Drummer GIL MOORE On TRIUMPH Reunion: 'All I Wanted To Do Was Get My Friend Back'

Greg Olma of 69 Faces Of Rock recently conducted an interview with Gil Moore, drummer for Canadian hard rock legends TRIUMPH. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

69 Faces Of Rock: Why did decide to put out a "Greatest Hits Remixed" CD now?

Gil Moore: Well, we've been listening to the fans make suggestions and kind of push us to come up with some new material, or any kind of material. "Just give us something from TRIUMPH" for quite a while. We set about to do this a number of years ago. We really wanted to do a package record companies would never release. You've seen all the ones that come in a brown paper bag; kind of the cheapest of everything. No extra features and so on. We went the opposite route. We tried to add bonus features galore or content galore. The audio CD, we remixed the entire CD; we didn't just remaster it. The DVD, we wide-screened all the videos so they look great on HD. We just did a lot of extra work on it. It took us a long time but we just wanted to say thanks to the best fans in the world, our fans, who stuck with us all these years and that's what it's all about.

69 Faces Of Rock: Is there still anything you want to achieve with TRIUMPH? I know you did the reunion shows but is there still anything going forward that you want to do with TRIUMPH?

Gil Moore: Really, Greg, all I wanted to do was get my friend back. Last night we were doing a whole bunch of press for this record and we were hanging together and every time we're together, we have a great time. That's how the band started. It started with three guys that were having a great time. We really enjoy each other's company. We had "Rockline" last night and it's had to stay serious because [we] just start going off on tangents. It's a lot of fun. That's really the glue that holds TRIUMPH together; the humor. We had our "Spinal Tap" moments from the day we started, like in the rehearsal stage before we played one show. We just kept it going and other than one brief period at the end when the record label was getting kind of intrusive; trying to direct us too much; that was the only time they succeeded in making the band miserable. So, really, the objective was just to get back with Rik, reunite, play a couple of big shows, and give people a chance in Europe and over here to come out. We're really grateful to the people who flew in because tons of them did. We heard the stories after the fact, in some cases we met them in the hotel or they were side show or whatever. We know that a lot of people traveled a long way to see us so beyond those objectives, I don't know. I'd like to improve the website. I know our website is not the greatest but we are going to put a new one up there this year and the website will have a pile of more content. We'll do what we did with the "Greatest Hits" DVD with our website. We'll try to give our fans what they've been asking for and get all this stuff out of the vaults and put it up there. I don't know about any future plans, we'll just have to see how it goes other than our future plan is to hang out together. [I'm] not sure about the band. That is up in the air.

69 Faces Of Rock: Did you enjoy those shows that you did and what did it feel like getting back on stage after so many years?

Gil Moore: I enjoyed the heck out of being with the guys and the shows but the most phenomenal part for me was actually getting close to the fans. I don't know why but when you realize how much the people have stuck with you, it means a lot. In the press conferences, some of the folks in the media I found they were the same way; really sticking with us. I really enjoyed that as well as hanging with the guys. As far as playing, the rehearsals were, I think, more fun than the actual concerts because there was more fooling around in the rehearsals and so on. I had to concentrate pretty hard on what I was doing. If I didn't drum and sing at the same time, it would be a lot easier. For me. personally, it's hard. You need to get back in the groove. I needed to have played a week's worth of shows to feel comfortable. Just playing for the first time and going out on a big show with thousands of people is fairly taxing. I'm glad we did it. It was a great experience. We have those two shows videoed as well so that may come out at some point.

69 Faces Of Rock: What is your favorite TRIUMPH album?

Gil Moore: I don't know if I have a favorite TRIUMPH album but if I was forced to pick one, I might pick "Allied Forces". We talked about it on "Rockline" last night. Rik remembered a couple of things. It was the first album we recorded at Metalworks. It was a feeling of "we had our own studio" and Rik was saying we felt like we hit our stride in the studio. I don't disagree with that and of the tracks that came out of that session which was "Allied Forces" itself was written about TRIUMPH fans. That's one reason it's on the "Greatest Hits". I always thought that kind of summarized two things because it's got this paramilitary theme to it and we were kind of like that as a band. We went around, we were almost stealth like in the way we went in planning our tours and went bang, bang, bang, and we didn't end up in some of the crazy situations that some of our counterparts did with the boozing and carrying on with guys ending up jumping out of balconies. [Like] some of the stuff we were talking about last night. It did happen to some of the bands that were on the road at the time. We were kind of like this football team or army or something where we went around and there was a real concerted effort to it and a direction to it. The fans were well described in that lyric "Allied Forces". Maybe that album would be my favorite.

Read the entire interview from 69 Faces Of Rock.