Some questions on 'Brave New World'- I was wondering since Tommy and JY seemed to be separate from Dennis at this time, I was wondering what the recording process was. I mean did Todd fly to Tommy's place in CA and work with Dennis in IL, or did they just send the stuff and have the players add their parts?
Also, there are some keyboard parts that sound UN-Dennis to me. Did Gowan actually play on any of the album? Also, did Chuck have much of a role at all during the recording of this album? Seems I remember hearing that Glenn actually played on a lot of these tracks. There are some songs on this album that are really great tunes, some of them COULD have been amazingly good, but the fractured-nature of the band is apparent in places.
Just thought I'd ask.
BNW
Moderator: Andrew
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Re: BNW
by Rockwriter » Fri Jun 04, 2010 3:08 am
brywool wrote:Some questions on 'Brave New World'- I was wondering since Tommy and JY seemed to be separate from Dennis at this time, I was wondering what the recording process was. I mean did Todd fly to Tommy's place in CA and work with Dennis in IL, or did they just send the stuff and have the players add their parts?
Also, there are some keyboard parts that sound UN-Dennis to me. Did Gowan actually play on any of the album? Also, did Chuck have much of a role at all during the recording of this album? Seems I remember hearing that Glenn actually played on a lot of these tracks. There are some songs on this album that are really great tunes, some of them COULD have been amazingly good, but the fractured-nature of the band is apparent in places.
Just thought I'd ask.
Even the band members themselves don't seem sure who played what. There was a break in communication in the middle of it, and Tommy left Chicago (where they had been working) and went back to LA and started working on his songs there, while Dennis worked on his in Chicago. Todd played drums on all ground tracks, I think. Chuck played bass on nothing, as far as I know. Or he played some parts, but they did not make the record as far as I know. I think Hank Horton played on the Dennis tracks. Glen played on some of the Tommy/JY tracks and I think they used some other ringers as well. Gowan did not play on that record, but Tommy played some keys on his own tracks, and I wouldn't be surprised if JY did too. Also the guy from Spinal Tap who'd also been on one of Dennis' solo records played some keys, I can't remember his name right now. Kinda like the Yes 'Union' record, all kinds of people who weren't even in the band wound up on that thing. I doubt there's one person on Earth who could name everyone involved with that record.
You have to remember this was before easy file-sharing, and JY was actually flying back and forth to work in both studios at one point. Today you could just e-mail the files around and everyone stick his part on . . . but as childishly as these guys were behaving at the time, they probably would have refused to do even that. And I mean that to apply to everyone, not just one side. It took an awful lot of idiocy to make that turn out the way it did. Spoiled, over-indulged, ridiculous way to behave.
Sterling
Author, 'The Grand Delusion: The Unauthorized True Story of Styx'
- Rockwriter
- Cassette Tape
- Posts: 1206
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- Location: Nashville
by SuiteMadameBlue » Fri Jun 04, 2010 3:21 am
Here ya go............
A TALE OF TWO CITIES...
With their irons burning red hot in the fire, CMC International and Styx
began planning for the band's first new studio album. DeYoung had promised
Styx fans such an album from the stage during their Return To Paradise tour.
In the fall of '97, when the tour had run it's course, it became time to
deliver the goods and honor that promise.
There was a real buzz about the album, more than on any previous Styx
release. Fan anticipation was tremendous, for it would be the first studio
album to reunite the talented triumvirate - DeYoung, Shaw and Young - since
1983's multi-platinum, Kilroy Was Here. Everyone wanted to hear what they
would create.
Few were as sorely disappointed in that album upon its release than
DeYoung himself. At it's best, Brave New World is an unfocused mish-mash with
a few brilliant moments. While a few songs may stand strong on their own,
the album as a whole sounds uneven and fragmented. This is most likely due to
having way too many hands in the production pot.
Brave New World is very much a tale of two cities. DeYoung produced his
five songs here in Chicago, while Shaw and Young twisted knobs for their
tracks in Los Angeles with the help of Damn Yankees producer, Ron Nevison.
The lush harmonies inherent to older Styx recordings are watered down and
weak-kneed. The album lacks the cohesiveness that in the past has enabled a
Styx album flow well, despite its many styles and textures. Without that
special 'glue' holding the tracks together, Brave New World sounds like a
haphazard collection of left overs rather than a thought-out and carefully
assembled project.
"All I can say about it (Brave New World), is that it's an album of
missed opportunities," said DeYoung. "It could have and would have been a
great Styx record, but I was shut out of everything. I was not allowed any
input at all into the final tracks, the sequencing, or the album artwork."
Touching upon the bland design on the album makes DeYoung livid. "Isn't that
just about the ugliest album you have ever seen?," he asks. "I don't even
want to go there. Don't get me started on the album's artwork."
DeYoung likewise divorces himself from much of the project. "All I can
say, is that if you don't like my five songs, than blame me. But everything
else on that record I really had no involvement with," he said. "All the
performances you hear on the songs that JY and Tommy did, I heard for the
very first time about two weeks before the record came out. That's why I
insisted that asterisks be placed in the production credits on the songs I
did, because I had absolutely nothing to do with any of their songs and I
wanted the fans to know that."
While the recording experience for Brave New World ended badly, it began
rather routinely in August of 1998. "I was really ill at the time, so we
worked in the studio at my house. That way, I figured if I started to feel
bad, I could go upstairs and lay down, which I did many times," recalled
DeYoung. "Tommy had done some work out in California, but mostly he was
working here with us and I thought that things were going swimmingly."
When the band's manager laid out projections for a fall tour, DeYoung
said he couldn't commit to a tour at that time because of his illness. He
asked to delay plans until the album was done and he could seek treatment at
Mayo Clinic.
"I'm not a stupid guy. With all the good things that were happening to
Styx, I knew it would be a good thing for us to tour, but at the time I was
feeling so fatigued that I couldn't even imagine driving to the airport, let
alone doing it fifty or sixty times," he said.
"You have to understand, that I was suffering from this chronic fatigue
and I just felt horrible all the time," he explained. "I had these terrible
flu-like symptoms and nobody could tell me what was wrong. I went to sixteen
different doctors and finally found out it was a rare viral thing that had
actually landed in the nervous system of my face, which made me extremely
sensitive to light. Light would trigger the symptoms. When it happens my jaw
hurts, my face swells up and gets hot, my eyes get all blood shot and I feel
completely exhausted. For a year and nine months it was an insane way to
live and it's almost ruined my life."
When DeYoung asked the band to hold back on the tour plans, the group
temperament abruptly changed. Shaw returned to California and recording came
to a standstill.
"Tommy called a few weeks later and said - 'If you're not going to commit
to the tour, then it's not in my best interest to complete this album!',"
revealed DeYoung. "Two days later, JY called and said - 'Look, we really
want to go on this tour, we feel it is important. We'd like you to come with
us, but if you are not going, we're going without you!'"
DeYoung phoned CMC's president to apprise him of the situation. "I didn't
want him to think that work on the album had stopped because I was ill,
because that was not true. I wanted to finish the album. I even wanted to do
the tour, but I was sick and I wanted them to give me some more time to
recover before committing to a tour."
When the label learned that recording on Brave New World had halted, their
lawyers fired off letters to all parties involved, saying that CMC expected
the group to honor their contract and complete the project on schedule.
Shaw and Young finished their tracks in California by themselves and
DeYoung did the same in Chicago. "That's not the way a Styx album is made,"
said DeYoung. "I'm the producer of Styx albums, I always have been. This
time they went off and did what they wanted to do."
A TALE OF TWO CITIES...
With their irons burning red hot in the fire, CMC International and Styx
began planning for the band's first new studio album. DeYoung had promised
Styx fans such an album from the stage during their Return To Paradise tour.
In the fall of '97, when the tour had run it's course, it became time to
deliver the goods and honor that promise.
There was a real buzz about the album, more than on any previous Styx
release. Fan anticipation was tremendous, for it would be the first studio
album to reunite the talented triumvirate - DeYoung, Shaw and Young - since
1983's multi-platinum, Kilroy Was Here. Everyone wanted to hear what they
would create.
Few were as sorely disappointed in that album upon its release than
DeYoung himself. At it's best, Brave New World is an unfocused mish-mash with
a few brilliant moments. While a few songs may stand strong on their own,
the album as a whole sounds uneven and fragmented. This is most likely due to
having way too many hands in the production pot.
Brave New World is very much a tale of two cities. DeYoung produced his
five songs here in Chicago, while Shaw and Young twisted knobs for their
tracks in Los Angeles with the help of Damn Yankees producer, Ron Nevison.
The lush harmonies inherent to older Styx recordings are watered down and
weak-kneed. The album lacks the cohesiveness that in the past has enabled a
Styx album flow well, despite its many styles and textures. Without that
special 'glue' holding the tracks together, Brave New World sounds like a
haphazard collection of left overs rather than a thought-out and carefully
assembled project.
"All I can say about it (Brave New World), is that it's an album of
missed opportunities," said DeYoung. "It could have and would have been a
great Styx record, but I was shut out of everything. I was not allowed any
input at all into the final tracks, the sequencing, or the album artwork."
Touching upon the bland design on the album makes DeYoung livid. "Isn't that
just about the ugliest album you have ever seen?," he asks. "I don't even
want to go there. Don't get me started on the album's artwork."
DeYoung likewise divorces himself from much of the project. "All I can
say, is that if you don't like my five songs, than blame me. But everything
else on that record I really had no involvement with," he said. "All the
performances you hear on the songs that JY and Tommy did, I heard for the
very first time about two weeks before the record came out. That's why I
insisted that asterisks be placed in the production credits on the songs I
did, because I had absolutely nothing to do with any of their songs and I
wanted the fans to know that."
While the recording experience for Brave New World ended badly, it began
rather routinely in August of 1998. "I was really ill at the time, so we
worked in the studio at my house. That way, I figured if I started to feel
bad, I could go upstairs and lay down, which I did many times," recalled
DeYoung. "Tommy had done some work out in California, but mostly he was
working here with us and I thought that things were going swimmingly."
