Styx ( ) is an American
rock band, best known for their most popular hit
songs "
Lady" (#6, 1975), "
Come Sail Away" (#8, 1977), "
Babe" (#1, 1979), "
The Best of Times" (#3, 1981) and
"
Mr. Roboto" (#3, 1983). Other hits such
as "
Show Me the Way"
(#3, 1990), "Don't Let It End" (#6, 1983), "
Too Much Time on My Hands" (#9,
1981), "
Renegade", (#16, 1977)
and "
Blue Collar Man ", (#21, 1977)
are recognizable as well. The band has four consecutive albums
certified multi-platinum by the
RIAA.
Early years
Twin
brothers Chuck and John Panozzo first got together with their
neighbour Dennis DeYoung in 1961 in
the Roseland
section of
the south side of Chicago
, eventually
taking the band name "The Tradewinds". Chuck Panozzo left to attend seminary school
for a year but returned to the group by 1964. Tom Nardini was
brought in to teach Chuck the guitar. Chuck decided to play Bass
Guitar for the band. John Panozzo was the drummer, while Dennis
DeYoung had switched from accordion to organ and piano. In 1965,
the name "Tradewinds" was changed to TW4 after another band called
The Trade Winds broke through
nationally.
By 1966, the Panozzo brothers had joined
DeYoung at Chicago State University
and kept the group together doing gigs at high
schools and frat parties while studying to be teachers. In
1969, they added a college buddy,
John
Curulewski, on guitar after Tom Nardini departed. Guitarist
James "J.Y."
Young came aboard in
1970 making TW4 a quintet.
In 1972, the band members decided to choose a new name when they
signed to
Wooden Nickel
Records; several suggestions were made and, says DeYoung, Styx
was chosen because it was "the only one that none of us hated".
[23507]
Wooden Nickel years
The band's
Wooden
Nickel recordings,
Styx
(1972),
Styx II (1973),
The Serpent Is Rising
(1974) and
Man of Miracles
(1974), were a mixture of straight-ahead rock with some dramatic
prog-rock flourishes and
art-rock aspirations.
The Serpent Is Rising would
foreshadow later endeavors by the group—the so-called
concept album is an
idiom
upon which
Styx would rely heavily by the
1980s.
On the
strength of these releases and constant playing in local clubs and
schools, the band established a fan base in the Chicago area, but
was unable to break into the mainstream until an earlier song, the
power ballad "Lady" (from Styx II), began to
earn some radio time, first on WLS
in Chicago and then
nationwide. In the spring of 1975, nearly two years after
the album had been released, "
Lady" hit #6 in
the U.S., and
Styx II went gold
after.
Move to A&M and the coming of Tommy Shaw
On the heels of its belated hit single,
Styx
signed with
A&M Records and
released
Equinox
(1975), which sold well and yielded a minor hit in "
Lorelei", #27 in the U.S. More
importantly, it contained the rock anthem "
Suite Madame Blue", which gained the band
considerable recognition and airplay on
FM
radio in the relatively new
Album Oriented Rock (AOR) format.
Following the move to A&M, Curulewski suddenly left the band in
December 1975 just as they were to embark on a nationwide tour.
After a frantic last-minute search, the band brought on singer,
songwriter, and guitarist
Tommy Shaw as
Curulewski's replacement.
The first album with Shaw,
Crystal Ball (1976), was
moderately successful and also includes Shaw's "
Mademoiselle" (which was another minor
hit, reaching #36) and DeYoung's "This Old Man".
Breakthrough
The Grand
Illusion (1977) became the group's breakthrough album,
reaching
Triple Platinum certification and spawning a top-ten hit
and
AOR radio staple in the
DeYoung-written "
Come Sail Away,", which reached #8 in 1978,
as well as a second radio hit, Shaw's "
Fooling Yourself ",
which reached #29 the same year.
Through the late 1970s, the band enjoyed its greatest success. The
album
Pieces of
Eight (1978) found the group moving in a more
straight-ahead pop-rock direction and spawned the Shaw-written hit
singles "
Renegade,", #16 in the
U.S., and "
Blue Collar Man ," #21 in
the U.S., plus a minor hit in the release "
Sing for the Day" that stopped just short
of the Top Forty at #41.
