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DENNIS DeYOUNG
The Heart And Soul Of STYX Steps Out!
by Tom Lounges
Dennis DeYoung is a man whose life is in a complete
state of flux, both
on a personal and professional level.
While at his home in suburban Frankfort to do the
photos for this
feature, we found Dennis and his lovely wife Suzanne knee deep in
cardboard
boxes. Only his grand piano remained undisturbed as the couple
attempted to
pack up more than 20 years of memories to take to a new residence.
"I really hate this. I really, hate moving, but
sometimes making a change
can be a good thing," said DeYoung.
He knows about change, because it's something that he has
seen a lot of
over the years. Turning 53 this month (Feb. 18), the Earl of
Roseland is no
longer the shaggy-haired rock rebel he was back in 1963, when he assembled
his first band.
While traveling over the platinum rainbow these many years,
DeYoung has
proudly watched his children - CarrieAnn and Matthew - grow to adulthood
and
establish their own respective entertainment companies. After
suffering the
loss of his loving father, Maurice, he endured a debilitating illness that
sent his life into a virtual tailspin.
Then came the biggest and hardest change of all, watching his
beloved band
of 30 years proceed without him.
DeYoung, the heart and soul of STYX, recently found himself
in the
unenviable position of being ousted from the group that he took from a
small
garage in suburban Roseland to global stardom.
When Tommy Shaw and James JY Young took the Styx name on the
road without
Dennis DeYoung and Chuck Panozzo, the fans clearly knew that the rumors
about
there being trouble in paradise were all too true.
With their favorite band split into two camps, Styx
fans are left
wondering if there is even a future for the group U.S. teens once voted in
a
1979 Gallup Poll as "America's Most Popular Rock Band".
Perhaps the grand
illusion is over.
Dennis DeYoung spoke candidly with Midwest Beat Magazine on
what's up with
Styx and about how he has orchestrated a new musical path to travel.
A BRIEF HISTORY...
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Incessant night club touring from
1970-75 pushed a locally recorded
single, "Lady", into the national Top 5. A string
of hit singles and
high-charting albums followed, making Styx an FM radio staple and
concert
favorite.
Despite very little media support, Styx became one of
the biggest selling
rock bands in the world from the late '70s through the mid-'80s.
They called
it quits in 1984, while still at the top of the heap.
When they briefly reformed in 1990 with a modified
line up, Styx picked up
where they had left off, putting a Top 5 song on the singles chart
("Show Me
The Way") and adding another gold album plaque to their walls
(Edge Of The
Century).
When fate put the original line-up back together in
1995 to work on a
greatest hits compilation, the result was in a reunion tour
lasting two years
(1996-97) and selling out arenas. |
More popular than ever, Styx music can now be heard on the
radio, in major
motion pictures, on television commercials and even from the mouths of
cartoon characters.
STYX RESURGENCE...
The world was their musical oyster! Styx had just come
off of a
successful two-year reunion tour, that not only managed to survive the
death
of drummer John Panozzo, but also managed to set attendance records at
nearly
every venue they played.
"In '96 and '97 when people saw those (Styx)
shows, they saw the best
fucking band of its generation that is still on a stage," said
DeYoung. "I
really believe that! Nobody from our generation is better than us.
Nobody!
We proved it with that tour."
There is irony in that the label which had dropped them years
earlier, A&M
Records, was the impetus in the group's ultimate reformation.
"A&M was
putting together a Styx greatest hits package and couldn't get the rights
to
use 'Lady' (from Wooden Nickel)," said DeYoung. "Because
it wouldn't have
been a real greatest hits album if the song that started it all for us
were
not on it, everyone got together in my home studio and we re-recorded the
song for that album."
DeYoung recalled how the rehearsal and recording sessions
turned into
impromptu jams. "We pulled out old songs like 'Castle Walls'
and 'Boat On
The River' and we realized how much fun we were having doing those songs
and
how good we still sounded," he said.
With Tommy Shaw free of his Damn Yankees commitments, plans
were made to
do a few special reunion dates. This quickly escalated and for two years,
Styx was living large on the road. Their shows were consistently listed in
such trade publications as PollStar as being among the nation's top
grossing
concert events.
