John Beaudin - Hi Rik, congratulations on the nomination of Guitarist of the Year at the very first Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards.

Rik Emmett - Thank you very much.

John - It's an interesting ballot since we set it up as only online voting from the fans.

Rik - Well, I'm sure my fans and the internet base and family and everybody else but somebody else may have longer legs and a wider fan base. I have had the sad frustration of sitting in a crowd at a Juno's show more than once where I was up and kind of hopeful but then you don't win and you have to sit there with that plastic smile on your face (laughing). You know you want to be a good sport about it but if it's happened more than once then you feel like you're always the bridesmaid and never the bride (laughing). I have to say though it's great to be nominated, recognized and included and it's nice company to be in. It's all good.

John - We have to start someplace and so far it's turning into a great show and it will be cool to see you perform.

Rik - You know John, it's always a smaller kind of family when it starts but you know what I remember talking to Stan Klees and Walt Grealis when they started the RPM awards which grew into the Junos. You get at a certain point in life and it'll all come around you'll be an old guy (laughing) and they'll give you a Lifetime Achievement Award for the fact that you and someone else invented the Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards.

John - (laughing) That's my evil plan, someday I want to be an old guy!

Rik - (laughing)

John - There are so many great Smooth Jazz musicians in Canada and a lot less stations. Hopefully the Rawlco group in Edmonton will help the cause when that station goes on the air later this year. Edmonton is such a great Jazz town with great local talent. I've heard from so many acts in Edmonton that want information on the station and I've heard from a few traditional Jazz musicians who are scared of the format but I always let them now there is room to grow here.

Rik - There are always people who are trying to get too protective of the music, people I call Jazz fascistas. You'll get folk fascistas and Jazz fascistas and they're always saying, "This is our territory and you must not infringe." These U.S. Smooth Jazz guys must get it all the time from the pure Jazz guys. I hear them say that Smooth Jazz is wallpaper or its muzak or glorified R&B. I think that stuff just comes from a negative place and I think good music never comes from a negative place. I think good music comes from a positive, spiritual place.

John - I saw the picture of you and Randy Bachman on your site and in some ways you both seem in similar boats in that of course you both come from Rock backgrounds but you both have been Jazz fans from way back. When I last spoke to Randy he said he was so glad he went Jazz again. It's just something he wanted to do.

Rik - You know for me the whole Smooth Jazz thing is age related. I'm more genetically flavoring Smooth Jazz. It's one of the buttons on my radio in the car and you know the buttons that my kids pressed on that car stereo are pressed less often by me. The thing about Smooth Jazz that I like is it's a major embracing style. You know when I was growing up in the sixties the thing I like best about Rock was it was more of an eclectic form of music that embraced a lot of different styles. You could hear eastern influences and folk kinds of things and Bluesy influences. Also the guitarist would be on stage he'd put his main guitar down and pick up a classical guitar and just play a classical number. It was just wide ranging stylistically. Rock doesn't really have that quality anymore; it's very narrowly focused stuff. Smooth Jazz on the other hand embraces world music and lots on different formulas and the format has a lot of different artists that I really admire. You could easily hear Pat Metheny followed by Larry Carlton then you might hear Lorena McKennitt and they all kind of fit together. I would much rather sit and listen to Alfie Zappacosta sing a tune than some rock guy singing away from his high level of testosterone, ripping his throat apart - give me Alfie instead.

John - Yeah, but I'm sure there's a few rock records still left in you?

Rik - Well, I'm working on one right now as a matter of fact. I don't work on one album at a time anymore usually I work on two but it's sometimes three albums. That's kind of the way my brain works and as stuff accumulates I put it in the appropriate pile and when I get bored or tired of it then I shift on over to one of the other piles. So here are the three records, one of them is a very folkie Smooth Jazz acoustic approach to the solo thing. It's kind of a progressive concept package and it's called "Marco's Secret Songbook."

John - So this is a vocal album?

Rik - Oh yeah, and it's a very wide ranging thing and I've toyed with the idea of maybe getting Alfie (Zappacosta) in to do some voiceovers to do that old Moody Blues things. You know when they had the orchestral thing and someone was reading poetry. I'm also working on a rock record with this guy named Mike Shotton who lives in Burlington so he's relatively close to me. He's a drummer and a great singer. He came up to me and said, "Why don't we make a record that's sort of an updated Led Zeppelin style where you get to play Eric Clapton bluesy licks and we can touch on Guns N Roses/Velvet Revolver kind of thing?" We have about seven or eight of them in the can and I feel really positive about it but it's not finished and who knows what will happen. Also as you know I do a lot of gigs and one of the kinds of gigs that I do are solo or duo gigs with a piano player and in the last year or so I started sneaking in tunes from other artists.

John - Oh yes, this is the covers project that you're talking about now?

Rik - (laughing) Right! I think this album would be totally up the Smooth Jazz alley by the time I'm finished with it. I want to pick songs that can gravitate towards that format. That one is the project out of the three that has captured my imagination. I think it also has the potential to cross over to a more mainstream audience. There are tunes on it like Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years" and Stephen Bishop "On and On" or Bill Withers "Ain't No Sunshine."

John - When we talked to Michael McDonald when he first recorded the first Motown album he mentioned the obvious point when covering much loved tunes and that you have to bring something new to the table or you're doomed.

