When Gil Moore, Rik Emmett, and Mike Levine join forces for the Triumph reunion tour later this year; they will have some extra help in the form of Brent Fitz, Todd Kerns, and Phil X.
With the addition of extra personnel, question have arisen as to whether the original members would be a part of every show.
Gil Moore addresses the issue saying, “Well, for starters, Mike, like we’ve said from the beginning, he’s got some health challenges. But, man, I’ll tell you what: He wants to be there. He’s got the spirit and the will. He’s part of the brotherhood, of course. So when I say we’re a brotherhood, he’s the number one brother, and we’re hoping that he’s gonna be at as many shows as possible. But I can’t predict that part of it.”
He continued, “as far as Rik and I are concerned, unless we get hit by a bus, we will be on the bus. We will be at every show. We will be playing all the way through every show.”
Addressing the issue of additional musicians, Moore said, “when you’ve got guys like Phil and Todd and Brent, these guys are not sidemen. That is not who we’re talking about here. We’re talking about guys that are rock stars, big time, in their own right. I mean, what Brent and Todd have done with Slash, what Phil’s done with Triumph or what he’s done with Bon Jovi subsequently … I mean, Rik and I are not puck hogs, OK? So these guys are gonna shine in this show. And we would be idiots not to let them do that. These guys are great players and great singers, so we’re gonna share the stage. We’re not gonna hog the stage.”
Moore noted that there is a “template” for who will sing, play what but once they get into rehearsals and touring; things may change; “just think of guitars, for example. You got two guys like Phil and Rik. When they get together, they’re, like, ‘Hey, man, you take it.’ And, ‘No, no. You’re doing better than me. You take it.’ They’re just passing it back and forth, back and forth like this. And then, when they start playing together, holy crap. It’s amazing. So, it’s gonna be a lot of fun working out those parts.”
With the addition of a second drummer – a first for Triumph – Moore notes that he will have a chance to come out from behind the drums and sing at the front of the stage, “Rik is talking about wanting me to sing up front as well. I never could really do that well in Triumph before because you have no drums. Now we have drums. So I don’t know if that’s gonna happen until we get in a rehearsal environment and then we see, how does it feel? And no wine before its time.”
Todd Kerns expressed his thoughts on additional personnel in the band in a social media post, “it’s been awesome seeing all the excitement about the upcoming Triumph tour. It’s an ongoing work in progress. Rik and Gil will be on stage nightly. Mike will be there when he can. The fact that they’ve chosen to augment the group with Phil X, Brent Fitz and myself is simply because it’s more honest than having backing tracks etc. In this day and age it’s much more common than you know.”
He added, “I will be doing my best to hold down what I can in Mike’s absence here and there while Phil will be building guitar orchestration with the mighty Rik Emmett. Fitz’s presence is a big part of the gigantic vision of Gil Moore. He wants this to be an experience. Even Don Henley has a second drummer with the Eagles. All of the older groups have augmented their lineups with additional musicians. Even Bon Jovi has extra dudes up there. All I know is that Triumph 2026 is promising a state of the art show with a knockout set list that I can’t wait to dig into.”