Having proven their moxy at the gate, CMC International
signed Styx to
their first record deal in over six years. The label released the
double-live, Return To Paradise, to commemorate the landmark tour and it
became CMC's first ever gold album. A home video companion to Return
To
Paradise soon followed and likewise sold very well.
BACK ON TOP...
Having Hollywood elite like Adam Sandler and Matt Stone
numbered among the
thousands of fans who rediscovered Styx on their '96-'97 tours, helped
give
the group their highest media profile since they had managed to land a
string
of five platinum-selling albums on the charts in the mid '80s.
Sandler inserted references to Styx into the storyline of his
hit film
"Big Daddy" and three of their songs ("Babe",
"Best of Times" and "Blue
Collar Man") were worked prominently into the soundtrack.
Stone introduced Styx to a new generation via his quirky
animated TV hit,
"South Park". He called and petitioned DeYoung for the
honor of having his
Cartman character abuse the song, "Come Sail Away", in an
episode titled,
"Cartman's Mom is Still a Slut!" The version was such a
hit with "South
Park" viewers that Cartman recorded a full six-minute duet of the
song with
Isaac Hayes on the Chef Aid novelty CD.
"The next thing I knew, I was getting calls from all
over," said DeYoung.
"There's a rap version of 'Babe' in Europe by a group called Flair. A
boy
vocal group did 'Babe' as a single last year ago and had a top five hit
with
it in Germany or Holland. And there's dance versions in Europe of 'Mr.
Roboto' and 'Come Sail Away' by dance club artists."
The final indication that Styx were back on the industry
"it" list, came
when Volkswagon dropped big dollars to license "Mr. Roboto" for
a trendy new
television commercial showing two Euro-studs roaring around town while
singing along with the song.
"Over the years, I've had several requests to use my
music in
commercials," said DeYoung. "In fact, a year prior to
Volkswagon contacting
me, a major oil company had come to me about using 'Babe' in a commercial,
but it seemed non-sequaited to me so I passed. But when Volkswagon
sent me
the story board for the V.W. commercial, I laughed my ass off, so I said -
'Yeah, I gotta do this one!'"
That 60-second TV spot has lined the Styx coffers
considerably. "That
commercial was one of the best business decisions I ever made," he
said.
"Because a week after the commercial started airing, the catalog
sales (of
1983's Kilroy Was Here) doubled and it has stayed that way now for the
last
few months."
The marketing coup of being in a hit film, a hit TV show and
a hit
commercial - although strictly by happenstance - landed Styx on
Entertainment
Weekly's "1999 Hot Band List".
"Why do things happen the way they do? I
don't know and I've given up
trying to figure it out," said DeYoung. "Let me tell you a story
that to this
day confuses me. In 1991, after we got back together and did the
Edge of The
Century record with Glen Burtnik, Styx had the number three single in the
country with the song, 'Show Me The Way.' That album went gold and
had a hit
single, but right after that we couldn't get a record deal to save our
lives.
Nobody would touch us. I don't know why that happened then and I
don't know
why the sudden focus on Styx happened now. It just did."
A TALE OF TWO CITIES...
With their irons burning red hot in the fire, CMC
International and Styx
began planning for the band's first new studio album. DeYoung had promised
Styx fans such an album from the stage during their Return To Paradise
tour.
In the fall of '97, when the tour had run it's course, it became time to
deliver the goods and honor that promise.
There was a real buzz about the album, more
than on any previous Styx
release. Fan anticipation was tremendous, for it would be the first studio
album to reunite the talented triumvirate - DeYoung, Shaw and Young -
since
1983's multi-platinum, Kilroy Was Here. Everyone wanted to hear what they
would create.
Few were as sorely disappointed in that album upon its
release than
DeYoung himself. At it's best, Brave New World is an unfocused mish-mash
with
a few brilliant moments. While a few songs may stand strong on their
own,
the album as a whole sounds uneven and fragmented. This is most likely due
to
having way too many hands in the production pot.
Brave New World is very much a tale of two cities.
