I think every book written by musicians I have read have been straight ahead recollections of their lives from birth to the present. Bonafide biographies. And that's what I expected Rik Emmett's 'Lay It On The Line' to be as well. How wrong I was! His book is a memoir and written completely different than a biography and I confess this confused me at first. But it didn't take long to warm up to it and I like it a lot.
What struck me at first while reading 'Lay It On The Line' is the anxiety issues Rik has struggled with all his life, and still do. Why this surprised me is he always has a big smile on his face in just about every photo and live video featuring him that I've seen. But as is explained in the book he learned early on how to deal with it...most of the time. Also astonishing to discover that an artist of such pedigree struggles with groups and crowds of people but the drive and desire to perform helped him to bypass this.
Of course, Rik reminisce about his years with Triumph as well as about his solo career, but it's not the main focus. Instead he offers insights to how he managed to carve out a long and distinguished career without falling into the oft-present trappings of losing family and mind being a fulltime musician. In line with this he touches upon how psychology became the tool he relied on throughout his career especially the last few years in Triumph and when he went solo. Later in life when he worked as a college music teacher unraveling the secrets of songwriting and being a musician and all what entails to unsuspecting students, Rik applied psychology as a means for his students to be as prepared as possible to all the trappings in the world of music.
Not wanting to give too much away of this excellent book, the first half especially offers plenty of easter eggs for Triumph fans. Keep your eyes open, that's the only advice I can give...other than sit back and enjoy this wonderful creation of Rik Emmett!
*Photo of Rik Emmett credited to Stuart Hendrie
-Swedebeast
