
When Triumph re-formed briefly to play 2008’s Sweden Rock festival, there was just one problem: they’d barely spoken to each other in 20 years. Collecting gongs at an awards ceremony had brought the Canadian power trio back into each other’s orbit, but now Rik Emmett (guitar), Mike Levine (bass) and Gil Moore (drums) had to unpick a Gordian knot of bad blood and hurt.
“Initially it was awkward as shit,” Emmett tells Classic Rock today, at home in Burlington, near Lake Ontario. “We met at a coffee shop, with a mediator, and he was like: ‘If you guys can bury the hatchet, I can get you into the [Canadian Music] Hall Of Fame.’