DeYoung produced his
five songs here in Chicago, while Shaw and Young twisted knobs for their
tracks in Los Angeles with the help of Damn Yankees producer, Ron Nevison.
The lush harmonies inherent to older Styx recordings
are watered down and
weak-kneed. The album lacks the cohesiveness that in the past has
enabled a
Styx album flow well, despite its many styles and textures. Without
that
special 'glue' holding the tracks together, Brave New World sounds like a
haphazard collection of left overs rather than a thought-out and carefully
assembled project.
"All I can say about it (Brave
New World), is that it's an album of
missed opportunities," said DeYoung. "It could have and
would have been a
great Styx record, but I was shut out of everything. I was not
allowed any
input at all into the final tracks, the sequencing, or the album
artwork."
Touching upon the bland design on the album makes DeYoung livid.
"Isn't that
just about the ugliest album you have ever seen?," he asks.
"I don't even
want to go there. Don't get me started on the album's artwork."
DeYoung likewise divorces himself from much of the project.
"All I can
say, is that if you don't like my five songs, than blame me. But
everything
else on that record I really had no involvement with," he said.
"All the
performances you hear on the songs that JY and Tommy did, I heard for the
very first time about two weeks before the record came out. That's
why I
insisted that asterisks be placed in the production credits on the songs I
did, because I had absolutely nothing to do with any of their songs and I
wanted the fans to know that."
While the recording experience for Brave New World ended
badly, it began
rather routinely in August of 1998. "I was really ill at the
time, so we
worked in the studio at my house. That way, I figured if I started to feel
bad, I could go upstairs and lay down, which I did many times,"
recalled
DeYoung. "Tommy had done some work out in California, but
mostly he was
working here with us and I thought that things were going
swimmingly."
When the band's manager laid out projections for
a fall tour, DeYoung
said he couldn't commit to a tour at that time because of his illness. He
asked to delay plans until the album was done and he could seek treatment
at
Mayo Clinic.
"I'm not a stupid guy. With all the good things that
were happening to
Styx, I knew it would be a good thing for us to tour, but at the time I
was
feeling so fatigued that I couldn't even imagine driving to the airport,
let
alone doing it fifty or sixty times," he said.
"You have to understand, that I was suffering from
this chronic fatigue
and I just felt horrible all the time," he explained. "I
had these terrible
flu-like symptoms and nobody could tell me what was wrong. I went to
sixteen
different doctors and finally found out it was a rare viral thing that had
actually landed in the nervous system of my face, which made me extremely
sensitive to light. Light would trigger the symptoms. When it happens my
jaw
hurts, my face swells up and gets hot, my eyes get all blood shot and I
feel
completely exhausted. For a year and nine months it was an insane
way to
live and it's almost ruined my life."
When DeYoung asked the band to hold back on the tour plans,
the group
temperament abruptly changed. Shaw returned to California and recording
came
to a standstill.
"Tommy called a few weeks later and said - 'If you're
not going to commit
to the tour, then it's not in my best interest to complete this
album!',"
revealed DeYoung. "Two days later, JY called and said - 'Look,
we really
want to go on this tour, we feel it is important. We'd like you to
come with
us, but if you are not going, we're going without you!'"
DeYoung phoned CMC's president to apprise him of the
situation. "I didn't
want him to think that work on the album had stopped because I was ill,
because that was not true. I wanted to finish the album. I even
wanted to do
the tour, but I was sick and I wanted them to give me some more time to
recover before committing to a tour."
When the label learned that recording on Brave New World had
halted, their
lawyers fired off letters to all parties involved, saying that CMC
expected
the group to honor their contract and complete the project on schedule.
Shaw and Young finished their tracks in California by
themselves and
DeYoung did the same in Chicago. "That's not the way a Styx album is
made,"
said DeYoung. "I'm the producer of Styx albums, I always have
been. This
time they went off and did what they wanted to do."
TWO FORKS IN THE RIVER...
If things were heated during the recording process, the
fire got turned
way up once the album hit the streets.
Shaw and Young decided to live up to their phone threats and
began to
parade the Styx name around the country with a little known Canadian
singer
named Lawrence Gowan filling in for DeYoung.
