JY - Fame & Fortune
Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 10:09 amFame & Fortune: James Young
Styx guitarist keeps his investments FDIC insured
By Larry Getlen • Bankrate.com
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/invest ... 0913b1.asp
The band Styx amassed an impressive array of hit singles and albums during the 1970s and early 1980s. From 1972 to 1983 they had 19 top-100 singles; seven of them in the top 10, including "Lady" in 1974, and "Renegade" in 1978. "Babe" was a No. 1 hit in 1978. They have earned four multi-platinum albums, two platinum and seven gold.
So, it's not surprising that when they broke up in 1984, the breakup would not hold. They reunited for a new album in 1990, spawned a top-10 hit with "Show Me the Way," parted ways once more, and then came together again in 1996. Since then, the band that gave us such guilty pleasures as "Mr. Roboto" in 1983 and the sci-fi rock classic "Come Sail Away" in 1977 has played more than 100 shows a year, and this year had their highest-charting album since the early '90s with "Big Bang Theory," a covers album that includes their versions of The Beatles "I Am The Walrus" and Jimi Hendrix's "Manic Depression."
James Young has been the band's guitarist from the very beginning and is quick to point out that at the time of this interview, it was exactly 33 1/3 years since they signed their first record contract, a number with significance to anyone who listened to music around the time of Styx's heyday. Young has been there for the band's high points, such as scoring three triple-platinum albums in four years, with "The Grand Illusion," "Pieces of Eight" and "Paradise Theater" from 1977 to 1981, and the low points, including the death of drummer John Panozzo in 1996 after a long battle with alcoholism.
Out on tour in support of "Big Bang Theory," Young took time out to talk with Bankrate about the new record and how he has handled his finances within the ups and downs of his 33 1/3-year career.
Bankrate: Tell me about the new album.
James Young: We were invited to participate in the Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas. Since we had recently performed there, we changed our set around to play some cover music. Tommy Shaw did "The Thrill is Gone," I did a Hendrix thing, and our keyboard player did "I Am the Walrus." "Walrus" got huge response, so we kept it in our set. In August, we played it in Chicago and a program director heard us and said, "Give me a copy and I'll put it on the air." We've battled to get airplay on our last few albums, so for someone to say that was a delightful shock. So our record company decided to take advantage of this opportunity that fell from the sky and put together a full album. We didn't have original material ready to go, so the suggestion was: Take songs that had a profound influence on you, and put your own spin on it.
Bankrate: How has it sold?
James Young: It sold 19,000 copies the first week, which put us at No. 46 on Billboard's Top 200, the highest chart position we've had since 1991. It continues to sell through about 3,000 to 4,000 a week.
Bankrate: So how much has it sold up until now?
James Young: We're between 40,000 and 50,000 since the May 10 release, and it's selling constantly.
Bankrate: I talk to so many musicians who have record company and management horror stories. How have your experiences with the business end of the music business been over the years?
James Young: I think Styx is a little more sophisticated than some of the other bands. Four out of five of us are college graduates, we come from a big city, and I have a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. Plus, most of my friends became attorneys, so we had some pretty good advice and understood the revenue streams that are hidden from some artists to this day or commandeered by people.
Bankrate: Such as?
James Young: Publishing royalties, for one. There's a Kansas song called "Dust in the Wind" that's being used now for a car commercial. I recall sitting there the year that song was released after a show we played with Kansas. I asked, "Who wrote this song, who wrote that song," and Kerry Livgren kept raising his hand. I said, "You must be enjoying some nice publishing royalties," and he said, "What do you mean?"
Bankrate: He doesn't own the publishing to "Dust in the Wind?"
James Young: I don't know further details, but at that point he hadn't been given nickel one toward any of the music he had written.
Bankrate: So you haven't had that problem.
James Young: It's a wacky business, populated by hustlers. People say promoters have to bend the rules to stay in business, because this is such a tough business. But I look at Enron and WorldCom, and what publicly traded companies have done to the abuse of their shareholders and employees, and the music business actually seems pretty ethical.
Bankrate: When you started out, you were met with phenomenal success. Did you build a financial base for yourself, or did the money get spent on the rock-star lifestyle?
