Styx: The issue of being 'hip' and 'cool'

[RossUK]

Interesting that in my previous thread that Froy said 'I DIDNT LIKE THE WAY DENNIS LOOKED' or others stating that younger people like myself are more concious of being hip and cool.

I think Froy is right on his comment, no I dont like the way dennis looks at the mo. I dig the guys voice big time (my first favourite Styx songs being Rockin The Paradise, Show Me The Way and Come Sail Away)

I feel I should make the point of the fact that here in england I really am a 'man in the wilderness' when it comes to being a 'younger' fan of styx. many musicians (my dads generation) like them and i like hanging out with them sometimes purely cos we like the same music.

I have been taken the piss out of to high heaven for liking Styx by alot of people in the past. My mates now dont really want me to play them any styx stuff but they know I'm a big fan of a band they dont know at all. When I was first discovering Styx (around 97) Everyone here was into crap like Oasis and Dance and House music

I felt like I had to fight Styx' corner all the time, but was never worried about being uncool. After all the facts were all to see- the guys could sing and play their instruments to an exception standard.

STYX were my band. Because nobody else my age knew who they were. And I liked that feeling.

When Dennis was left behind I didnt know what to think.

I know I said I prefer Gowans look because he is more hip, but if you can understand its not because I was concerned about Dennis being 'un-hip or uncool' by this time 99/2000 I didnt like where Dennis was going with his music within Styx:

Hip Hopracy: Don't like that at all
Great Expectations: oh dear

but

While Theres Still Time and Goodbye Roseland: Good Tunes

but where was a 'Grand Illusion' type song or 'Queen Of Spades'

I just thought he wasnt a rocker anymore and I wanted Styx to rock like the old days.

Ive bought and will buy everything dennis does on his own cos the guy is a superb musician

I dont care about being uncool. Dennis can have white hair if he wants, I just really didnt like what his overall contribution was to his last styx album. it was nothing short of being too broadway.

If Dennis wrote on his website today. 'I have 5 tunes that I want to record that sound like stuff I wrote in 1977/78' I would be championing him to do those songs with Styx.

Yes I bet his shows are good. I bet they rock (his older material)
I hope I am surprised by his new album. I dont want to here 11 songs about his wife. Come on Dennis, its still in there!!!!!!!

[froy]

Interesting that in my previous thread that Froy said 'I DIDNT LIKE THE WAY DENNIS LOOKED' or others stating that younger people like myself are more concious of being hip and cool.

I think Froy is right on his comment, no I dont like the way dennis looks at the mo. I dig the guys voice big time (my first favourite Styx songs being Rockin The Paradise, Show Me The Way and Come Sail Away)

I feel I should make the point of the fact that here in england I really am a 'man in the wilderness' when it comes to being a 'younger' fan of styx. many musicians (my dads generation) like them and i like hanging out with them sometimes purely cos we like the same music.

I have been taken the piss out of to high heaven for liking Styx by alot of people in the past. My mates now dont really want me to play them any styx stuff but they know I'm a big fan of a band they dont know at all. When I was first discovering Styx (around 97) Everyone here was into crap like Oasis and Dance and House music

I felt like I had to fight Styx' corner all the time, but was never worried about being uncool. After all the facts were all to see- the guys could sing and play their instruments to an exception standard.

STYX were my band. Because nobody else my age knew who they were. And I liked that feeling.

When Dennis was left behind I didnt know what to think.

I know I said I prefer Gowans look because he is more hip, but if you can understand its not because I was concerned about Dennis being 'un-hip or uncool' by this time 99/2000 I didnt like where Dennis was going with his music within Styx:

Hip Hopracy: Don't like that at all
Great Expectations: oh dear

but

While Theres Still Time and Goodbye Roseland: Good Tunes

but where was a 'Grand Illusion' type song or 'Queen Of Spades'

I just thought he wasnt a rocker anymore and I wanted Styx to rock like the old days.