When the band's manager laid out projections for a fall tour, DeYoung
said he couldn't commit to a tour at that time because of his illness. He
asked to delay plans until the album was done and he could seek treatment at
Mayo Clinic.
"I'm not a stupid guy. With all the good things that were happening to
Styx, I knew it would be a good thing for us to tour, but at the time I was
feeling so fatigued that I couldn't even imagine driving to the airport, let
alone doing it fifty or sixty times," he said.
"You have to understand, that I was suffering from this chronic fatigue
and I just felt horrible all the time," he explained. "I had these terrible
flu-like symptoms and nobody could tell me what was wrong. I went to sixteen
different doctors and finally found out it was a rare viral thing that had
actually landed in the nervous system of my face, which made me extremely
sensitive to light. Light would trigger the symptoms. When it happens my jaw
hurts, my face swells up and gets hot, my eyes get all blood shot and I feel
completely exhausted. For a year and nine months it was an insane way to
live and it's almost ruined my life."
When DeYoung asked the band to hold back on the tour plans, the group
temperament abruptly changed. Shaw returned to California and recording came
to a standstill.
"Tommy called a few weeks later and said - 'If you're not going to commit
to the tour, then it's not in my best interest to complete this album!',"
revealed DeYoung. "Two days later, JY called and said - 'Look, we really
want to go on this tour, we feel it is important. We'd like you to come with
us, but if you are not going, we're going without you!'"
DeYoung phoned CMC's president to apprise him of the situation. "I didn't
want him to think that work on the album had stopped because I was ill,
because that was not true. I wanted to finish the album. I even wanted to do
the tour, but I was sick and I wanted them to give me some more time to
recover before committing to a tour."
When the label learned that recording on Brave New World had halted, their
lawyers fired off letters to all parties involved, saying that CMC expected
the group to honor their contract and complete the project on schedule.
Shaw and Young finished their tracks in California by themselves and
DeYoung did the same in Chicago. "That's not the way a Styx album is made,"
said DeYoung. "I'm the producer of Styx albums, I always have been. This
time they went off and did what they wanted to do."
Suite Madame Blue
-
SuiteMadameBlue - Compact Disc
- Posts: 6666
- Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2003 2:17 pm
- Location: Paradise............
Re: BNW
by brywool » Fri Jun 04, 2010 3:24 am
Rockwriter wrote:brywool wrote:Some questions on 'Brave New World'- I was wondering since Tommy and JY seemed to be separate from Dennis at this time, I was wondering what the recording process was. I mean did Todd fly to Tommy's place in CA and work with Dennis in IL, or did they just send the stuff and have the players add their parts?
Also, there are some keyboard parts that sound UN-Dennis to me. Did Gowan actually play on any of the album? Also, did Chuck have much of a role at all during the recording of this album? Seems I remember hearing that Glenn actually played on a lot of these tracks. There are some songs on this album that are really great tunes, some of them COULD have been amazingly good, but the fractured-nature of the band is apparent in places.
Just thought I'd ask.
Even the band members themselves don't seem sure who played what. There was a break in communication in the middle of it, and Tommy left Chicago (where they had been working) and went back to LA and started working on his songs there, while Dennis worked on his in Chicago. Todd played drums on all ground tracks, I think. Chuck played bass on nothing, as far as I know. Or he played some parts, but they did not make the record as far as I know. I think Hank Horton played on the Dennis tracks. Glen played on some of the Tommy/JY tracks and I think they used some other ringers as well. Gowan did not play on that record, but Tommy played some keys on his own tracks, and I wouldn't be surprised if JY did too. Also the guy from Spinal Tap who'd also been on one of Dennis' solo records played some keys, I can't remember his name right now. Kinda like the Yes 'Union' record, all kinds of people who weren't even in the band wound up on that thing. I doubt there's one person on Earth who could name everyone involved with that record.
You have to remember this was before easy file-sharing, and JY was actually flying back and forth to work in both studios at one point. Today you could just e-mail the files around and everyone stick his part on . . . but as childishly as these guys were behaving at the time, they probably would have refused to do even that. And I mean that to apply to everyone, not just one side. It took an awful lot of idiocy to make that turn out the way it did. Spoiled, over-indulged, ridiculous way to behave.
Sterling
Hmm, wasn't THAT long ago. I was doing recording via file sharing back then, though on a smaller scale. Interesting that SO MANY different people were on the record. I didn't realize that other than "this doesn't sound like something Dennis would play" or "... that Chuck would play". Interesting that it came out at all.
NO. He's NOT Steve F'ing Perry. But he's Arnel F'ing Pineda and I'm okay with that.
-
brywool - Digital Audio Tape
- Posts: 7688
- Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2006 5:54 am
by brywool » Fri Jun 04, 2010 3:32 am
SuiteMadameBlue wrote:Here ya go............
A TALE OF TWO CITIES...
With their irons burning red hot in the fire, CMC International and Styx
began planning for the band's first new studio album. DeYoung had promised
Styx fans such an album from the stage during their Return To Paradise tour.
In the fall of '97, when the tour had run it's course, it became time to
deliver the goods and honor that promise.
There was a real buzz about the album, more than on any previous Styx
release. Fan anticipation was tremendous, for it would be the first studio
album to reunite the talented triumvirate - DeYoung, Shaw and Young - since
1983's multi-platinum, Kilroy Was Here. Everyone wanted to hear what they
would create.
Few were as sorely disappointed in that album upon its release than
DeYoung himself. At it's best, Brave New World is an unfocused mish-mash with
a few brilliant moments. While a few songs may stand strong on their own,
the album as a whole sounds uneven and fragmented. This is most likely due to
having way too many hands in the production pot.
Brave New World is very much a tale of two cities. DeYoung produced his
five songs here in Chicago, while Shaw and Young twisted knobs for their
tracks in Los Angeles with the help of Damn Yankees producer, Ron Nevison.
The lush harmonies inherent to older Styx recordings are watered down and
weak-kneed. The album lacks the cohesiveness that in the past has enabled a
Styx album flow well, despite its many styles and textures. Without that
special 'glue' holding the tracks together, Brave New World sounds like a
haphazard collection of left overs rather than a thought-out and carefully
assembled project.
"All I can say about it (Brave New World), is that it's an album of
missed opportunities," said DeYoung. "It could have and would have been a
great Styx record, but I was shut out of everything. I was not allowed any
input at all into the final tracks, the sequencing, or the album artwork."
Touching upon the bland design on the album makes DeYoung livid. "Isn't that
just about the ugliest album you have ever seen?," he asks. "I don't even
want to go there. Don't get me started on the album's artwork."
DeYoung likewise divorces himself from much of the project. "All I can
say, is that if you don't like my five songs, than blame me. But everything
else on that record I really had no involvement with," he said. "All the
performances you hear on the songs that JY and Tommy did, I heard for the
very first time about two weeks before the record came out. That's why I
insisted that asterisks be placed in the production credits on the songs I
did, because I had absolutely nothing to do with any of their songs and I
wanted the fans to know that."
While the recording experience for Brave New World ended badly, it began
rather routinely in August of 1998. "I was really ill at the time, so we
worked in the studio at my house. That way, I figured if I started to feel
bad, I could go upstairs and lay down, which I did many times," recalled
DeYoung. "Tommy had done some work out in California, but mostly he was
working here with us and I thought that things were going swimmingly."
When the band's manager laid out projections for a fall tour, DeYoung
said he couldn't commit to a tour at that time because of his illness. He
asked to delay plans until the album was done and he could seek treatment at
Mayo Clinic.
"I'm not a stupid guy. With all the good things that were happening to
Styx, I knew it would be a good thing for us to tour, but at the time I was
feeling so fatigued that I couldn't even imagine driving to the airport, let
alone doing it fifty or sixty times," he said.
"You have to understand, that I was suffering from this chronic fatigue
and I just felt horrible all the time," he explained. "I had these terrible
flu-like symptoms and nobody could tell me what was wrong. I went to sixteen
different doctors and finally found out it was a rare viral thing that had
actually landed in the nervous system of my face, which made me extremely
sensitive to light. Light would trigger the symptoms. When it happens my jaw
hurts, my face swells up and gets hot, my eyes get all blood shot and I feel
completely exhausted. For a year and nine months it was an insane way to
live and it's almost ruined my life."
When DeYoung asked the band to hold back on the tour plans, the group
temperament abruptly changed. Shaw returned to California and recording came
to a standstill.
"Tommy called a few weeks later and said - 'If you're not going to commit
to the tour, then it's not in my best interest to complete this album!',"
revealed DeYoung. "Two days later, JY called and said - 'Look, we really
want to go on this tour, we feel it is important. We'd like you to come with
us, but if you are not going, we're going without you!'"
DeYoung phoned CMC's president to apprise him of the situation. "I didn't
want him to think that work on the album had stopped because I was ill,
because that was not true. I wanted to finish the album. I even wanted to do
the tour, but I was sick and I wanted them to give me some more time to
recover before committing to a tour."
When the label learned that recording on Brave New World had halted, their
lawyers fired off letters to all parties involved, saying that CMC expected
the group to honor their contract and complete the project on schedule.
Shaw and Young finished their tracks in California by themselves and
DeYoung did the same in Chicago. "That's not the way a Styx album is made,"
said DeYoung. "I'm the producer of Styx albums, I always have been. This
time they went off and did what they wanted to do."
Ah, yeah. Now I remember reading this before. Weird how that whole thing worked. I just wasn't aware of (or probably forgot) other people playing on the record.
Last edited by brywool on Fri Jun 04, 2010 3:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
NO. He's NOT Steve F'ing Perry. But he's Arnel F'ing Pineda and I'm okay with that.
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brywool - Digital Audio Tape
- Posts: 7688
- Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2006 5:54 am
by SuiteMadameBlue » Fri Jun 04, 2010 3:32 am
This is just part of an interview between Andrew and Dennis........