James Young: The band remained based in Chicago, which kept us all sane. Three of us were married with the fourth due to be married, so we had more of a stable life. Plus, based in the Midwest, the temptations weren't quite the same. We had a great manager named Derek Sutton and a great business manager named Bernie Gudvi, who is still the business manager for Jackson Browne, Tom Petty and a host of others, and they set up a pension plan for us. It was a defined contribution plan. They continued to invest that money for us. We all had a sizeable chunk of change when we went our separate ways in 1984, and they decided to divide it up and put it into individual rollover IRAs, which then became self-directed to us each month.
Bankrate: Over the years, how have you invested your money?
James Young: Derek Sutton was a very conservative investment mind, and he was my tutor on a lot of these things. I've dabbled in real estate investment, although I had some negative investments in Hawaiian real estate. I have some equity investment and was fortunate enough to have given money to some investment guys out of New York that turned into a wonderful windfall for me. They put together deals, in the late '80s and early '90, that I would get a small piece of because I had been there from the start. There was one business which recently had a very nice run up from under a dollar to four bucks, just in the last year or two. They put me in it back in the late '80s, and it's been a wonderful thing.
Bankrate: With touring, new records, royalties on old records, what is your main source of income now?
James Young: Touring revenue is the biggest chunk of revenue we have. We've done around 100 shows a year, since the middle of 1999. And our catalog continues to sell.
Bankrate: Do you still get significant royalties?
James Young: Our catalog continues to sell in an amazing way.
Bankrate: What advice would you give to a young musician starting out in the business, as far as handling the business end of things?
James Young: I don't know. It's tough. I've talked about some big successes here, but as an investor, in my pension plan, I am probably 90 percent in FDIC-insured certificates of deposit. And, something most people don't know about is they have these long-dated callable CDs which still yield way above the 30-year Treasury mark. That, to me, is a big investment vehicle.
Even the people in my local bank were unaware that these vehicles existed.
I do that through Schwab, and I invested all my own money from my rollover IRA. So as an investor, I go very conservative. I figure that even though we have a country with an incredible trade deficit, and financial deficit, they can print that money for me no matter what happens.
Also, it's very important to be with the right people. I read an article in Reader's Digest about luck. It said you make your own luck by placing yourself in the path of opportunity. If you sit home and make records and send them out to people who've never met you, and you haven't created any relationships or any basis for someone to want to give you the benefit of the doubt, you'll never be given the chance to do something.
Styx guitarist keeps his investments FDIC insured
By Larry Getlen • Bankrate.com
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/invest ... 0913b1.asp
The band Styx amassed an impressive array of hit singles and albums during the 1970s and early 1980s. From 1972 to 1983 they had 19 top-100 singles; seven of them in the top 10, including "Lady" in 1974, and "Renegade" in 1978. "Babe" was a No. 1 hit in 1978. They have earned four multi-platinum albums, two platinum and seven gold.
So, it's not surprising that when they broke up in 1984, the breakup would not hold. They reunited for a new album in 1990, spawned a top-10 hit with "Show Me the Way," parted ways once more, and then came together again in 1996. Since then, the band that gave us such guilty pleasures as "Mr. Roboto" in 1983 and the sci-fi rock classic "Come Sail Away" in 1977 has played more than 100 shows a year, and this year had their highest-charting album since the early '90s with "Big Bang Theory," a covers album that includes their versions of The Beatles "I Am The Walrus" and Jimi Hendrix's "Manic Depression."
James Young has been the band's guitarist from the very beginning and is quick to point out that at the time of this interview, it was exactly 33 1/3 years since they signed their first record contract, a number with significance to anyone who listened to music around the time of Styx's heyday. Young has been there for the band's high points, such as scoring three triple-platinum albums in four years, with "The Grand Illusion," "Pieces of Eight" and "Paradise Theater" from 1977 to 1981, and the low points, including the death of drummer John Panozzo in 1996 after a long battle with alcoholism.
Out on tour in support of "Big Bang Theory," Young took time out to talk with Bankrate about the new record and how he has handled his finances within the ups and downs of his 33 1/3-year career.
Bankrate: Tell me about the new album.
James Young: We were invited to participate in the Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas. Since we had recently performed there, we changed our set around to play some cover music. Tommy Shaw did "The Thrill is Gone," I did a Hendrix thing, and our keyboard player did "I Am the Walrus." "Walrus" got huge response, so we kept it in our set. In August, we played it in Chicago and a program director heard us and said, "Give me a copy and I'll put it on the air." We've battled to get airplay on our last few albums, so for someone to say that was a delightful shock. So our record company decided to take advantage of this opportunity that fell from the sky and put together a full album. We didn't have original material ready to go, so the suggestion was: Take songs that had a profound influence on you, and put your own spin on it.