Also missing from the line-up was bassist Chuck Panozzo, who
has kept a
low profile throughout the whole brouhaha. Glen Burtnik, who replaced Shaw
on
the band's Edge of The Century album and tour, has stepped in for Panozzo,
who DeYoung says "retired" from the group last January.
"Can you imagine how devastated I was when they did this
tour?" asks
DeYoung. "Then Tommy was out doing interviews and saying that
this was the
band's 'new line up'. C'mon, I was sick and that was the only reason
I was
not out on the road with them and they knew that."
DeYoung said the original tour pitched by management had not
been
scheduled to begin until late September and that he told Shaw and Young
that
he most likely would be up to touring by fall. But, they
jump-started the
tour with the revamped line up in July.
When DeYoung asked to join up with them for the fall
leg of the tour as
planned, his offer was declined in a letter from their attorney.
"They won't
even talk to me," he said. "We haven't spoken since they
started the tour
except through our attorneys. They wrote back through their attorney
that my
offer to be involved in the fall tour was 'outrageous and unacceptable at
this late date'. But the fall tour had not even been planned yet."
DeYoung said that he had hoped things would have worked out
and that he
always believed that Styx was a great band because of the sum of it's
parts.
"I have shut my mouth for months through all of this,
because the last
thing I want to do is to say something negative about Styx. But to watch
what
has happened with the band is, honest to God, like stabbing me in the
heart."
ORCHESTRATING A RETURN...
While he remains sorely troubled by the whole Styx debacle
and the legal
snafus that have arisen between he and his former band mates, DeYoung says
that he has been too damn busy these last few months to dwell upon it.
"It's certainly not a done deal," he says of Styx.
"There's a lot that
needs to be resolved and confronted, but for right now I have decided to
focus on something positive for myself. I am feeling so much better
these
days, that I want to go out and see the fans and play music. So
that's what
I'm going to do."
That old adage of - "when a door closes, a window
opens" - has proved
true for DeYoung.
When the door to his involvement in Styx was abruptly slammed
in his face
by Shaw and Young this past summer, Tim Orchard who runs the Rosemont
Theatre
saw a window of opportunity open. He called up his old friend and
pitched
Dennis on the idea of performing selections from the DeYoung songbook with
orchestra accompaniment.
Oddly enough, DeYoung had just finished up work on a very
similar project
with noted film composer Alan Silvestri. The two re-orchestrated,
re-arranged and re-recorded DeYoung's "The Grand Illusion", with
a full
symphony orchestra, for use in the new IMAX documentary, Siegfried and
Roy:
The Magic Box.
"Tim wasn't even aware that I had just done a new
version of 'Grand
Illusion' with an orchestra when he approached me with his idea. He got
the
idea when the Moody Blues sold out three nights playing with a symphony.
He
was trying to think of another artist he could do something like that
with,
when 'Suite Madame Blue' came on (the radio)."
Three months later, Orchard's idea has reached fruition. On
February 12,
DeYoung will step on stage at the Rosemont Theatre, backed by a snappy
little
four piece rock band that he has assembled just for the occasion.
"I've got Tommy Dziallo who played guitar on all my solo
stuff," said
DeYoung. "I've also got Kyle Woodring on drums, Jeff Jacobs on
keyboards and
Hank Horton (of the James Young Group) playing bass."
The band will be joined on stage by a 50-piece orchestra,
conducted by
Arnie Roth of Mannheim Steamroller fame. Together they will tackle a
repertoire of twenty DeYoung compositions.
"We will be doing ten of my Styx songs that lend
themselves to
orchestration and we will be doing ten more songs pulled from my Broadway
album, my three solo albums and my musical, 'The Hunchback'," said
DeYoung.
"There will also be a special segment from 'The
Hunchback' where Dawn
Marie, the girl who sang on that CD, will join me on stage for a
song," he
added. "And I just found out that Mike Eldred, the fellow who
played
Quasimodo for me in our Nashville production will be there with us too.
Mike
is currently starring in the musical, 'The Civil War', that is coming to
Chicago. He is taking off from show to come sing with us that night."