They are loyal to Styx but everything to do with Styx. If you branch off they follow you as well I've found.
Yeah it's a very dedicated following. It has been a very difficult 2 years for me considering what's happened with the band. I don't know if you know the story or not.
Well not really only from what I've read from Tommy Shaw's side of things on various articles that's why I thought you could have your say.
Ok here's what happened. I can give you several publications and my story stays the same. From the moment I've told it in the press and of course between Tommy Shaw and James Young - their story keeps changing every six months. Here's what happened Andrew.
In 1996 Styx did a comeback tour and in '97 we weren't supposed to tour. I had written this musical and this was the year I was supposed to take time to do 2 things. The first was start writing and doing some demos for a new Styx album and I was supposed to have the opportunity to work on the Hunchback.
I had put the Hunchback on hold for a year and a half when the Styx thing came up in '96. I had producers in fact who were like what about us. The manager of the band came to me and said that one of the band members a tour would be beneficial financially to him. I said all right I'd try and do both.
What I did is I produced that live Styx album and came up with the idea for the show. I then did a workshop in Tennessee in January and did the whole Styx tour and then 2 days after I was off the road with Styx I was in Nashville for 2 months for the first production. All the time we were on the road I was going back between New York and Nashville trying to get this whole Hunchback thing settled. So I worked myself to death. To death.
It sounds like it.
I hadn't planned on doing it but I did it in the spirit of helping people. When I finally got off the road in October from the musical my father passed away which was a shock and it was very difficult. Then my best friend had terminal cancer and my wife's sister died all within about 6 weeks. So the mental and emotional strain was enormous.
When we came back from the funeral in California both my wife and I got a terrible flu. Well Andrew, there was nothing left of me. The flu just devastated me. The upshot of that was I just couldn't get better.
What I got was this post viral symptom, which I didn't know for 8 or 9 months what was causing it. My face always felt like I had a fever, it was hot.
I couldn't figure out what it was and I went from doctor to doctor and they didn't know what it was. Eventually I actually figured it out that I was sensitive to light. I didn't know why. It was only precipitated by any strong or fluorescent lights. When I finally recovered enough to keep working on the new Styx album we got together and started working on it.
I was recording in my house because that's where I had a studio. So we were making the record and things were going swimmingly and there were no problems as far as I knew.
In Feb 1999 the manager came in and said here is the tour that we want to do and they wanted a commitment from me for a full tour. I was barely able to record and still felt like crap. I asked them to give me another 4 or 5 months to recover from this thing. I said let's finish the album, give me a little time to recover and then we can plan something but I can't commit at this moment.
So a couple of weeks later Tommy called me up from Los Angeles and said that it was not in his best interest to finish up an album if there wasn't going to be a tour.
I said what are you talking about - we had to finish this album. Then the day later James Young called me and said they wanted me to commit to this tour but if I was not going to commit to the tour then they were going to go ahead and tour without me.
I begged them not to and I tried to convince them a thousand different ways that it was a mistake and asked them just to give me some time and so forth. That was it. So what happened was they had planned on stopping the album and just going on tour. So a couple of weeks later I called the head of the record company Tom Lipske at CMC I said if you hear this album was stopped because I got sick that's baloney. I told him I wanted to finish the record and he said what do you mean the record was stopped?
He didn't know about it. So he stepped in and got his attorney's going and he said he didn't care if there was a tour or not he wanted his album. So he forced the issue and the album was completed and unfortunately JY and Tommy finished their nine songs in California without my input. I finished mine in Chicago. That's why the album is what it is.
It sounds like two different bands.
That's why the album is what it is. Andrew did you listen to the live album?
Yeah, I've got it right in front of me.
All right so there are 3 new tracks on that live album. They are Dear John, Paradise and On My Way. Now those three songs sound like they are from the same album don't they?
That's because, do you wanna know the difference Andrew? It's because I produced them.
I have produced every album since Equinox, even though it said Styx. I was the producer.
I was the guy that brought all those 3 styles together and made those records sound like it was the same band doing them. On this album though you will notice it's the first album that hasn't been produced by me.
I'm telling you since Equinox.
So you produced your own tracks on Brave New World?
I produced my tracks.
I was fairly critical of the album, I'll be honest with you.
You can be as critical as you like about the album. I'm critical of the album
I gave it just an ok review because there are some really wonderful tracks on there. 'While There's Still Time' is a wonderful track but there are some others that I just didn't think gelled. From start to finish it does sound like a couple of different bands in there.
Well the problem is it really was just an album of missed opportunities. The material when it was presented, I was really excited with it.
But really in making a record it is in fact about someone making sure that the performances are good enough. Styx was a combination and always was of 3 personalities and what they did together musically. It wasn't me by myself. What I brought to it was I'm the biggest Styx fan in the world and I knew what Styx was as a band. I used my personality and I used my skills as a producer to make sure those albums always sounded like Styx records.
If you listen to 'Edge Of The Century' it still sounds like a Styx record. We had Burtnik in there but it still sounds like a Styx record.
This one doesn't because Tommy and JY went out and worked with, actually I have no idea. When I got the record and they sent me their nine tracks and I heard them I actually sat in my room and cried when I listened to them. I knew a terrible mistake had been made.
So when we got together 3 weeks before the album was due to come out for the first time, because we had all committed to a TV program, I talked to Tommy Shaw for over an hour and begged him to stop the release of this record - to allow us the chance to go back in and fix it.
They were quite happy with what they had done. Andrew, my role as producer all those years was to make sure any song that wasn't good enough didn't actually get on the album.
Tough job.
Yeah. And sometimes an unpopular one. You know what? It works.
If you look at those Styx albums they all have 8 or 9 songs on them. There are not 14 songs.
OK.
Well you get the very best songs. It isn't about the quantity it's about quality.
So anyway that's what happened. They decided to take the thing on the road and my only recourse was to sue them to stop them. I felt in my heart I couldn't do it and hoping and praying they would show some sense and stop the nonsense. They went touring July '99 and by August '99 I was well enough to say 'hey if you're going to do a full leg….'
They'd been asking me and I called them through attorney's and said I'm willing to sit down and talk and since that time they have absolutely refused to have any communication with me.
That's sad.
Very sad.
What forced the issue? Obviously you are all strong personalities, which have fired the band to be as great as you are.
Well look at The Who or The Rolling Stones that's what fires every great band. Appealing personalities. Yeah.
What happened when Tommy left and you reformed to do 'Edge of the Century'?
In 1983 Tommy decided that he didn't like, well he didn't like a lot of things, but number 1 thing he didn't like was he was convinced he could be a solo artist on his own.
Someone was whispering in his ear. He quit the band in the middle of the '83 tour. We knew he was going to quit. When the whole thing was over at the end of '83 and the beginning of '84 Tommy had quit and James Young, John and Chuck were still in the band they wanted me to replace Tommy Shaw and to go forward immediately. I said I wouldn't do it. I said this band is these guys.
So what I did is I became a reluctant solo artist because I was not going to go back and put a new Styx together with somebody else.
My contract read that I had the ability to make a solo record for A&M so I decided I'd make a solo album and wait for Tommy to come to his senses. So I made Desert Moon.
So Tommy made his solo album and I made mine. When Tommy's record deals had run out he called up in about 1988 and wanted to talk about getting the band back together.
I thought it was a good idea but I had just signed another deal with MCA to make another solo album, my 3rd. I told him let me just record this album and get this together and we'll talk about getting this band back together. As I'm going through that process he called me up one day and said I'm antsy. Remember Tommy is the guy that wrote the song 'Too Much Time On My Hands'. Catch my drift?
Yes.
Ok. He called me and said when are we going to do this Styx thing? I said I've gotta finish this project and he said I've got this offer to from my manager to go get with Jack Blades and Ted Nugent and do some demos. I said go and do it. I'm not going to stop you from doing it. So he went and they got a record deal and off he went.
Sure.
So what happened was after it was clear to me he was now in Damn Yankees the band came back to me again, JY called and said when are we going to do this. I realized at that moment that with Tommy happily in Damn Yankees that maybe if we were ever going to do it we should do it. So we forged ahead and put the thing together with Glenn Burtnik.
In that same year or the year later Tommy actually sold back his right to the name Styx legally.
Oh really?
Why? You tell me why somebody would do that?
Signing off on it really.
I guess so isn't it? So when Damn Yankees ran its course again well we got back together again.
Good grief. So where you are now…
I'm in my kitchen!
So am I actually. Haha.
What I was concerned about was they cut off your access to the Styx web site.
Well look let me ask you a question.
Is that playing games or…
It's absolute nonsense. The fact of the matter is I have received no compensation for anything they are doing. I own that name you know. I'm part owner of that name. In other words, what's your web site called?
Melodicrock.com
That's what I thought. If I tomorrow started a web site called Melodicrock and took the name Andrew McNeice what would you do to stop me, what could you do?
I could take you to court of course.
The police aren't going to arrest me are they? If you don't take me to court what's going to happen?
Well, nothing?
Well then I'll just have my web site then won't I?
Yeah.
That's what I've done for the last year or so. I've just sat. I've really patiently hoped. They have taken a band that was loved for what?
If only they had given me 5 or 6 months. It just crushed me.
You know Andrew I started this band when I was just 14 years old. Tommy and JY were nowhere to be seen when this band was formed. Me and the Panozzo's formed the band. You know there was 5 albums before Tommy Shaw and 1 album after he left. So it's been a really hurtful thing.
The good news is because of one guy who offered me this chance to do this thing with the orchestra another door has been opened. I've got to be honest with you they've taken a headlining band. In '96 and '97 we were a headline act wherever we went. I didn't know this was going to happen.
My wife's greatest fear and we've been married for 30 years, she was there at the very beginning and we've raised our 2 kids on the road and when this happened it was devastating to all of us. We've given our life to this thing called Styx. Now they are packaging up and playing fairs and casinos. You know what I'm saying?
I do.
