Rik Emmett

Rik Emmett has proven over the last 15 or so years that leaving a high profile, platinum selling rock band does not mean that your career will never shine so brightly again. Rik started his career playing to frenzied rock and roll arena crowds, ripping out solos while side-stepping flash-pots with Triumph. For many, that era of Rik Emmett created the soundtracks for many music fans' lives.. For many of us, this is how we first saw Rik Emmett the guitar virtuoso. I wanted to talk to Rik about the post Triumph chapter of his career, and he was as always the gentleman, and worked with me on getting a great interview. I would have to say, Rik is one of the best read, and well spoken individuals in the music industry. Read on!!!

Toe: First of all Rik, thank you so much for taking some time out of your hectic schedule to do this, and taking part on my site. RIK: You're welcome. Toe: I have read many times in the past, that your favorite song, is the next song you write. What is on the horizon for new music? RIK: I have 3 projects in various stages of development: - a new rock band, called Airtime, in partnership with a drummer /producer / singer / songwriter named Mike Shotton - the CD is entitled "Liberty Manifesto", and we are nearing the mixing stage: - a duet guitar project with Dave Dunlop, who is a guitarist / singer that plays live with me a lot --- and we have about half of the writing underway, with some demos already cut:- and a 'concept' piece, called "Marco's Secret Songbook", that is an acoustic, singer/songwriter/fingerstyle guitar album that is all written, but the recording has not yet begun. Toe: You have just released a new live footage/concert DVD entitled Live @ Ten Gigs. What can you tell us about it? Where can it be purchased? RIK: It's an official bootleg kind of compilation from 10 different gigs - a "RikLeg", as Rick Wharton has dubbed it, with lots of different stuff from different kinds of live performances --- solo, jazz band, rock band ... outtakes, and extra materials as well. It can be purchased through MapleMusic.com. Toe: Your career has spanned over 3 decades, and you show no signs of slowing down. What things contribute to this feat? Keeping your body and voice physically in shape, as well as always seeming to come up with fresh material and ideas. RIK: I'm always motivated to try and be productive and prolific, because I have four kids that still need college educations, and 3 of them are daughters that will require wedding budgets ... I still have a mortgage, and I still have artistic things I want to try and accomplish. I will always have that artistic thing, I think - it's just my nature. I also look at my life, and think - oh my gosh - it's already half over. I've still got a lot of work to do. So much to learn --- and I am an experiential kind of person. I learn by doing [or at least by attempting]. I love creative challenges. It's like playing games of chess, or doing word games, like cryptic crossword puzzles. I also love sports, especially team sports like baseball --- and artistic challenges, especially musical ones, are often collaborative - a dynamic very much like sports. So I dig that a lot, especially because you don't need good knees or rotator cuffs for music! Toe: What are live shows like now that you are a solo act. I know that you can be booked as a solo, duet, trio and right up to a smoking rock n roll band. What setting do you prefer the most these days? RIK: I don't have preferences. There are things about every kind of performance, every style of music, every kind of audience or venue that are unique and interesting challenges. I'm not as crazy about having to do roaring loud heavy metal kinds of rock band gigs --- I prefer a venue and an audience that will allow for some latitude, with hints of sophistication from time to time. But the setting I always enjoy is one with a decent paycheck. [That's a joke, because I'm also a college teacher, which is akin to court-appointed community service, compared to what I used to get paid to run around in spandex pants in arenas and stadiums.] Toe: I have done some research, and it seems you are more than a songwriter and lyricist. What other creative things have you dipped in to? TV, writing? RIK: I've dabbled, and I have written some poems, stories, and had some of my music used in other mediums. I have an unfinished novel tucked away in the hard drive ... and I used to be a cartoonist at the high school and college papers. I think the public, and the media, has created a world where 'celebrity' provides you with a narrow definition, and then industry sometimes can keep you heavily occupied and committed to a creative pigeonhole. But I've managed to avoid that in my middle age, and it may be because necessity has also been the mother of my own reinvention. Toe: Is it true, that you recorded a Christmas CD? What brought on that project? RIK: I sat on a Sheridan College Music Theater adjudication panel with Sam Reid [keyboard player of Glass Tiger], who was also a fellow Board member at the SAC [Songwriters Association of Canada]. I knew Sam, and had played some co-headline dates with the Tiger lads, and also knew that he had his own little indie label business, doing mostly 'nature' kinds of relaxation recordings. He is also a nice guy. So he casually mentioned that he wished he had a xmas CD for his catalogue, and I wished the same thing --- so the concept was born, and I decided we should chase it, no matter what, and get one done, quick and inexpensively. Sam has his own little production studio, and more and more, I am drawn to collaborative situations where the other partner provides the production venue and chops, and I provide writing & performance to try and even out the contribution. Toe: You have always had a great relationship with Yamaha guitars. What are the current guitars that you reach for these days? RIK: 6 string steel acoustic: LS36. 