[23508]
Cornerstone (1979)
yielded the group's first number one hit, the DeYoung ballad
"
Babe"
[23509]. By early 1980, "Babe" had become the band's
biggest international hit and first million-selling single,
reaching number six in the United Kingdom
[23510]. The album
also included the #26 DeYoung hit "
Why Me", and "
Borrowed Time" which was
co-written with Shaw, plus Shaw's "
Boat On The River". The popularity
of the album helped win the band a
People's Choice Award for Best New
Song in 1980. Styx was nominated for the Twenty-Second
Grammy Awards[23511] for
Best Rock Vocal
Performance by a Duo or Group.
Cornerstone's engineers
Gary Loizzo and
Rob Kingsland were nominated for a
Grammy[23512] at the 22nd Grammy Awards for Best
Engineered Recording.
Stardom in the 1980s
Paradise Theatre
In January 1981, Styx released
Paradise Theatre, a
concept album that became their biggest hit,
reaching number one on the
Billboard pop
albums chart and yielding five singles, including the top ten hits
"
The Best of Times" by
DeYoung (#3) and "
Too Much
Time on My Hands" by Shaw (#9).
Paradise Theater
became the band's fourth consecutive
Multi-Platinum album.
The band
was accused by a California
religious group and later the P.M.R.C of backmasking Satanic
messages in their anti-cocaine anthem,
"Snowblind." James Young has refuted this
charge during his introduction for "Snowblind" when played live.
Dennis DeYoung has refuted the
accusation as well, joking on the
In the Studio with Redbeard
program "we had enough trouble to make the music sound right
forward."
Throughout the 1980s, the band would use the album's opening track,
"
Rockin' the Paradise" (charted
at #8 on Top Rock Tracks Chart) to open their shows.
Kilroy was Here and breakup
On the successes of the ballad "
Babe" and the
Paradise Theatre album,
Styx founder DeYoung began pushing for a more theatrical direction,
while Shaw and Young favored a harder-edged approach. (This arguing
over musical direction had even led to a bit of tension in 1979
after "
Pieces of Eight", when
DeYoung briefly left the band. But things were quickly smoothed
over and cooler heads prevailed, leading to his quick return.
)
The band followed DeYoung's lead with their next project,
Kilroy Was Here
(1983), another, more fully-realized concept album, embracing the
rock opera form. Set in a future where
performing and playing recorded rock music has been outlawed due to
the efforts of a charismatic evangelist,
Kilroy featured
Dennis DeYoung in the part of Kilroy, an unjustly imprisoned rock
star. Tommy Shaw played the part of Jonathan Chance, a younger
rocker who fights for Kilroy's freedom and the lifting of the ban
on rock music. This future society is served by robots. Called
Robotos, these automatons perform many jobs, not the least of which
are as Kilroy's prison guards.
Part of the impetus for the Kilroy story was the band's reaction to
accusations of including backwards satanic messages embedded in
their prior releases. The album included
James Young's song "
Heavy Metal Poisoning", which includes
lyrics sarcastically mocking the allegations against the group. Its
introduction intentionally included a backward message, the Latin
phrases, "annuit coeptis" and "novus ordo seclorum," from the
reverse side of the
Great Seal of the United
States. Referring to the
United States
Declaration of Independence in 1776, these are translated,
"
Annuit cœptis - He
(God) favors our undertakings, and
Novus ordo seclorum - A new order
of the ages." . Both choices also served the Kilroy story as well,
as the villain is an evangelist that seeks to expand his vision of
morality movement through mass demonstrations.
Kilroy went
Platinum in 1983,
boasting two Top Ten hits, the
synthesizer-based "
Mr.
Roboto" (#3 U.S.) and power ballad "
Don't Let It End. (#6 U.S.)" The album
earned a nomination as
Best
Engineered Recording for engineer and long-time friend
Gary Loizzo, and fellow engineers on the album
Will Rascati and
Rob Kingsland, for the Twenty-Sixth Grammy
Awards (1983)
[23513]
In 1983, the band mounted an ambitious stage show in support of
Kilroy featuring theatrical presentations of three songs
utilizing instrumental backing tracks, including "Mr. Roboto",
which featured DeYoung singing live while disguised as a Roboto,
"Heavy Metal Poisoning" with James Young as the evangelist Dr.
