It’s interesting to think about what an American phenomenon Styx have been since they first broke into the national consciousness in the late 1970s.
There’s no real shortage of bands from that era, but it’s difficult to understand what keeps these Chicago-based rockers in such demand that they consistently play large auditoriums while many of the bands that started around the same time are relegated to small, venues off the beaten path.
“We ask ourselves that question quite often,” Lawrence Gowan said, laughing. Gowan is the band’s newest member, who joined about a decade ago. “We come up with various hypotheses and various notions, all of which make sense. I would point to the number of cultural references to Styx in [television shows] such as ‘South Park’ and ‘The Simpsons.’ … [When that happens] people develop a keen interest in what a band is doing.”
Fans would likely instead point to the band’s classic hits, including “Lady,” “Too Much Time on My Hands” and “Renegade,” and its four consecutive multiplatinum albums. Whatever the answer, Styx’s music is clearly here to stay, as evinced by the 100-plus shows a year the band still play.
Gowan laughs about what he and his bandmates call “an embarrassment of riches” — which of course is their catalog. Yet he hastens to add that the members are very different people than they were when they first wrote and recorded their classic songs.
“The lifeblood of the band is to keep coming up with new things, and pull fans into the present day,” he said. “There is so much Styx music from the past that people are still enamored with. We don’t put the same kind of expectations on the music [we create] now. We have changed as people and we are trying to reflect that as musicians. … That’s part of extending the band’s reach.”
Anyone who thinks that’s unimportant need only look at the dozens of classic bands that haven’t changed their stage personas for years, if not decades. The new music the band has added — whether as solo artists or as a group — helps them keep the spirit of their older music alive.
“I’m a very fortunate person,” he said. “I’m in a band with five other people who are not just going through the motions. … We play every song thinking that we want to play it better than it was ever played before. It’s like an actor who has a long-term role. He can find new layers of meaning and certain nuances the more he plays it. That’s where we have arrived.”