6 string nylon acoustic: CGX31C. 12 string acoustic: L55. Electric - Pacifica USA 1 custom shop [Hollywood] ... also waiting on a new AES-HB from them [custom]: My jazz electric archtop is a beauty - an AEX-1500 custom shop from Japan, made by Kiyoshi Minakuchi - everyone just calls him Jackie, so that's what I call the guitar as well - she's Jackie. Toe: I would like to talk to you a bit about your web presence. Your site launched in 1996, but has really become an entity connecting you to your fans. What is a Network member? What can a Network member expect when they become part of that experience? RIK: It's a more grown-up and 21st century version of a 'fan club'. People join the Network for an annual fee, which gives them access to the member's only side of the web site, where they can access the Member's Forum, and email discussion boards where I actively participate, if not every day, at least 2 or 3 times a week. Conversation and topics get wide-ranging, with lots of tangents, but it's all done in a very civilized spirit. The site also features exclusive clips from time to time, and gives Network members advance notice on releases, etc. As the Network continues to grow, the site will take on more exclusive features, because the digital possibilities are endless ... webcam simulcasts, and exclusive materials streamed, etc. It's not exactly NBC, CBS or ABC, or even CBC or CTV or Global, but it's our own wee private club, with a binding love of good music, made in good faith. Toe: You are a very self contained unit these days, but there is always work being done in the background. Are there certain individuals that work with you, to keep the great music and interaction streaming out to your fans? RIK: The two main men in the posse are Rick [Spud] Wharton, who is pretty much the Man Friday, from management stuff through Agent stuff to Personal Assistant Tea Guy ... but it's all with a brotherly love ... And the web site manager is Dave Fudge, who was a student in my Music Business class at Humber College that showed an understanding of the digital universe that baffles and escapes me in my old fogeyism. So I hired him. Toe: Speaking of self contained, you record from your home now, in the Rec Room. How do you like this experience, say differently from the Duke Street days when you first went solo? What kind of freedom do you enjoy now, compared to the big studio days? Is there anything you miss about recording in a large commercial studio? RIK: Recording is still an intense and painstaking process. Indie digital home studio technology has certainly lessened some of the burden of repetitious monotony, and it certainly defrays the cost. But the technology continues to morph at a frighteningly dehumanizing pace [obsolescence that used to take 5 years now takes about 5 months], and I still don't like being my own engineer, and I appreciate having an engineer who has some co-production kinds of thought processes. So I have been using the Rec Room less and less, and have been in Shotton's place, or Dunlop's place [or, as I explained earlier, Sam Reid's place], where the lion's share of recording becomes someone else's production concern. Perhaps I'll end up back in the Rec Room again more often, but my house underwent an extensive renovation in the last year, and it wasn't practical to be working here. I don't think the aspect of small studio / big studio, indie / record label production deal makes much difference, really, except that there was a little more financial breathing space/comfort when you're spending someone else's advance money ... And a bigger studio floor allows for larger ensemble work. But I've never really recorded with large orchestras, or anything, anyways, so that's kinda moot. I enjoy working with Mike at his place. I like recording anywhere where there's a hip engineer/producer who understands about work-arounds, just to keep the process rolling. You don't need a multi-million dollar facility for that.I'm not a gear geek, or a gear pig. I'm a writer and a performer who is a recording artist. I like to be in situations that aid and abet that addiction. Toe: Can you tell us a bit about a Network show, what the fans can expect? RIK: I play acoustic, sometimes backed by another musician or two. I touch on new material, old material from the 70's and 80's, and even sometimes throw in a few cover tunes every now & then, for fun & variation. We sing, we blow, we move around through styles. I do a fair bit of talking, and it takes on the vibe of the VH-1 Storyteller thing, with intimacy, and a bit of interactivity. Relaxed - intimate. A folky, coffee house kind of environment ... Straightforward, transparent ... Toe: Seeing the Green Toe site is about the promoting and interaction of Canadian musicians for the most part, do you have any words for the up and comers that are out there, that want to be in this business? Tips on how to protect their music, promote themselves, and have an enjoyable go at the business? RIK: That's a huge topic, masquerading as a simple little question. I teach a Music Business course at the college level, and spend 23 Wednesdays over two terms, delivering 23, 1 hour and 45 minute class lectures / seminars, where I barely get to scratch the surface [but definitely get to open up and widen some eyes]. Here are a few shortcuts. Spend some time doing some reading and browsing at Peter Spellman's site - http://www.mbsolutions.com/about/Join the SAC in Canada [ http://www.songwriters.ca/contact/index.htm ] And this is a nutshell comment ---- I always quote Steve Swallow; if you want to be a musician, don't do it, because it's too hard a life. But if you HAVE to be a musician, then go ahead, because it will be the greatest life you could have. It's a calling: an avocation. It's like being called to the priesthood, or wanting to be a beat cop, or exercise horses, or be a novelist. Except it's almost always bound to be part-time. It's [usually] emotionally like going on Survivor and getting kicked off the island in the 2nd round. I tell kids now --- it's like buying a Lottery ticket, except you have better odds in most lotteries. The world now belongs to digital technology conglomerates: governments give them all kinds of latitude, and if they don't get latitude, they just take it anyway. Music, and the music business, is now simply a servant to telephone, cable, and satellite technology companies. So - if you want to be in the music business, you must understand that you are 'wanting' to be in a sub-strata of the 'Entertainment' business, which is a much bigger business than just 'music', and it now includes pods and web streaming and infinite channel choices and tinier slices of demographic marketing, so 'music' has been assimilated by the world of flat-screen and plasma and digital bits & bytes flowing through fibre optics at the speed of light. 'Music' is just soundtrack for lifestyle. You have to be comfortable with the role of Servant To The Consumer In The Marketplace Owned By The Technology Conglomerates That Rule The Globe. If you can get happy with that, you're probably good to go ... Toe: Rik, thank you so much again for taking the time to talk to us. Please continue to "Stand and Deliver" to the multitude of fans out there. RIK: You're welcome.