JY interview for those who have not seen it.........
Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 2:06 pmDoug Fox - Daily Herald |
Who: Styx, Foreigner, Kansas
When: Saturday at 6 p.m.
To rock or not to rock is never a question for classic concert bands, but just how much new material will be tolerated by fans in the stands does present a confusing conundrum.
It's certainly a dilemma been-around-the-block-and-back bands like Styx, Foreigner and Kansas -- all appearing Saturday at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele as part of the United in Rock tour -- have been facing for years.
"The sad reality on one level, but the great joy on the other level," founding Styx member James "J.Y." Young said, "is that people are coming out [and] they will tolerate one new song or two new songs when you put out a piece of new product, but they really have come to hear the soundtrack to their glorious misspent youth. They want to hear 'Blue Collar Man,' 'Renegade' and 'Come Sail Away' -- and a host of other things that they have all these memories for."
But it's not just the longtime fans that are clamoring for the hits, said guitarist/vocalist Young, but a new generation as well.
"Young people are aware of us and so our fanbase is being renewed through the Internet, which in a way, took away a lot of the record sales," Young said in a phone interview from a tour stop at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas on Saturday. "The Internet taketh away, but in its own way, the Internet giveth back. It's sort of a new spin on an old yarn there, an old phrase. And so the joy for us is going out and performing these same songs because they are the ones that people generally find, or they're the big famous ones because there's that many different YouTube performances of them of them that they can have access to or whatever."
One has to go back to 2003 for the last full studio album of new material by Styx, titled "Cyclorama," which provided the band a concert staple with the prog-rock anthem "One With Everything." The band also included a couple new songs, "Just Be" and "Everything All the Time," on a 2006 live album recorded with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra of Cleveland. Those songs, especially the latter, have also made their way to the stage.
Styx will be releasing a new album soon (see sidebar). The CD, "Regeneration: Volume I," however, contains just one new song, and six songs from the band's back catalog that have been re-recorded with the current lineup -- which in addition to Young features Tommy Shaw (guitar/vocals), Todd Sucherman (drums), Lawrence Gowan (keyboards/vocals) and Ricky Phillips (bass), with occasional appearances by original bassist Chuck Panozzo.
Young said the music industry cycle has reverted to the way things were in the 1960s -- with an emphasis on hit singles over albums.
"On one hand, everyone wants to have new music from us, but, I mean, the sad reality of the way rock radio has functioned for the last 15 if not 20 years is it's about finding the most playable track from a radio program director's standpoint, and that was the track that got focus," Young said. "And everything else that you spent, sort of the whole year working on these other six, seven, eight, nine, 10 tracks beyond this one track, those were for the fan who was going to buy the whole album. ... It all really kind of boils down to that the emphasis is to try to write individual great songs, and if you get enough of them, put out an album. And that's kind of how it was in the 1960s."
Young said the shows with Foreigner and Kansas -- Saturday's show will be the 12th of the tour -- have been "absolutely phenomenal" to date.
"I love [Foreigner]. I love their songs. They've got some songs that really rock," Young said. "And Kansas has been part of our lives going way, way, way back. ... We've done a lot of shows with them as early as 1974. There's great mutual admiration between those two bands."
The United in Rock tour will be sharing the stage -- although not literally the same stage -- at Miller Motorsports Park with the Superbike World Championships, occurring throughout the Memorial Day Weekend.
"We're very excited about having Styx, Foreigner and Kansas together for our concert," said John Larson, general manager of Miller Motorsports Park. "They match up nicely with the demographic of traditional motorcycle racing fans, not to mention most of the track staff, and we think it's going to be a huge success. We hope this will be the first of many concerts to come at our facility."
Styx has been able to maintain a full-throttle performance schedule, especially in co-headling tours during the summer months, in large part, Young said, because the band's music has been woven into the fabric of people's lives over the years.
"It's like a touchstone that every so often you need to go to a Styx concert because that's a part of you that you need to renew," he said. "Music, more and more, I believe, in these difficult times, is truly an escape from the harsh reality that the real estate bubble has burst, the financial bubble has burst, the employment bubble has burst, and the golden age -- and we're in a much more tarnished version of it at this point -- and the recognition that we're no longer completely safe and secure in our homes, at least in Manhattan, because there's barbarians at the gate, if you will ... people need more than ever a place to go and escape to, and a Styx concert is an ideal place.