Righteous singing while the Panozzo brothers acted as his henchmen
on stage and "Haven't We Been Here Before" with Tommy Shaw as
Jonathan Chance and DeYoung (as Kilroy in Roboto costume) duetting.
The elaborate show was expensive to produce and was not as
profitable as previous tours.
Kilroy brought the creative and competitive tensions
within the band beyond the breaking point. Tommy Shaw departed the
band for a solo career at the conclusion of the
Kilroy
tour. In 1984, the band released its first live album,
Caught in the Act. The
project featured one studio track, "
Music Time", which became a Top 40 hit.
The concert was also filmed and released on VHS under the same
title (and on DVD in 2007). However, by the time of the album's
release, the band had already parted ways.
Solo careers
Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw released a string of solo albums,
beginning with DeYoung's
Desert
Moon and Shaw's
Girls with Guns in 1984. Both
Shaw and DeYoung generated a moderate amount of interest with their
first solo albums. DeYoung scored a Top 10 hit with the title
track, "
Desert Moon", which was
also heavily featured on
MTV. Shaw also cracked
the Top Forty with "Girls with Guns" and he made a cameo appearance
on the
NBC television series
Miami Vice. DeYoung's follow up single
"
Don't Wait for Heroes" also
featured a video that was heavily featured on MTV, but it failed to
generate significant radio airplay, only peaking at #83. During the
filming of the video, DeYoung injured his back, causing him to back
out of opening a North American concert tour for
Huey Lewis and the News. Shaw,
however, did tour in the fall of 1984 as an opening act for
The Kinks.
Shaw's 1985 album
What
If and DeYoung's 1986 album
Back to the
World also charted, along with singles from film
soundtracks. Shaw's "What If (Remo's Theme)" from
Remo Williams: The Adventure
Begins entered the
Billboard Hot 100, while
DeYoung's "This is the Time" from
The Karate Kid, Part II soundtrack
was featured for a short while on MTV. The first single from
DeYoung's
Back to the World, "Call Me", peaked at number
six on the Adult Contemporary chart and was a modest pop hit,
peaking at #44 on the Billboard Hot 100.
However, by the late 1980s, both Styx members' solo careers
gradually simmered down to a modest but loyal fan base. Neither
DeYoung's
Boomchild nor
Shaw's
Ambition achieved nearly the same levels of earlier
albums, although Shaw's cover of
Jim
Peterik's "Ever Since the World Began" charted briefly. Shaw
also recorded sessions with Peterik's group,
Survivor, on 1986's
When Seconds Count.
Meanwhile, James Young recorded his own solo albums:
City
Slicker (with
Jan Hammer) and
Out On a Day Pass, both attracting only minimal
attention.
In 1989, Tommy Shaw formed
Damn
Yankees with
Ted Nugent,
Jack Blades and
Michael Cartellone. Meanwhile, the
remaining members of Styx made plans for a comeback in the new
decade.
1990s
Edge of the Century
In 1989, with Shaw achieving some success with
Damn Yankees Styx reformed, bringing in
Glen Burtnik (in 1990) to take Shaw's
vacated position.
The new line-up released one album,
Edge of the Century, featuring the
Dennis DeYoung ballad "
Show
Me the Way", which received an additional boost just prior to
the first
Persian Gulf War. Some radio
stations edited the Top Three smash to include the voices of
children whose parents were deployed in Saudi Arabia between 1990
and 1991. This contributed to the song's longevity at
Adult Contemporary radio, where the song
also peaked at #3 and notably remained in the top 40 for an
impressive thirty-one weeks. With the huge success of Show Me The
Way, Styx joined a handful of musical acts to have top 10 singles
in 3 different decades and under 4 different presidential
administrations.