Among the Styx songs to be performed in an orchestrated
fashion, are
"Lady", "Lorelei", "Don't Let It End",
"The Grand Illusion", "The Best Of
Times", "Come Sail Away", and "Mr. Roboto".
"We have arranged the show so that we will actually be
weaving classical
pieces in with the Styx songs," he explained. "The
symphony will play a
classical piece that will lead into a Styx song. Then it they will segue
back
into a classical piece and into another Styx song. I wanted to make
this
show more than just us playing some songs and having some string parts
added.
I wanted to make this a real blending of classical music and rock, a
real
musical adventure for both me and for the fans who come to see it."
DON'T LET IT END...
While the first show of this exciting new project has yet to
be performed,
Tim Orchard is already wooing the artist on the idea of booking a
20-city
tour, to be billed as something like "A Musical Evening With..."
"We are doing really well in advance ticket sales and
the radio
commercials only started hitting this week," he said.
"Tickets are $35, $50
and $75, so it is a pretty big ticket show. I hear that we
have already
sold almost 3,000 seats," said DeYoung, "and the room seats
4,000".
While he will not comment on whether he will take this
show on the road,
there's no hiding that DeYoung is excited about getting back up on a
concert
stage. When he steps out into the spotlight on February 12, it
will mark
the first time that DeYoung has performed a full concert since his illness
sidelined him just after Styx completed their 1997 Return To Paradise
tour.
"You think I haven't missed it? You think I'm not
itchin' to get back out
there and sing those songs," he asked. "You bet your ass I
am! I can't wait
for this."
DEAR ABBEY...
With all the hubbub about DeYoung's new show and his
successful
collaboration with Alan Silvestri on "The Grand Illusion", it
comes as no
surprise that he may record a full album of his music with a symphony.
"There's been some interest in having me record a full
studio album of the
kind of show that we are going to be doing," he said. "It looks
like if we do
this thing, that I will be doing it with The London Symphony Orchestra
over
in England at Abbey Road (Studio)."
As to if such an adventurous endeavor would end up at
MCA/Universal,
DeYoung would not fathom a guess. "It's not even a for sure
thing yet," he
said. "But if it happens, I know we would talk to a couple of
different
people, because I do not have any ties (to labels) right now."
To use the
baseball jargon that DeYoung loves, he proudly declares himself as
"a free
agent."
BACK TO THE '80s...
While fans wait for that album, they can enjoy his old '80s
hits on CD for
the first time.
DeYoung is thrilled at the timing of MCA/Universal in
its release of
Dennis DeYoung: The Ultimate Collection, a "best of" compilation
of his
mid-'80s solo work. MCA's new reissue imprint, Hip-O Records,
shipped the
15-song set nationwide just before Christmas.
The material is drawn from a trio of solo albums - Desert
Moon (1984),
Back To The World (1986) and Boomchild (1988) - and includes an array of
songs that the public was robbed of, when shifting record company politics
resulted in the titles being dropped.
"There were some great songs on those albums and I'm happy
people have the
chance to hear them again," said DeYoung. "Like
anything I've put my name
on, I put a lot of care into all those albums. You remember, Tom,
back when
we did the interview for the Boomchild album, how proud I was of it. When
they fell into the cracks because of idiots in suits, I was upset."
Thanks to the acquisition of the A&M catalog by
MCA/Universal, old chart
hits like "Desert Moon", "This Is The Time" and
"Call Me" can be heard again.
More importantly, fans can again hear some of DeYoung's most
inspired
songs, which for too long had been lost. Among them - his salute to
Viet Nam
vets ("Black Wall"); his reflection on life through the eyes of
an aging baby
boomer ("Boomchild"); and his touching tribute to the honor and
work ethic of
America's blue collar workers ("Harry's Hands").
The only brand new track on the album is the orchestrated
version of "The
Grand Illusion", DeYoung cut this summer for the Siegfried and Roy:
The Magic
Box film.
"Two of my solo albums were done for A&M Records,
which made sense at the
time, because that was the label Styx was on," DeYoung said, on how
this new
collection came about. "The third one, Boomchild, was on MCA.
