INTERVIEW: Styx have withstood the test of time
Photo: Styx features, 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.
Styx are perpetually on tour, which is welcome news indeed for their legions of fans who head out to the theaters and amphitheaters of the world to check out this classic rock lineup — a legendary band responsible for such hits as “Come Sail Away, ” “Too Much Time on My Hands,” “Renegade” and “Babe,” among many, many others. This year alone the band will play close to 100 shows, including a gig Sunday, May 7 at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
On the Styx stage for the past 25 years has been Lawrence Gowan, holding down the musical fort on piano, B3 organ, synthesizers, mellotron and vocals. He joined back in 1999 and has helped extend the life of this energy-filled outfit.
“We’re really covering as much of the country as we can, as much of America as we can on cities that we missed,” Gowan said in a recent phone interview about the current touring schedule. “[In 2022], we had our biggest summer tour ever. It was like 46 straight sold-out amphitheater shows last summer, and as big as it was, a lot of people still felt, ‘Hey, why didn’t you come here? Why didn’t you come there?’ So we kind of took note of that and decided, OK, let’s go and play as many places where we don’t play the big amphitheaters.”
For Gowan and the guys — Tommy Shaw, James “J.Y.” Young, Chuck Panozzo, Todd Sucherman and Ricky Phillips — the only part of the touring life that becomes routine and somewhat mundane is the travel itself. Other than that, there’s great joy when they head onto the stage and play before thousands of fans.
“The moment we arrive, we’re together, and we’re preparing for a show like we are tonight,” said Gowan as the band was preparing for a Denver gig. “No, there’s really nothing on our mind other than doing the best possible Styx show we can tonight and knowing that the audience is going to be so enthusiastic. There’s going to be so much positive energy generated in that room that we’re going to drive the benefits from it as much as the audience will. That’s what keeps us really focused on the great aspects of doing this.”
When Gowan is on stage, he looks out into the audience and is surprised to see so many relatively young concertgoers, people who were not even born when the first few Styx albums were unleashed on the world. At this point, the nostalgia factor is so well known to Gowan and company that they are used to seeing a younger fanbase.
“I used to scratch my head a lot more about this than I do now,” Gowan said with a laugh. “I would say roughly about 13-14 years ago now, around 2009, I began to notice groupings in the audience that were not there with their parents or their older siblings. They were just there of their own volition who, I could see, were not even born when the biggest classic rock albums were made. Yet they were growing themselves into embracing it with total abandon, and now … nearly half the audience are under 40, let’s just put that as an arbitrary age. Of that group, I’d say the majority of them are under 30. I’d say there are more people under 30 than between 30 and 40, again not born when the biggest classic rock records were made, and yet are embracing them and singing along to them and jumping up and down.”
He added: “It’s remarkable to see from stage. They are just as enthusiastic about it as people who have been there for 50 years, so I attribute that to rock music, particularly classic rock music, was the big musical statement of the last half of the 20th century. And it has withstood a test of time that we probably never thought it could because we had assumed it was a very transient and temporary part of pop culture that would drift away, but it has not done that. It’s stuck with people the same way as, let’s say, jazz … [which] stuck with people in the first half of the 20th century. It really is the musical monolith of our lifetime.”
Gowan recently celebrated an important day for his own tenure in the band. On April 24, he kicked off his 25th anniversary year with Styx. He remembers the original day like it was yesterday: April 24, 1999. He likes to consider the past, but he admitted that he’s more of a future kind of guy.
“I’m entirely forward-facing, but I enjoy the fact that the band has a long, storied legacy behind it,” he said. “And I’ve been around for half of it. In this era, I was part of the drive to extend the life of the band and make it relevant to people in this millennium. I also celebrate the fact that the band has been around for half its life when I wasn’t there.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Styx will play Sunday, May 7 at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Click here for more information and tickets.