"For me more than ever, this has become a place of great joy, to take the stage, perform this music and see the looks on people's faces and hear them all singing along in a giant chorus as they do. Not only is it renewing for them, it's renewing for me. So, it's not what it was in the heyday, but it's still a wonderful, joyful, renewing and invigorating experience."
Talkin' 'bout 'Regeneration'
According to guitarist/vocalist James "J.Y." Young, the latest Styx record, "Regeneration: Volume I," is "99 percent there."
"We're in the ultimate, final-polishing stages of it," Young said. "It would have been good if it had been completed before we got out on the road, but we didn't quite get there for a variety of reasons."
The album will include seven songs, the new Tommy Shaw-penned "Difference in the World," and six remakes of songs from Styx's back catalog, re-recorded with the band's current lineup. Those songs include "The Grand Illusion," "Come Sail Away," "Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)," "Crystal Ball," "Lorelei" and "Sing For the Day."
On the surface, it might seem like a minor thing for a band that has been playing these songs consistently on stage for the last 11 years -- except for the deep album track "Sing For the Day" -- to simply enter the studio and lay down the remakes. Not so, Young said.
"When you're trying to recreate the magic that you created 30 years ago, there's a whole lot that went into it in the first place that you now take for granted," he said. "When you go back and try to do it, you go, 'How DID we do that? What gear were we using and what gear was available for the engineer to use?SSRq"
Another factor to overcome in the project's completion is simple geography. With band members scattered across North America, Young said individual recording efforts took place in at least eight different studios. That's nothing like the old days, when "it's get the band together and we're going to do 40 takes until we get this thing right."
"At some point, with every new thing that you create, there's a point where you have to say it's time to let go of this and it sounds pretty darn good," Young said, in reference to the current project. "And yes, I'd like to hear myself more in this section, but the song seems to be working really well the way it is and so you have to subordinate your own sense of how you think you, as one of the trees in the forest, needs to be presented. It's something that seems like an easy thing on the surface, but it's a difficult thing."
While the album is 99 percent complete, pinning down that final 1 percent is still pretty elusive. When asked if the album might start appearing at summer concert dates in the next few weeks or if it will take longer than that, Young replied, "That's a delicate subject, and I have no idea."
In the meantime, fans can download a free copy of the one new song, "Difference in the World," by signing up for the band's free newsletter at www.styxworld.com.
-- Doug Fox
Who: Styx, Foreigner, Kansas
When: Saturday at 6 p.m.
To rock or not to rock is never a question for classic concert bands, but just how much new material will be tolerated by fans in the stands does present a confusing conundrum.
It's certainly a dilemma been-around-the-block-and-back bands like Styx, Foreigner and Kansas -- all appearing Saturday at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele as part of the United in Rock tour -- have been facing for years.
"The sad reality on one level, but the great joy on the other level," founding Styx member James "J.Y." Young said, "is that people are coming out [and] they will tolerate one new song or two new songs when you put out a piece of new product, but they really have come to hear the soundtrack to their glorious misspent youth. They want to hear 'Blue Collar Man,' 'Renegade' and 'Come Sail Away' -- and a host of other things that they have all these memories for."
But it's not just the longtime fans that are clamoring for the hits, said guitarist/vocalist Young, but a new generation as well.
"Young people are aware of us and so our fanbase is being renewed through the Internet, which in a way, took away a lot of the record sales," Young said in a phone interview from a tour stop at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas on Saturday. "The Internet taketh away, but in its own way, the Internet giveth back. It's sort of a new spin on an old yarn there, an old phrase. And so the joy for us is going out and performing these same songs because they are the ones that people generally find, or they're the big famous ones because there's that many different YouTube performances of them of them that they can have access to or whatever."
One has to go back to 2003 for the last full studio album of new material by Styx, titled "Cyclorama," which provided the band a concert staple with the prog-rock anthem "One With Everything." The band also included a couple new songs, "Just Be" and "Everything All the Time," on a 2006 live album recorded with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra of Cleveland. Those songs, especially the latter, have also made their way to the stage.
Styx will be releasing a new album soon (see sidebar). The CD, "Regeneration: Volume I," however, contains just one new song, and six songs from the band's back catalog that have been re-recorded with the current lineup -- which in addition to Young features Tommy Shaw (guitar/vocals), Todd Sucherman (drums), Lawrence Gowan (keyboards/vocals) and Ricky Phillips (bass), with occasional appearances by original bassist Chuck Panozzo.
Young said the music industry cycle has reverted to the way things were in the 1960s -- with an emphasis on hit singles over albums.