With the
merger that has taken place, they are now all the same record company. One
day, Bill Levenson, who handles the reissue and catalog stuff, noticed
that a
copy my Desert Moon CD was selling for $300 on E-Bay and it got him
thinking."
That Desert Moon was released in 1984, when CDs were still
considered the
cutting edge of recording technology, meant that only about five thousand
copies were manufactured on the new CD format. Most albums at that time
were
still being pressed up as vinyl records.
"When I left A&M is wasn't amicable, so they just
dropped my catalog
completely," said DeYoung. "Even though the album did very
well and had a
Top 10 hit single, it disappeared from the shelves. The guy in charge of
A&M
for several years didn't see the value of its catalog, can you believe
that?
Styx had a tough time with him, as did Sting, because he just didn't care
about the older stuff."
Levenson came aboard when A&M was bought out and
instantly recognized the
audio gold mine that had been allowed to collect dust all those years.
"When Bill saw what was there, he put together Hip-O
Records, a custom
label for MCA, so that he could get this great music back out to the
public,"
said DeYoung. "Finally, someone with intelligence was in charge
over there.
I remember being impressed that they wanted to do the albums the right way
and have the artists involved."
DeYoung picked each of the tracks which eventually made it to
The Ultimate
Collection and personally wrote a track by track commentary about each
song
for the 12-page booklet that accompanies the music.
"Man, I've gotta tell you...it was a lot of fun going
back to those songs
and working with them again. I was involved in the whole
re-mastering
process on the album, so I dug up my old vinyl albums and found a stereo
store that still sold turntables. I sat and listened to those old
albums
over and over, because I wanted to hear how I had originally intended them
to
sound. I am very happy with the way the Hip-O album turned out. We
put a lot
of effort into putting it together. I think it is something that the
fans
who like my music will really enjoy."
STILL HAS A HUNCH...
Even with everything else on his plate, DeYoung has a hunch
that he will
soon get his stage musical, "The Hunchback", back onto the hard
wood of a
theatre stage.
"I absolutely love that project. If there is
one thing that I have done
in my career other than Styx that I am ultimately proud of, it would be
(creating) 'The Hunchback'," he declared.
"This thing would have been done a long time ago, but I
never expected
that Styx would have a resurgence like it did. I started 'The
Hunchback' and
then it got put on hold for two years because of the Styx tours and the
album," he explained.
"It wasn't until the fall of '97 that I had a chance to
get back to it,
but then my father passed away and I got this horrendous illness that
knocked
the crap out of me for almost two years," he added. "So
once again all work
had stopped on it. Now that I'm feeling better, I'm back to work on
it."
"We're trying to get the next production up for the 2000
season. We've had
a couple of offers, but they were based on me actually being in the
production and I really don't want to be in it, at least not right now.
There is so much work to be done as an author, that I would rather
concentrate on that than being an actor."
As if he did not already have his hands full, DeYoung
is in the process
of getting the rights to a classic old film and adapting it into a stage
musical. "I can't say much about that, because a lot of things
are pending,"
he said. "But when it happens it is going to be a really neat project
to work
on."
GOODBYE TO ROSELAND...
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With the "new" Styx road show having done less than
a brisk business at
the box-office (most shows found the group playing to half capacity
houses)
and DeYoung's solo efforts looking so promising, maybe the time has come
for
him to close the chapter on the part of his life that roared out of
Roseland. |
"In the end, what really matters the most is the work we
did and the music
we made together," reflected DeYoung. "My biggest concern
is that all of
this (disagreement between members) not hurt the name of Styx and what we
have done together over the years as a band."
As they did in 1984, maybe they should walk away while on top
of the heap
and leave the legacy intact.
Perhaps all the members of Styx would do well to reflect on
the words to
"Goodbye Roseland". In light of what's gone on, the
DeYoung-penned song
eerily closes out Brave New World rather prophetically.
"And through the good times and bad times/We shared the
love of a life
time/Oh what a shame and a damn crime for it all to end/How I wish I could
stay/To live in the memory of your sweet sweet day/But every road that we
travel, has an end/And so the time now has come to say/Farewell old
friend."
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