INTERVIEW: Styx find themselves on a ‘Mission’
Photo: Styx consist of, from left, Chuck Panozzo, Ricky Phillips, Todd Sucherman, Tommy Shaw, James “J.Y.” Young and Lawrence Gowan. Photo courtesy of Rick Diamond / Getty Images for STYX / Provided by press rep with permission.
The good fortune surrounding The Mission, Styx’s 2017 album, continues to bring rewards to the classic-rock group, who head out on the road again in November. In between their many beloved tunes, the band has been inserting a few new ones — and audiences have been enjoying the novelty and noticing that the new wondrously sounds like the old.
“The high from that album has anything but worn off,” said Lawrence Gowan, lead vocalist and keyboardist for the band. “If anything, it increased because just the way people continue to react to it and how effusive they are. As J.Y. [James Young] points out, it’s the most critically acclaimed album Styx has ever done, which is weird. We’ll take it.”
Heading back into the studio was a monumental decision for Styx. For starters, it had been 14 years since their last studio album with all original content. That’s a scary prospect to dust off the wheels and see if the songwriting engine is still working. They have legions of fans who love their older material, but would the crowds be accepting of newly written tracks?
“A lot of factors went into it,” Gowan said. “It’s, of course, noteworthy that there’s a 14-year gap between fully original studio albums. In that 14 years, as the music industry shifted, we shifted with it. We shifted and adapted and went with the way the river was flowing, but in that period so much new stuff came up consistently. We would play it in soundchecks, etc., but we just didn’t feel that the time was right to actually focus on a studio record.”
That all changed in 2015, and amazingly NASA changed their minds and offered inspiration.
The space agency invited the band members to witness the arrival of the New Horizons spacecraft, which had been on a nine-year mission and headed for Pluto. The images that were broadcast from the spacecraft made for global news, and Styx found themselves in the middle of the hubbub.
“It was arriving at Pluto on July 5, and we were there,” Gowan said. “Tommy [Shaw], myself and Todd [Sucherman] certainly were there, and we witnessed this in real time with this team of NASA people. On that mission, they had named a newfound moon that was orbiting around Pluto. They had named it Styx.”
The discoverer of this moon said the name could pass muster as a reference to Greek mythology (the river Styx), but in actuality he was a classic-rock fan and a Styxologist.
“Around that time, Tommy had been working with a fellow named Will Evankovich, a great musician and a producer,” Gowan remembers. “Basically he started working with Will as a producer, and Tommy had this piece called ‘Mission to Mars,’ shortly after the other NASA visit. He played it for me, and I was captivated by it right away.”
Gowan said the eventual recording process was accomplished with one goal in mind: producing an album that would keep the Styx faithful happy. The band members are acutely aware that people come to their concerts expecting the legacy of the band — a legacy that includes tunes like “Come Sail Away,” “Renegade,” “Too Much Time on My Hands” and “Lady,” among others.
“So obviously the show is built around ‘Renegade’ and ‘Come Sail Away’ and ‘Grand Illusion’ and ‘Foolin’ Yourself’ and ‘Lady’ and ‘Too Much Time on My Hands’ and ‘Miss America,’ those standard songs that are in every single show and represent the band well, but with The Mission we decided we’re going to try to make a record that sonically connects really easily with those classic records,” he said. “So many younger people that have become Styx fans weren’t even born [when the songs were first released] and come to the shows regularly. They become so enamored with the classic-rock sound, so why don’t we make a record where we’re really trying to follow the pathway that was tread so much in the late ’70s. And we made The Mission that way.”
That meant the guys recorded the tunes fully on analog tape machines. They were all together in the studio (a rarity nowadays) with their smartphones shut off, making the sessions feel like the old days.
The resulting songs have now been worked into the Styx set list, and they sit nicely next to the classic tunes.
“The ‘Overture’ from the album has become our intro music that we walk on to,” Gowan said. “And then ‘Gone, Gone, Gone,’ being the first song, it’s only 2 minutes long, and it kind of bursts us on to the stage and then seamlessly goes into ‘Blue Collar Man.’ So you’re right into the historic hits right off the bat almost, but really we give a little tease of the new album. And once we’ve played five or six standard Styx songs, Tommy will introduce ‘Radio Silence’ and the idea of the new record. ‘Radio Silence’ particularly I find sonically links really easily to ‘Crystal Ball’ and ‘Man in the Wilderness,’ but in addition to that, it has that anticipated Styx chorus where this big vocal suddenly arrives.”
During the album’s creation, Evankovich kept them within the lines of the ’70s sound, and the listeners and audiences have appreciated their efforts.
“What’s amazing is just how well these songs have integrated themselves into the classic set,” he said. “There’s no people getting up to go to the washroom or taking advantage of the fabulous merchandise sales. They seem to be well-engaged to a point where the applause is really received with great gratitude by us, and it’s really an enthusiastic response we’re getting out of people.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Styx’s latest album is called The Mission, and they continue touring Nov. 7 at the NYCB Theatre in Westbury, New York. Click here for more information and tickets.
