She wanted me to post this on here 
http://www.simcoe.com/sc/barrie/enterta ... 3466c.html
Dennis DeYoung Styx to his musical guns
Published: Sun, May 28th, 2006
Two decades after the halcyon days of his former band, the Chicago-born singer/songwriter has managed to survive with career, health and marriage intact.
Dennis DeYoung has spent a much longer part of his career not being a member of the seminal progressive-rock band Styx, than as a solo artist.
But he has not eschewed that period, which dominated his existence for much of the 1970s and early 1980s.
He has since put out a handful of solo albums, played on Broadway, and written a piece of musical theatre based on The Hunchback of Notre Dame. But Styx kept creeping back into his life.
With the advent of the classic-rock radio format, Styx songs, particularly those penned by DeYoung, began getting more and more airplay, and were introduced to a whole new generation.
Four years ago, DeYoung was approached to film a PBS special that would feature DeYoung songs, played with a rock band and 60-piece symphony orchestra.
The subsequent TV special, CD and DVD, Dennis DeYoung and the Music of Styx Live with Symphony Orchestra has been a hit, especially in Canada. He will be bringing the show to Toronto's Hummingbird Centre, on Saturday, June 10, at 8 p.m., but spoke for more than an hour with The Barrie Advance, encouraging fans from across southern and central Ontario to come to the show, and relive some of the music of their youth.
"I had success with this show in Canada before it was ever on PBS. I just played five sold-out shows in Montreal at the PDA (Place des Arts)," he said. "I can't tell you how gratifying the success of this project has been in Canada ... but Styx was also very popular there."
And it is a popularity that withstood critical slings and arrows for a number of years, particularly in the late 1980s and into the 1990s, when the music of DeYoung, Styx, and that brand of 'prog-rock' or 'art-rock' fell out of favour.
For many years, the music of the 1970s progressive rock bands; Styx, Queen, Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, to name but four, were slagged by subsequent generations of musicians and critics as bombastic, self-indulgent, lacking the grit and raw energy of the early rock and roll of the mid-1950s, the punk explosion nearly 20 years later, and the Nirvana-led grunge movement of the early 1990s.
Yet, the music of Styx is still heard on radio stations throughout the world. A band called Styx, comprising two original members (Tommy Shaw and James Young), as well as Canadian Lawrence Gowan filling DeYoung's slot, tours frequently, including a recent stop at Casino Rama.
And DeYoung has never stopped working, delighting audiences with Styx songs, performed by the man who originally wrote and sang them.
"There's always been this talk about bombast and pretense or pomposity, and all that kind of stuff. And I say 'sure, it's intended to be that way.' And you can't look at classical music as a genre and say 'well, that's pretentious.' That's the point of it. When they built those great cathedrals in Europe, there was a reason for that," DeYoung said.
"But take 'Babe' for instance, as a song. There's no bombast in that at all. It's a simple ballad, right? But some of our art rock certainly had some of those very dynamic passages, and classical flourishes ... well it was intended to be that way. And you know what? People liked that stuff. Because what it does is ... it aspires to be something bigger than it is. That's what art does."
The CD version of his PBS orchestra show begins with the title track from the 1977 Styx album Grand Illusion, which speaks to the subject of the fantasy life that lies behind the over-the-top rock and roll experience.
"In that song, I spoke directly to that issue to the audience by telling them what we do here is an illusion. It is filled with its own self-importance, right, but it's done for your entertainment. Don't buy into it. That's what the lyrics in the song ... say, that this is really just an illusion, and we're just guys up here pretending."
Albums like Grand Illusion, Pieces of Eight, Equinox and Paradise Theatre were seen as North American equivalents to those put out by England's Queen (the band). DeYoung's signature song, and usually the one that ends his shows, Come Sail Away, is often favourably compared to Queen's classic Bohemian Rhapsody, as are the two bands, because both weren't afraid to stray from the normal rock and roll hit song formula..
"I think Queen and Styx are probably the most alike of those kind of bands, in that they were willing to stretch the borders. If you look at all those other bands of the 1970s, the mainstream bands ... like Foreigner, Boston, or Bad Company, those bands had a narrower focus. That's not to denigrate them, they just are," he said. "I think Styx and Queen were more apt to expand their musical boundaries and take chances."
Speaking of Come Sail Away, DeYoung chuckles when he recalls the resurgence the song had, thanks to a most unlikely source - the crass cartoon South Park. One of the characters, the obnoxious Cartman, did a rendition of the song, which spread like wildfire over the Internet.
"(Series co-creator) Matt Stone called me up personally and asked if they could do that," DeYoung noted.
Around the same time, the song Mr. Roboto was featured in a popular television commercial, featuring two guys bopping their hands to the tune, a la Wayne's World.
"[Today's producers and directors] grew up with that music, and they became in positions of power in the entertainment business ...," he said. "Look, I never could have predicted this could happen. It took me by surprise. And the usages of my songs ... I have a whole wall in my recording studio of movie posters that my music has been in. They used Come Sail Away in the Disney Movie Atlantis, and Jim Carrey is singing Mr. Roboto in Fun With Dick and Jane."
There was a bit of a dry spell in terms of Styx music being part of the popular culture, but the past decade has been a veritable DeYoung Renaissance. And it's both motivated and invigorated him.
DeYoung is 58 years old - a very youthful and energetic 58 mind you - and has been in the rock and roll business since he was a teenager. Unlike many of his contemporaries, his voice retains its power, range and dynamism, and his showmanship, honed by years performing in musical theatre, captivates audiences.
His gregarious personality, honest approach to his craft, and the music itself are what keep him going out on the road, sometimes with just his rock band, other times, such as in the Hummingbird Centre Show, with full orchestration.
When asked why he continues he jokingly refers to mortgage payments and the fact that all three of his children are getting married this summer.
"I hear artists all the time say they don't like doing the same songs over and over, and that they're sick of performing in front of a different audience each night. And I think they're either crazy, or full of crap," he said, with due emphasis on the final word. "When I play the opening notes of most of my songs, people scream. What the hell did I do this for in the first place when I was 14 years old? If that doesn't get you motivated, they you're either crazy, jaded, or you shouldn't have done this in the first place."
Besides maintaining a successful and fulfilling career in the rough-and-tumble music industry, DeYoung has also been able to maintain a successful and eminently fulfilling marriage to his wife Suzanne. He gives her all of the credit.
"We grew up in the same neighbourhood. We knew each other as teenagers. I think all that plays into it. But she is a very strong woman, and has had to deal with an awful lot of crap," DeYoung said, admiringly. "I'd like to think I was {able to leave the rock star persona onstage after the show], but you know, I'm far from perfect. But the fact that I had my wife there, and my daughter too. I had responsibilities ... that helped," DeYoung said, noting that his bride has always gone on the road with Dennis, whether with Styx or during his solo career, and home-schooled their three children.
"I owe her an awful lot."
Tickets for DeYoung's symphonic version of Styx, at the Hummingbird Centre, 1 Front St. E. are available at all Ticketmaster outlets for $55 to $75.
For more info, visit www.dennisdeyoung.com.
- Jim Barber is the Arts, Sports and Lifestyles Editor for the Barrie Advance. E-mail him at jbarber@simcoe.com.
The Advance had an exclusive opportunity to chat with former Styx frontman Dennis DeYoung, shown here with his 'alter-ego' Mr. Roboto. He will be performing with a symphony orchestra, in Toronto on June 10th.
DeYoung has retained his youthful exuberance and theatrical stage presence.