So it's crushing to me because to me Styx was something sacred. That's the way I always treated it. Really when I heard that record and said I cried I really did because when I heard it I knew it was a terrible mistake. Right from the artwork, which I begged them not to use.
Not the greatest cover in the world.
Oh please. I begged them I said you couldn't do this. There you go. That's what happens when girls start fighting over each other. Really if you went back and read over the Goldmine interview you'd see that there story keeps changing.
The first thing was Dennis is ill and he's handing the baton over to Tommy. Bullshit.
As we say up here in the States 'I was robbed'. It's just 2 guys JY and Tommy. Chuck is retired. So that's it, it's kind of a sad thing for us over here.
I can totally understand why.
Did you wanna ask any questions about 'Brave New World' or anything?
Well. I'm happy to listen. I wanted to give you the chance to have your say out there. It's a reply to the overwhelming publicity that surrounds the other guys.
Andrew, Tommy wrote a song called I Will Be Your Witness.
It would have been a hit record if he'd just let me produce it. I bet the fact the only reason that song is on the album is because I insisted it be on the album. I would have produced it differently.
It's one of the better tracks.
It's a great idea to have something to say but then you have to say something.
I hate to sound bitter but I have some reason. There is nothing worse than wasted opportunities. That's really what happened to Brave New World.
They are loyal to Styx but everything to do with Styx. If you branch off they follow you as well I've found.
Yeah it's a very dedicated following. It has been a very difficult 2 years for me considering what's happened with the band. I don't know if you know the story or not.
Well not really only from what I've read from Tommy Shaw's side of things on various articles that's why I thought you could have your say.
Ok here's what happened. I can give you several publications and my story stays the same. From the moment I've told it in the press and of course between Tommy Shaw and James Young - their story keeps changing every six months. Here's what happened Andrew.
In 1996 Styx did a comeback tour and in '97 we weren't supposed to tour. I had written this musical and this was the year I was supposed to take time to do 2 things. The first was start writing and doing some demos for a new Styx album and I was supposed to have the opportunity to work on the Hunchback.
I had put the Hunchback on hold for a year and a half when the Styx thing came up in '96. I had producers in fact who were like what about us. The manager of the band came to me and said that one of the band members a tour would be beneficial financially to him. I said all right I'd try and do both.
What I did is I produced that live Styx album and came up with the idea for the show. I then did a workshop in Tennessee in January and did the whole Styx tour and then 2 days after I was off the road with Styx I was in Nashville for 2 months for the first production. All the time we were on the road I was going back between New York and Nashville trying to get this whole Hunchback thing settled. So I worked myself to death. To death.
It sounds like it.
I hadn't planned on doing it but I did it in the spirit of helping people. When I finally got off the road in October from the musical my father passed away which was a shock and it was very difficult. Then my best friend had terminal cancer and my wife's sister died all within about 6 weeks. So the mental and emotional strain was enormous.
When we came back from the funeral in California both my wife and I got a terrible flu. Well Andrew, there was nothing left of me. The flu just devastated me. The upshot of that was I just couldn't get better.
What I got was this post viral symptom, which I didn't know for 8 or 9 months what was causing it. My face always felt like I had a fever, it was hot.
I couldn't figure out what it was and I went from doctor to doctor and they didn't know what it was. Eventually I actually figured it out that I was sensitive to light. I didn't know why. It was only precipitated by any strong or fluorescent lights. When I finally recovered enough to keep working on the new Styx album we got together and started working on it.
I was recording in my house because that's where I had a studio. So we were making the record and things were going swimmingly and there were no problems as far as I knew.
In Feb 1999 the manager came in and said here is the tour that we want to do and they wanted a commitment from me for a full tour. I was barely able to record and still felt like crap. I asked them to give me another 4 or 5 months to recover from this thing. I said let's finish the album, give me a little time to recover and then we can plan something but I can't commit at this moment.
So a couple of weeks later Tommy called me up from Los Angeles and said that it was not in his best interest to finish up an album if there wasn't going to be a tour.
I said what are you talking about - we had to finish this album. Then the day later James Young called me and said they wanted me to commit to this tour but if I was not going to commit to the tour then they were going to go ahead and tour without me.
I begged them not to and I tried to convince them a thousand different ways that it was a mistake and asked them just to give me some time and so forth. That was it. So what happened was they had planned on stopping the album and just going on tour. So a couple of weeks later I called the head of the record company Tom Lipske at CMC I said if you hear this album was stopped because I got sick that's baloney. I told him I wanted to finish the record and he said what do you mean the record was stopped?
He didn't know about it. So he stepped in and got his attorney's going and he said he didn't care if there was a tour or not he wanted his album. So he forced the issue and the album was completed and unfortunately JY and Tommy finished their nine songs in California without my input. I finished mine in Chicago. That's why the album is what it is.
It sounds like two different bands.
That's why the album is what it is. Andrew did you listen to the live album?
Yeah, I've got it right in front of me.
All right so there are 3 new tracks on that live album. They are Dear John, Paradise and On My Way. Now those three songs sound like they are from the same album don't they?
That's because, do you wanna know the difference Andrew? It's because I produced them.
I have produced every album since Equinox, even though it said Styx. I was the producer.
I was the guy that brought all those 3 styles together and made those records sound like it was the same band doing them. On this album though you will notice it's the first album that hasn't been produced by me.
I'm telling you since Equinox.
So you produced your own tracks on Brave New World?
I produced my tracks.
I was fairly critical of the album, I'll be honest with you.
You can be as critical as you like about the album. I'm critical of the album
I gave it just an ok review because there are some really wonderful tracks on there. 'While There's Still Time' is a wonderful track but there are some others that I just didn't think gelled. From start to finish it does sound like a couple of different bands in there.
Well the problem is it really was just an album of missed opportunities. The material when it was presented, I was really excited with it.
But really in making a record it is in fact about someone making sure that the performances are good enough. Styx was a combination and always was of 3 personalities and what they did together musically. It wasn't me by myself. What I brought to it was I'm the biggest Styx fan in the world and I knew what Styx was as a band. I used my personality and I used my skills as a producer to make sure those albums always sounded like Styx records.
If you listen to 'Edge Of The Century' it still sounds like a Styx record. We had Burtnik in there but it still sounds like a Styx record.
This one doesn't because Tommy and JY went out and worked with, actually I have no idea. When I got the record and they sent me their nine tracks and I heard them I actually sat in my room and cried when I listened to them. I knew a terrible mistake had been made.
So when we got together 3 weeks before the album was due to come out for the first time, because we had all committed to a TV program, I talked to Tommy Shaw for over an hour and begged him to stop the release of this record - to allow us the chance to go back in and fix it.
They were quite happy with what they had done. Andrew, my role as producer all those years was to make sure any song that wasn't good enough didn't actually get on the album.
Tough job.
Yeah. And sometimes an unpopular one. You know what? It works.
If you look at those Styx albums they all have 8 or 9 songs on them. There are not 14 songs.
OK.
Well you get the very best songs. It isn't about the quantity it's about quality.
So anyway that's what happened. They decided to take the thing on the road and my only recourse was to sue them to stop them. I felt in my heart I couldn't do it and hoping and praying they would show some sense and stop the nonsense. They went touring July '99 and by August '99 I was well enough to say 'hey if you're going to do a full leg….'
They'd been asking me and I called them through attorney's and said I'm willing to sit down and talk and since that time they have absolutely refused to have any communication with me.
That's sad.
Very sad.
What forced the issue? Obviously you are all strong personalities, which have fired the band to be as great as you are.
Well look at The Who or The Rolling Stones that's what fires every great band. Appealing personalities. Yeah.
What happened when Tommy left and you reformed to do 'Edge of the Century'?
In 1983 Tommy decided that he didn't like, well he didn't like a lot of things, but number 1 thing he didn't like was he was convinced he could be a solo artist on his own.
Someone was whispering in his ear. He quit the band in the middle of the '83 tour. We knew he was going to quit. When the whole thing was over at the end of '83 and the beginning of '84 Tommy had quit and James Young, John and Chuck were still in the band they wanted me to replace Tommy Shaw and to go forward immediately. I said I wouldn't do it. I said this band is these guys.
So what I did is I became a reluctant solo artist because I was not going to go back and put a new Styx together with somebody else.
My contract read that I had the ability to make a solo record for A&M so I decided I'd make a solo album and wait for Tommy to come to his senses. So I made Desert Moon.
So Tommy made his solo album and I made mine. When Tommy's record deals had run out he called up in about 1988 and wanted to talk about getting the band back together.
I thought it was a good idea but I had just signed another deal with MCA to make another solo album, my 3rd. I told him let me just record this album and get this together and we'll talk about getting this band back together. As I'm going through that process he called me up one day and said I'm antsy. Remember Tommy is the guy that wrote the song 'Too Much Time On My Hands'. Catch my drift?
Yes.
Ok. He called me and said when are we going to do this Styx thing? I said I've gotta finish this project and he said I've got this offer to from my manager to go get with Jack Blades and Ted Nugent and do some demos. I said go and do it. I'm not going to stop you from doing it. So he went and they got a record deal and off he went.
Sure.
So what happened was after it was clear to me he was now in Damn Yankees the band came back to me again, JY called and said when are we going to do this. I realized at that moment that with Tommy happily in Damn Yankees that maybe if we were ever going to do it we should do it. So we forged ahead and put the thing together with Glenn Burtnik.
In that same year or the year later Tommy actually sold back his right to the name Styx legally.
Oh really?
Why? You tell me why somebody would do that?
Signing off on it really.
I guess so isn't it? So when Damn Yankees ran its course again well we got back together again.
Good grief. So where you are now…
I'm in my kitchen!
So am I actually. Haha.
What I was concerned about was they cut off your access to the Styx web site.
Well look let me ask you a question.
Is that playing games or…
It's absolute nonsense. The fact of the matter is I have received no compensation for anything they are doing. I own that name you know. I'm part owner of that name. In other words, what's your web site called?