Burtnik's songwriting also helped buoy
Edge of the
Century, contributing to the hits "
Love at First Sight" (#25
Billboard Hot 100 Charts, #13 Adult Contemporary) and "
Love Is the Ritual" (#80 Billboard Hot
100, #9 Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks), as well as album tracks
"All In a Day's Work", "World Tonight" and the title track. On the
strength of the singles, particularly "Show Me the Way",
Edge
of the Century peaked at number sixty-three on the Billboard
album chart and was certified
Gold.
Styx toured across the U.S. in the spring and summer of 1991, but
despite the success of the album, a top 3 single and a top 25
single, the band was dropped after A&M Records was purchased by
PolyGram Records. A set of demos
internally titled "Son Of Edge" were completed and shopped to other
record labels. But with
Grunge now dominating
the rock press, video channels and airwaves, and with singles being
phased out, there was little interest from major record companies
and Styx disbanded once again by 1992. Portions of the "Son of
Edge" demos have resurfaced in various forms over the years in
Styx, DeYoung, and Burtnik anthologies.
In 1994, DeYoung recorded
10 on
Broadway, an album of showtunes. A single "On the Street
Where You Live" received limited airplay.
Reunion
The band reunited once again in 1995, with Tommy Shaw returning to
the fold, to re-record "Lady" for
Styx Greatest Hits. A tour was
mounted in 1996, but John Panozzo was unable to participate in the
tour due to declining health caused by problems with
alcohol, which claimed his life soon after.
The band continued with
Todd
Sucherman replacing Panozzo. The 1996 "Return to Paradise" tour
was also a success. They documented the reunion tour with a
two-disc live set, 1997's
Return to Paradise, which
featured three new studio tracks: "On My Way", "Paradise" (a soft
rock hit that also appears in another version on Dennis DeYoung's
Hunchback of Notre
Dame album) and "Dear John", a tribute to the late Styx
drummer John Panozzo that has become a cult favorite among Styx
fans.
Return to Paradise was a surprise hit in 1997,
achieving gold status, with the single "
Paradise" peaking at number
twenty-seven on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.
Return
to Paradise was the first gold album for Styx's new record
company, CMC.
Brave New World and split
Two years later, in 1999, the band released its first new studio
album in almost a decade:
Brave New World. The album
received a lukewarm reception, sold very slowly, and the single,
"
Everything Is Cool", failed to
chart.
Once again, during work on the album, personality conflicts drove
the band members apart. While Tommy Shaw and James Young's material
followed a hard rock vein, Dennis DeYoung's penchant for Broadway
styles resulted in dramatic differences in styles on
Brave New
World.
Arguments over which songs to release as singles, the album's
artwork, the track sequencing, the slow album sales, and the
omission of DeYoung's vocals and keyboards from many of the Shaw/JY
tracks fueled the fire. The band was further hindered by a viral
illness contracted by DeYoung which temporarily made his eyes
sensitive to light. DeYoung asked his bandmates to delay touring
but they refused and decided to go forward without him..
Chuck Panozzo was sidelined in 1998 after revealing to his
bandmates that he was gay and battling
HIV. His
public "coming out" occurred in 2001 at the annual
Human Rights Campaign banquet.
In 1999, DeYoung was permanently replaced by Canadian
Lawrence Gowan, though no official statement
regarding a firing or replacement had been made. As a result of the
replacement, DeYoung filed a lawsuit charging that the remaining
members of the band were using the Styx name without his consent,
and he in turn was eventually countersued by Shaw & JY for
using the billing of "Dennis DeYoung, the voice of Styx" in his
solo concerts. The suit was eventually settled with the agreement
that DeYoung could bill himself as "performing the music of Styx"
or "formerly of Styx", but not as "the voice of Styx", and Styx
continued on with Shaw & JY at the helm.
Cyclorama and beyond
With Chuck Panozzo focusing on his health concerns, Glen Burtnik
returned to fill Chuck's bass duties, with Chuck participating on a
part-time basis, sitting in as his health permitted.
Styx's new lineup released several live albums and released the
studio album
Cyclorama in
February, 2003, which reached #127 on the Billboard 200 album
charts failing to make much, if any, of an impact. Styx toured
extensively during this period and released additional live
albums.