Ive bought and will buy everything dennis does on his own cos the guy is a superb musician

I dont care about being uncool. Dennis can have white hair if he wants, I just really didnt like what his overall contribution was to his last styx album. it was nothing short of being too broadway.

If Dennis wrote on his website today. 'I have 5 tunes that I want to record that sound like stuff I wrote in 1977/78' I would be championing him to do those songs with Styx.

Yes I bet his shows are good. I bet they rock (his older material)
I hope I am surprised by his new album. I dont want to here 11 songs about his wife. Come on Dennis, its still in there!!!!!!!

Nice post
I think that you are right about those 2 tunes they were not STYX at all
I will bet you the 2 other guys saw those songs and said this guy has to go. The only thing is why didn't Genesis do the same thing when Phil Collins came on with I Can't Dance there worst song ever
When Steve Perry came in with Baby Im Leavin You on TBF or When I Think of You they didnt throw him out . It's really sad that your supposed friends shit on you when you come in with a sing they dont like
Shaw did the same damm thing with First Time he even put his hand through a glass window in a coke rage over that song,
Dennis could have done the same thing to Shaw and Yound many times with there lack of effort but he did not, Shows how much class Dennis has.

[RossUK]

I suppose youre right. Dennis said on BTM that 'dont say certain songs cant be written'

So for Tommy to chastize Dennis over 'first time' and moan about concept albums is a little hypocritcal when 'Yes I Can' on Cyclorama has a line I dont like at all '...Tending the roses in your garden....The sun is shining through your cotton dress' makes me cringe.

First Time. I like the melody. Just a bit too soppy
Yes I can. Like the melody. just a bit too soppy

I dont think Tommy can hate concept albums, when BNW was a horribly thought out concept album.

I do have to laugh at JY on BTM when he says of the EOTC reunion that 'dennis insisted that if we got back together that he had veto power over all band decisons or he wasnt getting back together...'

Something JY must have agreed to in order for the reunion. Methinks $$$$$$$$$$$$ went up in JY's eyes. Trouble is they (the rest of Styx) always agreed with Dennis so he must have got into a habit of thinking he could dictate to them. Maybe not all his fault for behaving this way as he obviously felt it was his duty to play the role of instigator in the band.

Sounds like the only way they could get rid of him was when he was incapacitated to fight his own corner.

Regardless of my own reservations as to where Styx was going with DeYoung at the helm, if they wanted to 'sack' him they should have at least had the balls to have it out with him. You never know they might have had such a row that things might have been cleared out completely, even all the crap could have been blown out like

JY: I thought KILROY WAS CRAP (FFS JY just tell him to his face dont whine on about it on BTM)
Tommy: (Brave New World meeting) Dennis, Where the hell is your songwritng going? we need to stay true to what is a Styx song etc etc

.......and all the other niggles. I wonder how many times in 25 years they all had it out with one another. I bet not often and thats why all this shit built up over time. Everyone was making out to everyone else they were happy.

I mean these guys were approaching/just the other side of 50 in 1999. They (SHAW/ YOUNG)didnt behave like adults did they.

[SuiteMadameBlue]

Ross says:

Something JY must have agreed to in order for the reunion. Methinks $$$$$$$$$$$$ went up in JY's eyes. Trouble is they (the rest of Styx) always agreed with Dennis so he must have got into a habit of thinking he could dictate to them. Maybe not all his fault for behaving this way as he obviously felt it was his duty to play the role of instigator in the band.

Ross, these are from 2 separate interviews after Behind the Music aired. I don't know if this has to do with anything - LOL I have more that I'll find and probably make a whole separate Behind the Music thread




This is from Dennis:

Jeb: When Styx split up it was not pretty. Was Dennis DeYoung growing up and the rest of the band was not?

Dennis: No, I don’t think it had anything to do with that. What it really had to do with was alluded to in Behind The Music. The best way for a group to exist is for everyone to be on the same page and for everyone to be healthy, both mentally and physically. That was not the case. We had done something that was radically different than we had done before and people always say that there were creative differences. And I think that played into it but there were so many other extenuating circumstances. People have to be on the same page in a group and they all have to be prepared both spiritually and mentally to go forward. Some were not.