Melodicrock.com
That's what I thought. If I tomorrow started a web site called Melodicrock and took the name Andrew McNeice what would you do to stop me, what could you do?
I could take you to court of course.
The police aren't going to arrest me are they? If you don't take me to court what's going to happen?
Well, nothing?
Well then I'll just have my web site then won't I?
Yeah.
That's what I've done for the last year or so. I've just sat. I've really patiently hoped. They have taken a band that was loved for what?
If only they had given me 5 or 6 months. It just crushed me.
You know Andrew I started this band when I was just 14 years old. Tommy and JY were nowhere to be seen when this band was formed. Me and the Panozzo's formed the band. You know there was 5 albums before Tommy Shaw and 1 album after he left. So it's been a really hurtful thing.
The good news is because of one guy who offered me this chance to do this thing with the orchestra another door has been opened. I've got to be honest with you they've taken a headlining band. In '96 and '97 we were a headline act wherever we went. I didn't know this was going to happen.
My wife's greatest fear and we've been married for 30 years, she was there at the very beginning and we've raised our 2 kids on the road and when this happened it was devastating to all of us. We've given our life to this thing called Styx. Now they are packaging up and playing fairs and casinos. You know what I'm saying?
I do.
So it's crushing to me because to me Styx was something sacred. That's the way I always treated it. Really when I heard that record and said I cried I really did because when I heard it I knew it was a terrible mistake. Right from the artwork, which I begged them not to use.
Not the greatest cover in the world.
Oh please. I begged them I said you couldn't do this. There you go. That's what happens when girls start fighting over each other. Really if you went back and read over the Goldmine interview you'd see that there story keeps changing.
The first thing was Dennis is ill and he's handing the baton over to Tommy. Bullshit.
As we say up here in the States 'I was robbed'. It's just 2 guys JY and Tommy. Chuck is retired. So that's it, it's kind of a sad thing for us over here.
I can totally understand why.
Did you wanna ask any questions about 'Brave New World' or anything?
Well. I'm happy to listen. I wanted to give you the chance to have your say out there. It's a reply to the overwhelming publicity that surrounds the other guys.
Andrew, Tommy wrote a song called I Will Be Your Witness.
It would have been a hit record if he'd just let me produce it. I bet the fact the only reason that song is on the album is because I insisted it be on the album. I would have produced it differently.
It's one of the better tracks.
It's a great idea to have something to say but then you have to say something.
I hate to sound bitter but I have some reason. There is nothing worse than wasted opportunities. That's really what happened to Brave New World.
Suite Madame Blue
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SuiteMadameBlue - Compact Disc
- Posts: 6666
- Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2003 2:17 pm
- Location: Paradise............
by SuiteMadameBlue » Fri Jun 04, 2010 3:38 am
I know everyone knows this, but here are the details on who was part of Brave New World......
Styx
•Dennis DeYoung - keyboards, vocals
•Chuck Panozzo - bass
•Tommy Shaw - acoustic guitar, electric guitar, keyboards, vocals
•Todd Sucherman - drums, percussion
•James Young - guitar, vocals
Additional personnel
•David Campbell - Conductor
•Jerry Goodman - violin
•Ed Tossing - conductor
•C.J. Vancston - conductor
Production
•Producers: Dennis DeYoung, Tommy Shaw, James Young
•Engineers: Rodney Amos, Craig Bauer, Andy Haller, John Hendrickson, Steve Johnson, Gary Loizzo, Keith Marks, Tommy Shaw, C.J. Vancston, Craig Williams
•Mixing: Craig Bauer, Dennis DeYoung, Gary Loizzo, Ron Nevison
•Mastering: Ted Jensen
•Sequencing: Tommy Shaw
•Programming: Tommy Shaw
•Pro-Tools: Patrick Thrasher
•String arrangements: David Campbell, Ed Tossing
•Horn arrangements: C.J. Vancston
•Art direction: Alan Chappell, Ioannis
•Design: Alan Chappell, Ioannis
•Artwork: Ioannis
Styx
•Dennis DeYoung - keyboards, vocals
•Chuck Panozzo - bass
•Tommy Shaw - acoustic guitar, electric guitar, keyboards, vocals
•Todd Sucherman - drums, percussion
•James Young - guitar, vocals
Additional personnel
•David Campbell - Conductor
•Jerry Goodman - violin
•Ed Tossing - conductor
•C.J. Vancston - conductor
Production
•Producers: Dennis DeYoung, Tommy Shaw, James Young
•Engineers: Rodney Amos, Craig Bauer, Andy Haller, John Hendrickson, Steve Johnson, Gary Loizzo, Keith Marks, Tommy Shaw, C.J. Vancston, Craig Williams
•Mixing: Craig Bauer, Dennis DeYoung, Gary Loizzo, Ron Nevison
•Mastering: Ted Jensen
•Sequencing: Tommy Shaw
•Programming: Tommy Shaw
•Pro-Tools: Patrick Thrasher
•String arrangements: David Campbell, Ed Tossing
•Horn arrangements: C.J. Vancston
•Art direction: Alan Chappell, Ioannis
•Design: Alan Chappell, Ioannis
•Artwork: Ioannis
Suite Madame Blue
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SuiteMadameBlue - Compact Disc
- Posts: 6666
- Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2003 2:17 pm
- Location: Paradise............
by SuiteMadameBlue » Fri Jun 04, 2010 4:10 am
I have a stack of articles I guess I need to go through someday.
Here's another one regarding BMW.......
STYX:
Behind The Grand Illusion
By John Everson
Styx once played on the old saw "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times" and garnered a top 40 single out of the deal. But the days of the Paradise Theatre are long past. The process of recording and touring to promote Brave New World (CMC International), the first studio album to reunite lead singer-songwriters Dennis DeYoung, Tommy Shaw and James Young since 1983’s Kilroy Was Here, seems to have brought on the flip side of that single, creating one of the band’s "worst of times."
While press releases report that Styx’s decision to tour this summer without DeYoung due to health problems was made without enmity, the truth is, the band is divided into two camps. Shaw and Young haven’t spoken to DeYoung since the final days of readying the album, which was released in June. And while publicity is also mum on absence of another founding member, the fact is, bassist Chuck Panozzo has also chosen to sit out the current tour, leaving Young and Shaw to carry the Styx name around the country with an unknown Canadian singer, Lawrence Gowan,filling in for DeYoung, and Glen Burtnik (who filled Shaw’s shoes for a 1990 album and tour) handling Panozzo’s spot.
So what gives?
On the surface, the band is in the midst of a career resurgence. Styx brought CMC Records the label’s first gold record for the 1997 double live Return to Paradise "comeback" disc. They’ve had their hits "Mr. Roboto" used in a recent VW commercial and "Come Sail Away" was abused in a "South Park" episode while celebrated on the soundtrack and in dialogue in Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy movie.
Welcome to the Grand Illusion...
But amid this nostalgic success, the band’s most recognizable voice and leader, DeYoung, has been suffering from health problems linked to a virulous bout of the flu. The illness started following the Return to Paradise tour, and left the singer painfully sensitive to light and prone to uncharacteristic bouts of exhaustion.
"This thing actually landed in the nervous system of my face," DeYoung animately explains, "which has made me sensitive to light. My face gets hot, my eyes get bloodshot; it’s absolutely insane. This thing has ruined my life! I’ve been to 15 different doctors and they just say sometimes viruses do weird things to your system. And this weird thing happened to me."
The result is that Brave New World was not a normal "band" project. DeYoung worked up his share of the CD in his home studio while Shaw and Young worked with Damn Yankees producer Ron Nevison in L.A. Young shuttled tapes back and forth between the two studios. All seemed to be progressing well until DeYoung said during the recording process that he couldn’t, at that time, commit to a fall tour. Then Shaw allegedly threatened to walk.
In an Internet letter to fans, DeYoung explained, "When Tommy learned that I was not able to commit to a tour, he decided that finishing the album was not in his best interests. I disagreed and so did Tom Lipsky, the president of CMC Records. We worked together to make sure that the album [would] be completed for a summer release."
Pay the price, get your tickets for the show...
Brave New World was finished and released this summer despite deteriorating conditions among the band members, but to DeYoung’s chagrin, Shaw and Young decided to support it by touring without him — beginning even earlier than first discussed with a summer leg.
"We had to do this,"Young explains. "The record company wanted to get this album out on the heels of the release of the Adam Sandler film, so it had to come out at the end of June, and Dennis wasn’t prepared to go out on tour because of his physical problems. It was our decision to tour because with the Sandler film, the "South Park" episode, the VW commercial — there was a confluence of events that created a unique opportunity for us to gain a whole new audience."
Young says the band had to capitalize on the media exposure to take Styx "back to the people" by playing places they haven’t performed at in two decades, hopefully helping to boost the sales of their comeback disc to nab a precious metal award like most of the band’s other albums.
"I think this record will eventually be gold, but it has to find its way," he says.
Don’t be fooled by the radio...
While DeYoung agrees that this summer certainly has given Styx a media leg up, he also says that he asked the band and record label to hold back the album and postpone touring, because the music wasn’t quite ready yet. But his plea was declined.
"Unfortunately, I was not allowed any input into the final tracks, the album artwork or the song sequencing," DeYoung says. The result? "It’s an album of missed opportunities."
Brave New World briefly entered the Billboard Top 200 upon its release, but despite the summer tour — which put the erstwhile stadium rockers on the county fairground circuit — Young admits that "it hasn’t made the splash we’d like to make." He says touring the album hard — as the band did in 1976 when Shaw first joined the band — is the answer to building the band a new audience.
"Patience and persistence, that we can provide, talent we’ve got," says Young. "Luck is the other part of the equation and you create your own luck by being available and sticking your nose out there."
While two singles came and went over the summer without radio support — including "While There’s Still Time," a DeYoung ballad that would have been an easy Top 40 charter for the band a decade ago — Young says the CD’s leadoff track, the Shaw-sung "I Will Be Your Witness" is the fall single that the record company is banking on.