Burtnik left Styx in 2003 and recorded a solo album,
Welcome to
Hollywood. He was replaced by
Ricky Phillips, formerly of
The Babys and
Bad
English.
On June 5, 2004, Styx participated in Eric Clapton's
Crossroads Guitar Festival
covering songs by
Jimi Hendrix,
B.B. King, and
Slim Harpo with
Jeff Baxter as a special guest
DeYoung continued his solo career by re-arranging and performing
his Styx hits with a symphony orchestra. In 2005, DeYoung released
a CD of re-recorded Styx hits from a solo concert with a symphony
orchestra (titled
The Music of
Styx - Live with Symphony Orchestra). The album also
contained three new DeYoung songs. DeYoung's CD became a modest hit
in Canada, selling 30,000 copies there. Burtnik now often appears
with DeYoung in his solo shows.
As of April 21, 2006, according to the
RIAA
which awards artists and groups gold/platinum status, Styx ranks
number 127 with 17.5 million records sold within the United States.
The blurb on Amazon.com about Chuck Panozzo's book "The Grand
Illusion: Love, Lies, and My Life with Styx" states that Styx has
sold over 54 million records.
On April 16, 2007,
Def Leppard announced
a 50-date 2007 tour, which included Styx and
Foreigner as supporting acts.
On October
16, 2007 Styx received the "Lifetime Achievement Award" from
IEBA (International Entertainment Buyers
Association) in Nashville, Tennessee
.
As of 2009, Styx was on tour with
REO
Speedwagon and
38 Special.
Styx and REO Speedwagon teamed up to record a single entitled
"
Can't Stop Rockin," released
April 23, 2009.
In the opening sequences of the April 2, 2009, episode of the CW
television show, "
Supernatural," Sam and Dean, posing
as FBI agents, introduced themselves as "agents Young and Shaw," an
apparent homage to the two Styx members.
Band members
- Current members
- James "J.Y."
Young – vocals, guitar, keyboard (1972–present)
- Tommy Shaw – vocals, guitar, talkbox (1976–1983, 1995–present)
- Todd Sucherman – drums, percussion, backing vocals
(1995–present)
- Lawrence Gowan – vocals,
keyboards, guitar (1999–present)
- Ricky Phillips – bass guitar, backing
vocals (2003–present)
Discography
Consecutive Multi-Platinum albums
From 1977 to 1981, Styx released four consecutive albums that have
been certified Multi-Platinum, for at least 2 million units sold
each, by the
RIAA:
The Grand Illusion,
Pieces of Eight,
Cornerstone, and
Paradise Theatre.
A longstanding, oft-repeated claim in the music industry and the
mainstream press is that Styx were the first band to release four
consecutive
Triple-Platinum albums, signifying at least 3
million units sold. During the period when these albums charted,
the RIAA's only certifications were for Gold (500,000 units sold)
and Platinum (1 million). Multi-Platinum awards were introduced in
late October 1984. Following this development, record companies
submitted their most popular artists' sales records to accountants
in order to achieve the new thresholds.Styx did score three
Triple-Platinum albums—
Paradise Theater,
Pieces of
Eight and
The Grand Illusion—and one Double-Platinum
album—
Cornerstone—on the same date, November 14, 1984.
Complete and detailed historical sales figures for record albums
are not readily available to the public, but the certifications,
which can be found at the RIAA site, show that the feat the band
actually achieved was being the first group to be awarded four
consecutive Multi-Platinum albums with three of those ranking
better than Double Platinum. Styx achieved another Double-Platinum
album—
Greatest Hits (Volume I)—on August 23, 2005.
Volunteers For America
Volunteers For America was a benefit concert held on October 20, in Atlanta, Georgia
and October 21, 2001 at the Smirnoff Music Center
, Dallas,
Texas
. The concerts were held in tribute to the
victims of the
September 11,
2001 attacks. Styx band members,
Tommy
Shaw,
James
Young along with others put the benefit concert together in a
short period of time. The Concert was in Atlanta Georgia on October
20, and moved over night to Dallas, Texas for the October 21st
show. Proceeds from the concerts went to the families of firemen
killed in the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
See also
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