Jeb: It is obvious. Drugs.

Dennis: VH1 told about it but it is just the tip of the iceberg as to what really happened.

Jeb: I know you are going to answer this question by saying that it is just the way life works out but seriously, Dennis wasn’t there a lot of emotional anguish?

Dennis: Of course. The dearest and most precious thing in my life was being in that band. It was really taken away from me. That is just the way things go sometimes. Just as the song says, "Winners are losers that got up and gave it one more try." We have to carry on. Let me do it like this: (singing) Caaaaaarrrrrry on! That was you know it’s me.

From JY:

You and Tommy always seemed to veer more toward angry, while Dennis always seemed like he felt victimized. There was the infamous Tommy Shaw / Ted Nugent interchange.

As far as that whole Nugent and Tommy thing, Dennis and Tommy had a conversation in 1991 about that, and Tommy said he would never do it again, and he's never done it again. But Tommy was furious at Dennis for a variety of reasons that didn't come out in that thing, and to me, completely justified. Certainly, the one hour version of "Behind the Music" -- you can really interpret it a number of ways, and that's the beauty of it, but in my own mind, without saying anything disparaging, any more than I already have, which is nothing but telling the truth from my perspective about all this, is that Dennis and I are very different human beings, and he ceased to want to be part of the democracy of the band.

And I see this whole thing as, we are the American colonies, he's the King of England. And there was a lot of colonists, when America broke away from England that thought it was a bad idea. But if I'm George Washington and Tommy's Thomas Jefferson here, I see this as this is the Brave New Styx, as we've called ourselves, partly after the "Brave New World" album, which was the last thing he participated in.

And [I] completely disagree with the way he wants to do this whole thing, and he has exacted a huge price from all of us, in the fact that -- for all the years where we all wanted to get together and he was busy doing other things. Everything was going to be on his timetable. We were supposed to get the band back together after one solo album after "Kilroy," and he wouldn't even return phone calls in a sense, or wouldn't even entertain the notion, until his third solo record kind of fizzled, and then his only option was Styx. We were his second choice starting in 1984, and even in 1996 and 1997 we were his second choice ‘cause he was still busy trying to make it on Broadway. And finally it just got to the point, after 20 years of being his second choice, I said, "I'm going to be 50 years old soon, and I've allowed this guy to jack me around forever. I'm tired of it. Enough's enough.

[froy]

for all the years where we all wanted to get together and he was busy doing other things. Everything was going to be on his timetable. We were supposed to get the band back together after one solo album after "Kilroy," and he wouldn't even return phone calls in a sense, or wouldn't even entertain the notion, until his third solo record kind of fizzled, and then his only option was Styx. We were his second choice starting in 1984, and even in 1996 and 1997 we were his second choice ‘cause he was still busy trying to make it on Broadway. And finally it just got to the point, after 20 years of being his second choice, I said, "I'm going to be 50 years old soon, and I've allowed this guy to jack me around forever. I'm tired of it. Enough's enough.

You forgot to mention JY that Shaw was too busy to get back together in 91 and after Kilroy he was a coke addict So I would not return his calls either. Its funny Dennis jacking around JY the guy with 3 songs in the band.

[classicstyxfan]

Very interesting and revealing interview snippets !

more Nicknames now from JY ( or should I say GW ? ) and TS Jefferson....


We have :

The Reluctant General

The Dollar Bill Man ( Hey PT Graphics, If you'rlurking out there , a one spot with JY's photo would be a hoot ! )

Father of our Band

Anyone else care to take a crack at it ?

[Zan]

( Hey PT Graphics, If you'rlurking out there , a one spot with JY's photo would be a hoot ! )

Who is PT Graphix? He sounds like a real P.I.T.A.

Of course, he knows I love him to death. Where the heck is he anyway? Probably off playing with his adorable new son, if I hadda guess.

Yeah, me and PT go way back. Froy, HE could tell you what my boobs look like - from a distance, anyway. haha - long story, I won't bore you with the details...