"And to quote Mr. DeYoung," he says, "there’s no deodorant like success."
Young says that the band still hopes that eventually DeYoung will be able to join the fall tour, which, at presstime, has yet to book a Chicago date, though Young promises they’ll play for the home crowd eventually.
"We’ve hoped that Dennis would call up and say he was ready to go," Young says.
But DeYoung says it’s not likely.
"At this moment, I have no plans to do any shows whatsoever," he says. "I asked the rest of the band to wait for me to get better before touring, but apparently it wasn’t meant to be."
Both admit that they haven’t spoken all summer. Will this rift mean the end of Styx? Will there be another Styx studio album?
"I don’t know," DeYoung says, sounding beaten. "And that’s the truth."
But Young is optimistic.
"Oh, I intend for there to be. If I have anything to say about it there will absolutely be a next time. I have no side projects. The James Young Group is great fun, but Styx is clearly the thing that I need to focus on in my career."
So if you think your life is complete confusion...
"There have been a lot of times where we’ve spent years apart," Young adds. "I don’t know what the future holds beyond December 1999. Dennis is not completely happy about us being out on this tour without him. Emotions are too high to talk about what current affairs are. But eventually, cooler heads always prevail. This is something that we felt, careerwise, we absolutely had to do now. And as far as I know, there are few, if any, fans that feel cheated by the product we’re putting on the stage. Some people are finding the fact that it’s a different thing, stimulating."
Young has a point — this is not the first time bad luck has hit the Styx camp during the heydays of reunion. The band regrouped sans Shaw in 1990 for Edge of the Century, and original drummer John Panozzo was unable to join the band on a subsequent reunion tour. His eventual death was memorialized in "Dear John," a Shaw-sung studio track from Return to Paradise.
Considering the splintered quality of the new album, and the fact that half of Styx’s remaining members are on the road while the other half are sitting it out in Chicago , there’s a good chance that John Panozzo’s eulogy is really the marker of the last true collaboration of Chicago’s top vocal rock band of the ‘70s.
One more ominous sign of that comes in DeYoung’s participation, sans Styx, in a Siegfried and Roy IMAX film, The Magic Box, opening this month [October 1999] in New York and L.A. The movie features a recording of "The Grand Illusion" with an 85-piece orchestra conducted by Alan Silvestri. DeYoung recorded the rock tracks for the orchestra here in Chicago while Styx was on the road. DeYoung also will get a solo career boost this fall when MCA’s Hipo label releases a best of Dennis DeYoung solo compilation. And Shaw has his own life after this Styx tour lined up as well — Damn Yankees are signed again and gearing up to record a new album for the revived Portrait Records.
But Young says not to worry. There are already songs written for the next album, and he’s banking on another go that will include both DeYoung and Panozzo.
"Chuck has had hard time with the departure of his brother from this planet, and then his mother passed away in January of this year," Young says. "I think when he saw that this tour was going to be a little bit different without Dennis, that he decided he’d sit it out himself. Glen [Burtnik] is someone he’s very fond of and he put his stamp of approval on Glen doing this tour. Ultimately I think Chuck will be back."
But someday soon we’ll stop to ponder...
All this uncertainty would be hard enough if the reunited band had produced one of its best works before running into problems. Unfortunately, the impact of DeYoung’s illness can be heard in the tracks on Brave New World as well as in his absence from the stage this tour. As Styx’s longtime concept album "visionary" and studio leader, DeYoung used to pull together the disparate rock styles of Shaw and Young with his own light ballad touch in coproducing previous releases. But with the decentralized nature of the recording and mixing of Brave New World, this CD sounds unfocused, fragmented. There are some fine Stygian moments on Brave New World, but it’s obviously not the work of a vibrant collaboration.
"We’re not the same people we once were," says Young. "Tommy’s been doing a lot of writing for many different things. Dennis has been profoundly effected by the death of his dad and hasn’t felt well. And his heart has been in musical theatre instead of in writing rock songs. So things were different this time. The challenge for us was to take the elements that people know and love about Styx, like the big harmonies, and still have something that didn’t sound like a rehash of a record we made in the ‘70s or ‘80s."
Young enthuses, however, that the process of making this album provided the band with more freedom than ever before.
"The professionalism that everyone brought into the studio was a wonderful thing. We’ve all worked individually with talented brilliant players in the interim between Styx albums. So to bring all that seasoned knowledge back to the table for a Styx record is a wonderful thing. "
What on earth’s this spell we’re under...
One would guess that recording the album in isolated studios, and bringing in, for the first time, an "outsider" in Nevison, also has something to do with the sonic difference that separates this from previous Styx records.
"This album was created in a variety of places under a variety of circumstances," Young admits. "Ron Nevison may have had something to do with deemphasizing the harmonies. But I think the divergence of the overall sound from what has been before has more to do with the writing than where it was recorded. We did a certain amount of searching, creatively, to find that next thing that either brings us back to where we were or to help us reach some new level of what we do."
Young says the band found recording technologies of the ’90s a freeing thing.
"In the past, we were limited by the physics of a vinyl record that only allowed you to record 40 minutes of music every couple of years. There was a real battle to get your stuff on the record. This time, it was all the material that fits!"
Of course, some might argue that it’s better not to include everything that fits. DeYoung admits that the album is currently weighted a little heavy at 14 songs and might have been a tighter production if a couple had been dropped. He also says if he’d been at the boards finishing the album, as he always was in the past, Brave New World would have sounded more like a Styx album.
"A lot of the sound has to do with the way the album was put together in separate places," DeYoung says. "If I had been able to do on this record what I always did in the studio, those disparate styles, I believe, would have come together better."
We made the grade and still we wonder...
If there is to be a future for this band other than a mining of nostalgia hits for movie and TV vehicles, DeYoung, Shaw and Young will need to closet themselves in the studio — all at the same time in the same place — to rediscover the magic that they had two decades ago — the gestalt that produced The Grand Illusion, Pieces of Eight, Cornerstone and Paradise Theatre is painfully absent on Brave New World. The trademark Styx three-part harmonies are subdued or missing entirely, with Shaw’s and DeYoung’s tracks sounding like unconnected solo efforts shoehorned together to fill out one CD.
Who the hell we are...
DeYoung admits that his songs for Brave New World — which include "While There’s Still Time," (a ballad rescued from his 1997 Hunchback of Notre Dame musical), along with a quiet piano ballad and a lite reggae number — were not written in the classic Styx mold.
"Some of the things that I wrote for this album were less traditionally Styx-like, but as an artist, you can only record that which you’ve written," he says. "I’m not making excuses — I like what I’ve done. But if it isn’t like a traditional Styx record that makes people happy in that way, I can understand it, because it isn’t a traditional Styx record."
"If we had made the same record as we have in the past, we would have been criticized for that," says Young. "The writing on this record shows a little searching but I think we’ve nailed it on a number of levels. It doesn’t sound like the Styx of old, but we’re evolving...hang with us through the evolution."
That's provided Styx stays together to continue their musical journey.
Here's another one regarding BMW.......
STYX:
Behind The Grand Illusion
By John Everson
Styx once played on the old saw "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times" and garnered a top 40 single out of the deal. But the days of the Paradise Theatre are long past. The process of recording and touring to promote Brave New World (CMC International), the first studio album to reunite lead singer-songwriters Dennis DeYoung, Tommy Shaw and James Young since 1983’s Kilroy Was Here, seems to have brought on the flip side of that single, creating one of the band’s "worst of times."
While press releases report that Styx’s decision to tour this summer without DeYoung due to health problems was made without enmity, the truth is, the band is divided into two camps. Shaw and Young haven’t spoken to DeYoung since the final days of readying the album, which was released in June. And while publicity is also mum on absence of another founding member, the fact is, bassist Chuck Panozzo has also chosen to sit out the current tour, leaving Young and Shaw to carry the Styx name around the country with an unknown Canadian singer, Lawrence Gowan,filling in for DeYoung, and Glen Burtnik (who filled Shaw’s shoes for a 1990 album and tour) handling Panozzo’s spot.
So what gives?
On the surface, the band is in the midst of a career resurgence. Styx brought CMC Records the label’s first gold record for the 1997 double live Return to Paradise "comeback" disc. They’ve had their hits "Mr. Roboto" used in a recent VW commercial and "Come Sail Away" was abused in a "South Park" episode while celebrated on the soundtrack and in dialogue in Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy movie.
Welcome to the Grand Illusion...
But amid this nostalgic success, the band’s most recognizable voice and leader, DeYoung, has been suffering from health problems linked to a virulous bout of the flu. The illness started following the Return to Paradise tour, and left the singer painfully sensitive to light and prone to uncharacteristic bouts of exhaustion.
"This thing actually landed in the nervous system of my face," DeYoung animately explains, "which has made me sensitive to light. My face gets hot, my eyes get bloodshot; it’s absolutely insane. This thing has ruined my life! I’ve been to 15 different doctors and they just say sometimes viruses do weird things to your system. And this weird thing happened to me."
The result is that Brave New World was not a normal "band" project. DeYoung worked up his share of the CD in his home studio while Shaw and Young worked with Damn Yankees producer Ron Nevison in L.A. Young shuttled tapes back and forth between the two studios. All seemed to be progressing well until DeYoung said during the recording process that he couldn’t, at that time, commit to a fall tour. Then Shaw allegedly threatened to walk.
In an Internet letter to fans, DeYoung explained, "When Tommy learned that I was not able to commit to a tour, he decided that finishing the album was not in his best interests. I disagreed and so did Tom Lipsky, the president of CMC Records. We worked together to make sure that the album [would] be completed for a summer release."
Pay the price, get your tickets for the show...
Brave New World was finished and released this summer despite deteriorating conditions among the band members, but to DeYoung’s chagrin, Shaw and Young decided to support it by touring without him — beginning even earlier than first discussed with a summer leg.