"On one hand, everyone wants to have new music from us, but, I mean, the sad reality of the way rock radio has functioned for the last 15 if not 20 years is it's about finding the most playable track from a radio program director's standpoint, and that was the track that got focus," Young said. "And everything else that you spent, sort of the whole year working on these other six, seven, eight, nine, 10 tracks beyond this one track, those were for the fan who was going to buy the whole album. ... It all really kind of boils down to that the emphasis is to try to write individual great songs, and if you get enough of them, put out an album. And that's kind of how it was in the 1960s."
Young said the shows with Foreigner and Kansas -- Saturday's show will be the 12th of the tour -- have been "absolutely phenomenal" to date.
"I love [Foreigner]. I love their songs. They've got some songs that really rock," Young said. "And Kansas has been part of our lives going way, way, way back. ... We've done a lot of shows with them as early as 1974. There's great mutual admiration between those two bands."
The United in Rock tour will be sharing the stage -- although not literally the same stage -- at Miller Motorsports Park with the Superbike World Championships, occurring throughout the Memorial Day Weekend.
"We're very excited about having Styx, Foreigner and Kansas together for our concert," said John Larson, general manager of Miller Motorsports Park. "They match up nicely with the demographic of traditional motorcycle racing fans, not to mention most of the track staff, and we think it's going to be a huge success. We hope this will be the first of many concerts to come at our facility."
Styx has been able to maintain a full-throttle performance schedule, especially in co-headling tours during the summer months, in large part, Young said, because the band's music has been woven into the fabric of people's lives over the years.
"It's like a touchstone that every so often you need to go to a Styx concert because that's a part of you that you need to renew," he said. "Music, more and more, I believe, in these difficult times, is truly an escape from the harsh reality that the real estate bubble has burst, the financial bubble has burst, the employment bubble has burst, and the golden age -- and we're in a much more tarnished version of it at this point -- and the recognition that we're no longer completely safe and secure in our homes, at least in Manhattan, because there's barbarians at the gate, if you will ... people need more than ever a place to go and escape to, and a Styx concert is an ideal place.
"For me more than ever, this has become a place of great joy, to take the stage, perform this music and see the looks on people's faces and hear them all singing along in a giant chorus as they do. Not only is it renewing for them, it's renewing for me. So, it's not what it was in the heyday, but it's still a wonderful, joyful, renewing and invigorating experience."
Talkin' 'bout 'Regeneration'
According to guitarist/vocalist James "J.Y." Young, the latest Styx record, "Regeneration: Volume I," is "99 percent there."
"We're in the ultimate, final-polishing stages of it," Young said. "It would have been good if it had been completed before we got out on the road, but we didn't quite get there for a variety of reasons."
The album will include seven songs, the new Tommy Shaw-penned "Difference in the World," and six remakes of songs from Styx's back catalog, re-recorded with the band's current lineup. Those songs include "The Grand Illusion," "Come Sail Away," "Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)," "Crystal Ball," "Lorelei" and "Sing For the Day."
On the surface, it might seem like a minor thing for a band that has been playing these songs consistently on stage for the last 11 years -- except for the deep album track "Sing For the Day" -- to simply enter the studio and lay down the remakes. Not so, Young said.
"When you're trying to recreate the magic that you created 30 years ago, there's a whole lot that went into it in the first place that you now take for granted," he said. "When you go back and try to do it, you go, 'How DID we do that? What gear were we using and what gear was available for the engineer to use?SSRq"
Another factor to overcome in the project's completion is simple geography. With band members scattered across North America, Young said individual recording efforts took place in at least eight different studios. That's nothing like the old days, when "it's get the band together and we're going to do 40 takes until we get this thing right."
"At some point, with every new thing that you create, there's a point where you have to say it's time to let go of this and it sounds pretty darn good," Young said, in reference to the current project. "And yes, I'd like to hear myself more in this section, but the song seems to be working really well the way it is and so you have to subordinate your own sense of how you think you, as one of the trees in the forest, needs to be presented. It's something that seems like an easy thing on the surface, but it's a difficult thing."
While the album is 99 percent complete, pinning down that final 1 percent is still pretty elusive. When asked if the album might start appearing at summer concert dates in the next few weeks or if it will take longer than that, Young replied, "That's a delicate subject, and I have no idea."
In the meantime, fans can download a free copy of the one new song, "Difference in the World," by signing up for the band's free newsletter at www.styxworld.com.
-- Doug Fox
