Styx Article / Cleveland 05-25-2006

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Orchestra head pitches an idea, and it's Styx
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Zachary Lewis
Special To The Plain Dealer
Styx has seen and done a lot since its formation in 1972, but it has never partnered with a band like Cleveland's own Contemporary Youth Orchestra.

Now it is wishing orchestra director Liza Grossman had pitched her collaborative idea sooner. Sharing the stage with an orchestra of talented teenagers is having an electric effect on the admittedly "dysfunctional" classic rockers.

"Looking across and seeing all of them, there's this whole energy," Styx vocalist Tommy Shaw says by phone from a Tulsa, Okla., hotel. "To see them playing our music so seriously and realize they're doing this on top of everything else in their lives, it's beautiful.

Orchestra head pitches an idea, and it's Styx
This year, she really lucked out. Grossman asked for one member of Styx but ended up with all five: not only Shaw, but guitarist-vocalist James Young, keyboardist Lawrence Gowan, bassist Ricky Phillips and drummer Todd Sucherman.

"I was thinking of rock groups whose sound I consider to be orchestral, and because I went to high school in the '80s, Styx came to mind," Grossman says. "There's a lot of variety in their vocals, between singers, and I love their music.

"But the idea that we'd get the entire band never crossed my mind, and when I told the kids they were going to open the season at Blossom with Styx, their reaction was almost deafening."

For its part, Styx agreed to the project sensing the youth orchestra might make an enthusiastic and willing partner. The band members sensed correctly, and as the collaboration ensued, the event they were designing grew more and more elaborate to the point where they now plan to record a DVD and Internet broadcast of the concert, as well as two singles for possible release next Christmas.

The orchestra welcomed Styx's every idea, gratefully playing along with Shaw's belief that everything worth doing is worth doing to the max.

Eventually, though, the band remembered it is dealing with teenagers.

"This concert is not for wimps," Shaw says. "They have a big undertaking here. But after 21 charts, we had to stop. They were ready to go even longer, but unlike us, they have to get up for school the next morning."

Lewis is a free-lance writer in Cleveland.

To reach Zachary Lewis:

entertainment@plaind.com