"We had to do this,"Young explains. "The record company wanted to get this album out on the heels of the release of the Adam Sandler film, so it had to come out at the end of June, and Dennis wasn’t prepared to go out on tour because of his physical problems. It was our decision to tour because with the Sandler film, the "South Park" episode, the VW commercial — there was a confluence of events that created a unique opportunity for us to gain a whole new audience."
Young says the band had to capitalize on the media exposure to take Styx "back to the people" by playing places they haven’t performed at in two decades, hopefully helping to boost the sales of their comeback disc to nab a precious metal award like most of the band’s other albums.
"I think this record will eventually be gold, but it has to find its way," he says.
Don’t be fooled by the radio...
While DeYoung agrees that this summer certainly has given Styx a media leg up, he also says that he asked the band and record label to hold back the album and postpone touring, because the music wasn’t quite ready yet. But his plea was declined.
"Unfortunately, I was not allowed any input into the final tracks, the album artwork or the song sequencing," DeYoung says. The result? "It’s an album of missed opportunities."
Brave New World briefly entered the Billboard Top 200 upon its release, but despite the summer tour — which put the erstwhile stadium rockers on the county fairground circuit — Young admits that "it hasn’t made the splash we’d like to make." He says touring the album hard — as the band did in 1976 when Shaw first joined the band — is the answer to building the band a new audience.
"Patience and persistence, that we can provide, talent we’ve got," says Young. "Luck is the other part of the equation and you create your own luck by being available and sticking your nose out there."
While two singles came and went over the summer without radio support — including "While There’s Still Time," a DeYoung ballad that would have been an easy Top 40 charter for the band a decade ago — Young says the CD’s leadoff track, the Shaw-sung "I Will Be Your Witness" is the fall single that the record company is banking on.
"And to quote Mr. DeYoung," he says, "there’s no deodorant like success."
Young says that the band still hopes that eventually DeYoung will be able to join the fall tour, which, at presstime, has yet to book a Chicago date, though Young promises they’ll play for the home crowd eventually.
"We’ve hoped that Dennis would call up and say he was ready to go," Young says.
But DeYoung says it’s not likely.
"At this moment, I have no plans to do any shows whatsoever," he says. "I asked the rest of the band to wait for me to get better before touring, but apparently it wasn’t meant to be."
Both admit that they haven’t spoken all summer. Will this rift mean the end of Styx? Will there be another Styx studio album?
"I don’t know," DeYoung says, sounding beaten. "And that’s the truth."
But Young is optimistic.
"Oh, I intend for there to be. If I have anything to say about it there will absolutely be a next time. I have no side projects. The James Young Group is great fun, but Styx is clearly the thing that I need to focus on in my career."
So if you think your life is complete confusion...
"There have been a lot of times where we’ve spent years apart," Young adds. "I don’t know what the future holds beyond December 1999. Dennis is not completely happy about us being out on this tour without him. Emotions are too high to talk about what current affairs are. But eventually, cooler heads always prevail. This is something that we felt, careerwise, we absolutely had to do now. And as far as I know, there are few, if any, fans that feel cheated by the product we’re putting on the stage. Some people are finding the fact that it’s a different thing, stimulating."
Young has a point — this is not the first time bad luck has hit the Styx camp during the heydays of reunion. The band regrouped sans Shaw in 1990 for Edge of the Century, and original drummer John Panozzo was unable to join the band on a subsequent reunion tour. His eventual death was memorialized in "Dear John," a Shaw-sung studio track from Return to Paradise.
Considering the splintered quality of the new album, and the fact that half of Styx’s remaining members are on the road while the other half are sitting it out in Chicago , there’s a good chance that John Panozzo’s eulogy is really the marker of the last true collaboration of Chicago’s top vocal rock band of the ‘70s.
One more ominous sign of that comes in DeYoung’s participation, sans Styx, in a Siegfried and Roy IMAX film, The Magic Box, opening this month [October 1999] in New York and L.A. The movie features a recording of "The Grand Illusion" with an 85-piece orchestra conducted by Alan Silvestri. DeYoung recorded the rock tracks for the orchestra here in Chicago while Styx was on the road. DeYoung also will get a solo career boost this fall when MCA’s Hipo label releases a best of Dennis DeYoung solo compilation. And Shaw has his own life after this Styx tour lined up as well — Damn Yankees are signed again and gearing up to record a new album for the revived Portrait Records.
But Young says not to worry. There are already songs written for the next album, and he’s banking on another go that will include both DeYoung and Panozzo.
"Chuck has had hard time with the departure of his brother from this planet, and then his mother passed away in January of this year," Young says. "I think when he saw that this tour was going to be a little bit different without Dennis, that he decided he’d sit it out himself. Glen [Burtnik] is someone he’s very fond of and he put his stamp of approval on Glen doing this tour. Ultimately I think Chuck will be back."
But someday soon we’ll stop to ponder...
All this uncertainty would be hard enough if the reunited band had produced one of its best works before running into problems. Unfortunately, the impact of DeYoung’s illness can be heard in the tracks on Brave New World as well as in his absence from the stage this tour. As Styx’s longtime concept album "visionary" and studio leader, DeYoung used to pull together the disparate rock styles of Shaw and Young with his own light ballad touch in coproducing previous releases. But with the decentralized nature of the recording and mixing of Brave New World, this CD sounds unfocused, fragmented. There are some fine Stygian moments on Brave New World, but it’s obviously not the work of a vibrant collaboration.
"We’re not the same people we once were," says Young. "Tommy’s been doing a lot of writing for many different things. Dennis has been profoundly effected by the death of his dad and hasn’t felt well. And his heart has been in musical theatre instead of in writing rock songs. So things were different this time. The challenge for us was to take the elements that people know and love about Styx, like the big harmonies, and still have something that didn’t sound like a rehash of a record we made in the ‘70s or ‘80s."
Young enthuses, however, that the process of making this album provided the band with more freedom than ever before.
"The professionalism that everyone brought into the studio was a wonderful thing. We’ve all worked individually with talented brilliant players in the interim between Styx albums. So to bring all that seasoned knowledge back to the table for a Styx record is a wonderful thing. "
What on earth’s this spell we’re under...
One would guess that recording the album in isolated studios, and bringing in, for the first time, an "outsider" in Nevison, also has something to do with the sonic difference that separates this from previous Styx records.
"This album was created in a variety of places under a variety of circumstances," Young admits. "Ron Nevison may have had something to do with deemphasizing the harmonies. But I think the divergence of the overall sound from what has been before has more to do with the writing than where it was recorded. We did a certain amount of searching, creatively, to find that next thing that either brings us back to where we were or to help us reach some new level of what we do."
Young says the band found recording technologies of the ’90s a freeing thing.
"In the past, we were limited by the physics of a vinyl record that only allowed you to record 40 minutes of music every couple of years. There was a real battle to get your stuff on the record. This time, it was all the material that fits!"
Of course, some might argue that it’s better not to include everything that fits. DeYoung admits that the album is currently weighted a little heavy at 14 songs and might have been a tighter production if a couple had been dropped. He also says if he’d been at the boards finishing the album, as he always was in the past, Brave New World would have sounded more like a Styx album.
"A lot of the sound has to do with the way the album was put together in separate places," DeYoung says. "If I had been able to do on this record what I always did in the studio, those disparate styles, I believe, would have come together better."
We made the grade and still we wonder...
If there is to be a future for this band other than a mining of nostalgia hits for movie and TV vehicles, DeYoung, Shaw and Young will need to closet themselves in the studio — all at the same time in the same place — to rediscover the magic that they had two decades ago — the gestalt that produced The Grand Illusion, Pieces of Eight, Cornerstone and Paradise Theatre is painfully absent on Brave New World. The trademark Styx three-part harmonies are subdued or missing entirely, with Shaw’s and DeYoung’s tracks sounding like unconnected solo efforts shoehorned together to fill out one CD.
Who the hell we are...
DeYoung admits that his songs for Brave New World — which include "While There’s Still Time," (a ballad rescued from his 1997 Hunchback of Notre Dame musical), along with a quiet piano ballad and a lite reggae number — were not written in the classic Styx mold.
"Some of the things that I wrote for this album were less traditionally Styx-like, but as an artist, you can only record that which you’ve written," he says. "I’m not making excuses — I like what I’ve done. But if it isn’t like a traditional Styx record that makes people happy in that way, I can understand it, because it isn’t a traditional Styx record."
"If we had made the same record as we have in the past, we would have been criticized for that," says Young. "The writing on this record shows a little searching but I think we’ve nailed it on a number of levels. It doesn’t sound like the Styx of old, but we’re evolving...hang with us through the evolution."
That's provided Styx stays together to continue their musical journey.
Suite Madame Blue
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by froy » Fri Jun 04, 2010 9:20 am
SuiteMadameBlue wrote:This is just part of an interview between Andrew and Dennis........
[b]They are loyal to Styx but everything to do with Styx. If you branch off they follow you as well I've found.
Now you know why I have been here for 13 years backing up Dennis DeYoung
Tommy Shaw and JY conspired to steal away Styx and burn it to the ground
Thanks you jerks.
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by yogi » Fri Jun 04, 2010 9:50 am
Froy I would make you a bet right now even though it is one we could never prove. If Dennis, Tommy & JY somehow entered the same elevator. They would look at each other see the lines on each others faces and realize like they already do know now that they have far more musical days behind them then are in front of them. They would then come out of that elevator all ready to make music together again.
Some months later they would all hit the stage again. Dennis front and center singing The Grand Illusion. Tommy, JY, Glen, Ricky and Chuck would all be playing guitar, Todd would be on drums and Larry would be on the keyboards.
But until that meeting occurs, this is what we have. EVERYONE has moved on minus you. Give it a break. Hopefully, at some point some pride will be swallowed, good times will be remembered, all concerned will realize how short time is and Dennis, JY, Tommy, Chuck and the others will walk on and off the same stage together once again like they have so many times in the past.
Some months later they would all hit the stage again. Dennis front and center singing The Grand Illusion. Tommy, JY, Glen, Ricky and Chuck would all be playing guitar, Todd would be on drums and Larry would be on the keyboards.
