‘70s Classic Rock Legend Leaves Door Open for More Following Band's First Tour in 30 Years
Rik Emmett is not ruling out a future with Triumph after the band's Rock and Roll Machine Reloaded Tourwraps in June.
The Canadian rocker, who co-founded the band in 1975 with Gil Moore and Mike Levine, revealed in a new interview that he's having a lot of fun on the reunion tour-and he hinted that there could be more to come. He's just not making any commitments just yet.
In an interview published by the Macomb Daily, Emmett, 72, said the sight of longtime fans smiling and singing his songs has been "a beautiful gift" to get in his 70s. He added that he will take some time off after the tour, but isn't against more shows or new music at some point.
"I will say this. I wasn't sure if this (tour) would happen, and it has, and I'm really having fun, and it's really great," Emmett said in the May 2026 interview. "So that probably speaks well for the future, but I don't want to start speaking for the future yet. I don't want to go there. Do I want to go into the studio and make a Triumph record? Not now, thank you. I just want to enjoy this and have a chance to wait for the smoke to clear and see how I feel at the end, and then see what else I might want to do."
Emmett admitted that he's having so much fun on the tour that he even asked himself, "Why wasn't I doing more of this sooner?" "But then there's other moments where I go, ‘I'm not sure my knees can take it," he added.
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Emmett, the voice behind the songs "Lay It on the Line," "Fight the Good Fight," and "Magic Power," left Triumph in 1988. But he reunited with the hard rock power trio in time for their Edge of Excess tour in 1993, which was their last tour before Rock and Roll Machine Reloaded. Many fans believed Edge of Excess would be the band's final foray on the road.
In 2020, Emmett told Music Life Magazine that he was officially "retired" from touring. "I mean, I have retired," he said. "I just got to a point where I still love to play, and I don't mind performing, although there is a little more anxiety now than there used to be."
In addition to some physical pains, Emmett said he didn't enjoy the travel involved with a major tour. "I have retired from the road, but I haven't retired from creativity," he said at the time.
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This story was originally published May 21, 2026 at 12:32 PM.