I have a feeling when a decision comes, I am going to land on the side of spending time with my grandkids.
“You know, tonight is trivia night at the Lion Heart Pub in Meadowvale [Mississauga, Ontario]. I’m with my daughter and her sister, my son-in-law and their side of the family. The eight of us are the Binge Thinkers team on trivia night. And you know, I’m going to drink a pint and I’m going to eat food that may or may not be good for me and I’m going to just do things that most folks take for granted. I spent too many decades of my life not understanding the value of that stuff.”
It would be remiss of the writer to not touch a little more on the subject of Emmett’s band and bandmates in Triumph. As he mentioned earlier, the band has seen a remarkable renaissance and heightened attention, earning its rightful place as an important part of the Canadian musical landscape. These include enshrinement in The Canadian Music Hall of Fame, The Juno Hall of Fame, Canada’s Walk of Fame and the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame. After 13 years, the band split in September 1988 after playing a daytime concert at the Kingswood Music Theatre at Canada’s Wonderland just north of Toronto, and Emmett, drummer Gil Moore and bassist Mike Levine, once as close as brothers, became estranged due to the legal entanglements and hard feelings that resulted.
By 2007, fences had been mended and the three resumed their friendship and brotherhood, although there was still a kind of separation in terms of the business operations of the band. Only two ‘reunion’ shows were played in 2008, one at Sweden Rocks and the other at Rocklahoma in Oklahoma. A short set was played in 2021 at the premiere of the documentary Triumph: Rock and Roll Machine, but otherwise there are no plans for Triumph to go on the road as Moore, Emmett and Levine again. (TEASER: Stay tuned for Music Life Magazine’s interview with Moore, coming in early June to learn more about what IS happening with Triumph.)
“At the time I just couldn’t understand it, I couldn’t abide what had happened. So it’s nice to get to the point where you’re back. I get the whole foxhole brother thing back. And now when we talk about something, we can just be ourselves again. The shit that we went through isn’t between us anymore. It’s evaporated, it’s gone and that’s a really nice thing. You can be authentic [there’s that word again.] And I get to appreciate the authentic Gil again. And listen, I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent, articulate, perceptive kind of guy. Gil Moore is the most persistent, ambitious, driven guy that I’ve ever known – like, ever!’ Emmett said.
Activity on the Triumph front continues apace thanks to the imminent release of a new tribute album Magic Power: All Star Tribute to Triumph (Round Hill Records) which features an incredible array of guest performers, including Sebastian Bach, Gowan, Mickey Hart (Starship), Heart’s Nancy Wilson, Alex Lifeson’s new project Envy of None, as well as Joey Belladonna of Anthrax and even Slash.
“That’s a pretty nice pool of talented people who played on it. I haven’t heard everything yet, but I will give it an open mind. Because what you have to understand is that people are going to approach it from their perspective,” he said.
As Emmett himself has written and sung, music is ‘not just a game of notes, it’s the sounds inside your soul.’ (‘Hold On’) and music continues to feed the creative fire within, for the enjoyment of those of us without. The motives to create are essentially the same as they were for him back in the early 1970s when he was learning his craft, being inspired by the likes of Ed Bickert, Dominic Troiano, Roy Buchanan and others, but stripped back to the bare essential of what makes him happy, what feeds him, what satiates the hunger in his soul.
“I’m at the point now where the career means nothing to me. But the hobby of making music means everything. I’m like the old guy who spends hours building train sets in his basement and just loves it. And it’s like, ‘I’m going to put the conductor over here, and I’m going to put this tree just over there.’ There’s a sense, and I don’t want to sound too highfalutin’ here, but I was born to play guitar and make music and write music. It’s what life delivered to me, and it was also what I chased around and broke my ass trying to do. And maybe I’m still good at this. Certainly, there’s stuff that I understand about it now on a level that your average 19-year-old kid doesn’t,” he said.
“And it’s not like I don’t remember what it’s like to be that 19-year-old kid. I do. And there’s certain things about having ambition and testosterone – I don’t have as much of it as I used to, but I remember what that’s like. And life has an interesting way, for me, to send me to places where I go, ‘I didn’t see that coming.’ I realize there’s a certain positioning that I have because of my career, where I can take advantage of it and people will notice what I am doing. People will want to have conversations with me, and I can promote and market these things.
“There’s that part of me that is asking, can I do this on a level where I’m going to be proud of what I’ve done. And with the books that I’ve written, I do think of them sitting on a bookshelf and that my grandchildren and maybe my grandchildren’s children might think, ‘I wonder what he was like? Let me read these books and see if I can get a sense of him.’ So for sure, that’s legacy stuff.”
For more information on Emmett and Ten Telecaster Tales, visit https://www.rikemmett.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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