But until that meeting occurs, this is what we have. EVERYONE has moved on minus you. Give it a break. Hopefully, at some point some pride will be swallowed, good times will be remembered, all concerned will realize how short time is and Dennis, JY, Tommy, Chuck and the others will walk on and off the same stage together once again like they have so many times in the past.
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by yogi » Fri Jun 04, 2010 10:01 am
I cant see ANY of them NOW ever throwing a punch.
How many hips could be broken if violence occurs between them? Over/Under is 4
How many hips could be broken if violence occurs between them? Over/Under is 4
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by styxfanNH » Fri Jun 04, 2010 10:06 am
it would have to be by chance, like when Dennis and Tommy met during Damn Yankees.
www.styxtoury.com
Concert Dates, articles, and more
Concert Dates, articles, and more
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by Everett » Fri Jun 04, 2010 10:08 am
styxfanNH wrote:it would have to be by chance, like when Dennis and Tommy met during Damn Yankees.
I still would like to know who's responsible for that, I swear the planets must've been aligned or something
All in a day's work
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by gr8dane » Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:19 am
froy wrote:SuiteMadameBlue wrote:This is just part of an interview between Andrew and Dennis........
[b]They are loyal to Styx but everything to do with Styx. If you branch off they follow you as well I've found.
Now you know why I have been here for 13 years backing up Dennis DeYoung
.
A pin and a diploma would be in order.
Come on Dennis,show that you care.
Jesus loves you ,but everybody else thinks you're a knob.
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by Mr JY Roboto » Fri Jun 04, 2010 12:58 pm
Even if Dennis had a hand in Tommy and JY's songs, the outcome would not have been that different in my opinion. There are only a few good songs on that album..Everything Is Cool, Goodbye Roseland, Heavy Water...that's it. They each had one decent song on that thing. Enough for a CD Single maybe. The sequencing of the tracks was terrible. I would have done something like this:
Everything Is Cool
Goodbye Roseland
Heavy Water
Everything Is Cool
Goodbye Roseland
Heavy Water
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by chickenbeef » Fri Jun 04, 2010 12:59 pm
Mr JY Roboto wrote:Even if Dennis had a hand in Tommy and JY's songs, the outcome would not have been that different in my opinion. There are only a few good songs on that album..Everything Is Cool, Goodbye Roseland, Heavy Water...that's it. They each had one decent song on that thing. Enough for a CD Single maybe. The sequencing of the tracks was terrible. I would have done something like this:
Everything Is Cool
Goodbye Roseland
Heavy Water
the title track is one of styx's best songs
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by Everett » Fri Jun 04, 2010 1:02 pm
chickenbeef wrote:Mr JY Roboto wrote:Even if Dennis had a hand in Tommy and JY's songs, the outcome would not have been that different in my opinion. There are only a few good songs on that album..Everything Is Cool, Goodbye Roseland, Heavy Water...that's it. They each had one decent song on that thing. Enough for a CD Single maybe. The sequencing of the tracks was terrible. I would have done something like this:
Everything Is Cool
Goodbye Roseland
Heavy Water
the title track is one of styx's best songs
Can i have whatever you're smoking beef?
All in a day's work
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by BlackWall » Fri Jun 04, 2010 2:19 pm
"BNW" is better than "Cyclorama" and "100 Years From Now", but "Rubicon" and "These Are The Times" are stronger than anything on "BNW". Makes perfect sense, right? 
I don't understand why everyone is always hating on "BNW".. Is it because it was the band's swan song? Because people think it was rushed out against DDY's wishes? Even so, it has some damn fine songs. Yes, it's all over the place, but to be fair, one of their best albums, "Paradise Theatre" was kind of a cluster f!ck as well, just shorter: "Snowblind" to "Nothing Ever Goes As Planned"?
Is it so much because people think it sounds inconsistent, or because some of the band members have stated that it was not a group effort? Are we somewhat programmed not to like it because of what it represented?
I don't understand why everyone is always hating on "BNW".. Is it because it was the band's swan song? Because people think it was rushed out against DDY's wishes? Even so, it has some damn fine songs. Yes, it's all over the place, but to be fair, one of their best albums, "Paradise Theatre" was kind of a cluster f!ck as well, just shorter: "Snowblind" to "Nothing Ever Goes As Planned"?
Is it so much because people think it sounds inconsistent, or because some of the band members have stated that it was not a group effort? Are we somewhat programmed not to like it because of what it represented?
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by pinkfloyd1973 » Fri Jun 04, 2010 3:28 pm
chickenbeef wrote:Mr JY Roboto wrote:Even if Dennis had a hand in Tommy and JY's songs, the outcome would not have been that different in my opinion. There are only a few good songs on that album..Everything Is Cool, Goodbye Roseland, Heavy Water...that's it. They each had one decent song on that thing. Enough for a CD Single maybe. The sequencing of the tracks was terrible. I would have done something like this:
Everything Is Cool
Goodbye Roseland
Heavy Water
the title track is one of styx's best songs
For once in my life I am gonna agree with chickenbeef, "Brave New World" is a great song
Robin
"So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause."
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by Boomchild » Fri Jun 04, 2010 3:49 pm
While I enjoyed BNW, like a lot of folks I felt it did not have that same Styx feel to it as all their past albums. Sounded more like a collection of solo songs from all the members. Overall I think it was a mistake to release it the way it was but, it seems they were compelled to by the record label. The process of them working together on the project may have opened up "Old Wounds" that never really healed at all. I think the "Dennis didn't want to tour" only scratches the surface. If they were only doing live performances together and not trying to work on a new project I think they still would be together today.
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by Everett » Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:58 pm
pinkfloyd1973 wrote:chickenbeef wrote:Mr JY Roboto wrote:Even if Dennis had a hand in Tommy and JY's songs, the outcome would not have been that different in my opinion. There are only a few good songs on that album..Everything Is Cool, Goodbye Roseland, Heavy Water...that's it. They each had one decent song on that thing. Enough for a CD Single maybe. The sequencing of the tracks was terrible. I would have done something like this:
Everything Is Cool
Goodbye Roseland
Heavy Water
the title track is one of styx's best songs
For once in my life I am gonna agree with chickenbeef, "Brave New World" is a great song
Robin
Thanks for agreeing with me
All in a day's work
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by Everett » Sat Jun 05, 2010 12:01 am
Boomchild wrote:While I enjoyed BNW, like a lot of folks I felt it did not have that same Styx feel to it as all their past albums. Sounded more like a collection of solo songs from all the members. Overall I think it was a mistake to release it the way it was but, it seems they were compelled to by the record label. The process of them working together on the project may have opened up "Old Wounds" that never really healed at all. I think the "Dennis didn't want to tour" only scratches the surface. If they were only doing live performances together and not trying to work on a new project I think they still would be together today.
Probably but they wanted dennis out of the band since cornerstone and unfortunately that was the perfect time for them to send him his walking papers.
All in a day's work
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by Toph » Sat Jun 05, 2010 12:29 am
BlackWall wrote:"BNW" is better than "Cyclorama" and "100 Years From Now", but "Rubicon" and "These Are The Times" are stronger than anything on "BNW". Makes perfect sense, right?
I don't understand why everyone is always hating on "BNW".. Is it because it was the band's swan song? Because people think it was rushed out against DDY's wishes? Even so, it has some damn fine songs. Yes, it's all over the place, but to be fair, one of their best albums, "Paradise Theatre" was kind of a cluster f!ck as well, just shorter: "Snowblind" to "Nothing Ever Goes As Planned"?
Is it so much because people think it sounds inconsistent, or because some of the band members have stated that it was not a group effort? Are we somewhat programmed not to like it because of what it represented?
You are stoned. You have to be to put Brave New Flop and Paradise Theater in the same sentence? Paradise Theater is completely cohesive - it flows nicely and has a universal theme associated with it. The production level is better than any Styx album before or after. The songs are well constructed, well thought out, and melodic. Put it this way, the worst song on Paradise Theater (She Cares) would be one of the best if not the best song on BNF.
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by FormerDJMike » Sat Jun 05, 2010 1:01 am
Personally I would have liked to have heard Dennis sing "Everything Is Cool" & "Just Fell In". Those 2 songs were written for him to sing. I also liked "Great Expectations" better when a friend mentioned it had a "Walking On The Moon" feel too it. Don't listen to it anymore but pull it out every two years or so.
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by Toph » Sat Jun 05, 2010 1:32 am
FormerDJMike wrote:Personally I would have liked to have heard Dennis sing "Everything Is Cool" & "Just Fell In". Those 2 songs were written for him to sing. I also liked "Great Expectations" better when a friend mentioned it had a "Walking On The Moon" feel too it. Don't listen to it anymore but pull it out every two years or so.
While There's Still Time fits nicely with other Styx ballads.
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by brywool » Sat Jun 05, 2010 1:48 am
FormerDJMike wrote:Personally I would have liked to have heard Dennis sing "Everything Is Cool" & "Just Fell In". Those 2 songs were written for him to sing. I also liked "Great Expectations" better when a friend mentioned it had a "Walking On The Moon" feel too it. Don't listen to it anymore but pull it out every two years or so.
EIC was written for Dennis to sing? Is this true or just your opinion?
I think Tommy did a great job with it, but yeah, I could see Dennis doing it.
BNW is NOT a better record in any shape or form than Cyclorama. But it's also not a piece of crap. Take away Hipocracy and Just Fell In and it would've been pretty decent record.
It would be interesting to hear Dennis remix it the way he thought it should be. I loved Nevison's work on the DY albums and was psyched that he was going to do the Styx album, BUT I think that Dennis was correct when he said that he helped the albums sound like cohesive STYX albums.
NO. He's NOT Steve F'ing Perry. But he's Arnel F'ing Pineda and I'm okay with that.
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by StyxCollector » Sat Jun 05, 2010 4:25 am
BNW is the equivalent of the Yes Union album. 'nuff said.
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