Bankrate: How has it sold?
James Young: It sold 19,000 copies the first week, which put us at No. 46 on Billboard's Top 200, the highest chart position we've had since 1991. It continues to sell through about 3,000 to 4,000 a week.
Bankrate: So how much has it sold up until now?
James Young: We're between 40,000 and 50,000 since the May 10 release, and it's selling constantly.
Bankrate: I talk to so many musicians who have record company and management horror stories. How have your experiences with the business end of the music business been over the years?
James Young: I think Styx is a little more sophisticated than some of the other bands. Four out of five of us are college graduates, we come from a big city, and I have a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. Plus, most of my friends became attorneys, so we had some pretty good advice and understood the revenue streams that are hidden from some artists to this day or commandeered by people.
Bankrate: Such as?
James Young: Publishing royalties, for one. There's a Kansas song called "Dust in the Wind" that's being used now for a car commercial. I recall sitting there the year that song was released after a show we played with Kansas. I asked, "Who wrote this song, who wrote that song," and Kerry Livgren kept raising his hand. I said, "You must be enjoying some nice publishing royalties," and he said, "What do you mean?"
Bankrate: He doesn't own the publishing to "Dust in the Wind?"
James Young: I don't know further details, but at that point he hadn't been given nickel one toward any of the music he had written.
Bankrate: So you haven't had that problem.
James Young: It's a wacky business, populated by hustlers. People say promoters have to bend the rules to stay in business, because this is such a tough business. But I look at Enron and WorldCom, and what publicly traded companies have done to the abuse of their shareholders and employees, and the music business actually seems pretty ethical.
Bankrate: When you started out, you were met with phenomenal success. Did you build a financial base for yourself, or did the money get spent on the rock-star lifestyle?
James Young: The band remained based in Chicago, which kept us all sane. Three of us were married with the fourth due to be married, so we had more of a stable life. Plus, based in the Midwest, the temptations weren't quite the same. We had a great manager named Derek Sutton and a great business manager named Bernie Gudvi, who is still the business manager for Jackson Browne, Tom Petty and a host of others, and they set up a pension plan for us. It was a defined contribution plan. They continued to invest that money for us. We all had a sizeable chunk of change when we went our separate ways in 1984, and they decided to divide it up and put it into individual rollover IRAs, which then became self-directed to us each month.
Bankrate: Over the years, how have you invested your money?
James Young: Derek Sutton was a very conservative investment mind, and he was my tutor on a lot of these things. I've dabbled in real estate investment, although I had some negative investments in Hawaiian real estate. I have some equity investment and was fortunate enough to have given money to some investment guys out of New York that turned into a wonderful windfall for me. They put together deals, in the late '80s and early '90, that I would get a small piece of because I had been there from the start. There was one business which recently had a very nice run up from under a dollar to four bucks, just in the last year or two. They put me in it back in the late '80s, and it's been a wonderful thing.
Bankrate: With touring, new records, royalties on old records, what is your main source of income now?
James Young: Touring revenue is the biggest chunk of revenue we have. We've done around 100 shows a year, since the middle of 1999. And our catalog continues to sell.
Bankrate: Do you still get significant royalties?
James Young: Our catalog continues to sell in an amazing way.
Bankrate: What advice would you give to a young musician starting out in the business, as far as handling the business end of things?
James Young: I don't know. It's tough. I've talked about some big successes here, but as an investor, in my pension plan, I am probably 90 percent in FDIC-insured certificates of deposit. And, something most people don't know about is they have these long-dated callable CDs which still yield way above the 30-year Treasury mark. That, to me, is a big investment vehicle.
Even the people in my local bank were unaware that these vehicles existed.
I do that through Schwab, and I invested all my own money from my rollover IRA. So as an investor, I go very conservative. I figure that even though we have a country with an incredible trade deficit, and financial deficit, they can print that money for me no matter what happens.
Also, it's very important to be with the right people. I read an article in Reader's Digest about luck. It said you make your own luck by placing yourself in the path of opportunity. If you sit home and make records and send them out to people who've never met you, and you haven't created any relationships or any basis for someone to want to give you the benefit of the doubt, you'll never be given the chance to do something.