Rik - Yeah, there are people who were around the first time it was released and they love the tune and they also dig when someone else does the song. As long as you bring a sense of reverence and respect to it. You have to do the song justice and let me tell you Michael McDonald could do the phone book justice.

John - The last we talked we touched on something that maybe the average music fan would not know and that it's hard to sing lead and play lead guitar at the same time. Sure a guitarist can do it on record but chances are both of those parts were done at different times.

Rik - Oh yeah, it's kind of like separation of church and state in a way. A guy like BB King just doesn't do it. He shouts then he plays, he's old school. It's the old Blues shouter kind of approach. There's a great funny moment in the U2 film where BB King is with them and it shows all of them in rehearsal then someone says "We'll get the Edge to show you some of the chords" and BB says, "Hey man, I don't play no chords." (laughing). That's part of it too. There's a pocket that people have of comfort and so there are some people that kind of get in there and that's where they live and that's where they stay. I like the fact that the pocket moves in Smooth Jazz and the pocket challenges you. There's a lot of room there to be expanding your horizons. Randy Bachman and I come from a rock background and a Rock world and there may be some purists from a Jazz standpoint that would say, "Oh please you're not even in the ballpark." (laughing) For us though it is a challenge, a really interesting challenge. I always say that I want to try it and make it work.

John - I always say this on the site but (Bruce) Hornsby says that freedom comes through independence and being loose as a musician so you can play anything.

Rik - Oh yeah, if I'd have to name the top ten musicians that I respect he would be on that list but remember my list would be nominated by guitarist though since that's where I do most of my listening. A guy like Hornsby redefined a way to have Pop songs that had some pretty serious harmonic content in it. He became a very in demand musician and he had a very unique approach so it doesn't surprise me that he would continue to push himself to try and be unique.

John - I have to tell you that I was never too big in categories growing up. I remember buying the Grass Roots "Greatest Hits" and the first Triumph album on the same day.

Rik - (laughing) I like to hear that and obviously you're still doing that kind of thing John and I think as we age we do try to spread ourselves out. I think the truest rivers of spirituality run at levels where you have these moments where you can see how all the parts fit. Now no one really knows how all the parts fit but we sure love that moment when we think we're getting that feeling. I think music provides a wonderful window or door into that sense of knowing.

John - I saw you the first time at the Sinclair Rink in Newcastle, New Brunswick with Triumph I think in the mid seventies and I remember one of the gals in this group of friends I was with looked up at you and whispered in my ear "You'd be cool if you were like that." (laughing)

Rik - (laughing) Sorry man!

John - (laughing) Come on you bastard you've heard that story a few times.

Rik - (laughing) Well, maybe different variations of it. I wouldn't want to make it sound like that matters that much to me. I know when you're playing a rock star what you just said is part of it but being the guy up there on stage being the rock star was always so easy for me. I felt like a basketball player in a game putting on the little uniform and you go out and do your thing. You can't think too much about it, you just have to go out there and do it. If you do it and remember all the stuff you're supposed to remember then things will work out just fine. To me it was always about playing the music as hard as I could. I think that total commitment to the performance is what a lot of people found attractive and appealing. I was just a guy up there playing a part but I never consciously thought that I had to be a sexy rock star. Whenever I actually thought that I would really get self conscious and I wasn't comfortable in my skin then. I remember when we did the "US Festival" David Lee Roth would get in the press room and he was like in his element because talking to the press was his dream, I was the opposite. He was just drinking it in and loving it.

John - The Triumph "US Festival" was just released on DVD, have you watched it?

Rik - No, not really. My kids were watching it one day out of curiosity and I walked through the room (laughing).

John - There is no movement there, right? Triumph with you in it is dead, right? That will never happen again right?

Rik - O Jeez no. That's a never ever going to happen story.

John - As you know we are giving George Benson a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the very first Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards. You have a history of loving George Benson I know and you've been on stage with him. Do you have any stories you can share?

Rik - My best story about George Benson is around the "Breezin" album because that's how I ended up going on stage with him. At the Buffalo Guitar Festival he was playing up at Shea's and I was down the street at the Tralf. The guy who runs the PBS station in Buffalo also runs the Guitar festival in Buffalo and his dream in life was to get Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana and Jeff Beck together on one stage. I told this guy that Benson's "Breezin" album was the soundtrack to my honeymoon; we just kept playing it over and over again. So for hours and hours the album kept playing while my wife and I were busy (laughing). So I told them to tell George so apparently the promoter attached a note to the check when he paid him. George was sitting in the club and Rick Wharton came up to me on stage and threw a note to me that said George was here and he wanted to come up and play. I'm thinking what you're kidding me. After the encore I quieted the crowd down and told them that George Benson was in the crowd. The spotlight whips around trying to find him and there he is sitting in the back and he has these big linebacker bodyguard guys with him. George stands up, waves and starts heading for the stage and my keyboard player starts playing "On Broadway" and I don't know what's going on. I swear to God John it was like a scene from a movie. He comes up on stage gives me a hug, straps on my guitar and he's a bigger guy than me and the guitar is up around his chin and he's joking around and making eyes. He just played the hell out of the thing. He just ripped it up.

John - Do you still have that guitar?

Rik - Oh yeah, I still have that one.