During its heyday, Styx racked up many classic rock hits, including “Blue Collar Man,” “Renegade” and “Come Sail Away.” But in recent years, the Chicago-based band has worked a new crowd-pleaser into its concert lineup, thanks to singer/keyboardist Lawrence Gowan and the Beatles.
“I tooled around with ‘I Am The Walrus’ for years, playing it at my solo shows,” says Gowan, who joined Styx in 1999 “Once, while messing around with it in a rehearsal, (Styx singer/guitarist) Tommy Shaw stopped and listened. It turned out that he really liked it and said that the band should work up our own Styx-style version.”
Thus, in 2004, was born the longtime Windy City hit-makers’ most recent radio hit (No. 10 on the Mediabase Classic Rock charts). The band hasn’t released a studio version of “Walrus,” but a concert version appeared the following year on “Big Bang Theory,” an album of cover tunes that became the biggest-selling Styx album in 14 years.
Styx’s “I am The Walrus” is a thunderous, jaw-dropping take on the 1967 John Lennon-penned Beatles psychedelic masterpiece that’s become a concert fave, bringing down the house every time the group performs it. That song, along with a solid selection of Styx’s many classic rock hits are guaranteed to be played at the band’s show Friday at the House of Blues in Anaheim.
Since 1983, the Glasgow-born Gowan, 53, who telephoned this interview from his home in Toronto, had been a popular recording star in Canada for fifteen years before joining Styx in 1999.
A classically trained pianist, Gowan scored 13 Top 40 hits from 1983 through 1997 in his adopted country to the north and one of them, the Top 10-charting “Moonlight Desires,” was honored for receiving more than 100,000 plays on Canadian radio. His power ballad, “A Criminal Mind,” which hit the Top 5 in 1985, is occasionally performed by Styx and has appeared on two live Styx CDs.
The Chicago-based band began in 1961 as the Tradewinds, changed their name to TW4 in 1965 and finally became Styx in 1972. Since then the band’s impressive record as top sellers includes three triple platinum albums, a double platinum album, one platinum CD and four gold albums to accompany their 16 Top 40 singles.
The current version of the band features Gowan, lead guitarist James “JY” Young; sometime bassist Chuck Panozzo (who is HIV positive and joins them when his health permits); full-time bassist Ricky Phillips (who earlier had been a member of the Babys and the supergroup Bad English); drummer Todd Sucherman (who was recruited in 1996 after the death of the original drummer, Panozzo’s brother John); and the best-known member, singer/guitarist Tommy Shaw.
So how did a hit-making Canadian come to join the classic American arena rock band?
“It happened one fateful night in Montreal back in 1997,” Gowan said. “I was on a solo tour, just me, myself and my keyboard and a concert date was scheduled in a 1,500-seat theatre in town the same night that Styx was performing the first concert ever at the brand new Molson Centre before a crowd of 15,000. We shared the same promoter who thought it would be cool to combine the shows. As I played my opening set I noticed that the entire band was watching from the side of the stage. Tommy was particularly interested and afterward he said that we should do something together. What I didn’t know was that there was friction in the band,” recalled Gowan in full storyteller mode.
The friction mostly occurred between Shaw and singer/keyboard player Dennis DeYoung over the band’s musical direction (Shaw and Young were rockers at heart while DeYoung was primarily a balladeer) and DeYoung’s constant desire to bring a big Broadway theatricality to their concerts.
“Well, two full years went by, and nothing. I didn’t hear a thing.” Gowan said. “Out of the blue in 1999 I got a call inviting me to replace Dennis DeYoung. He had left the group.”
It was a no-brainer. Gowan’s booming vocals on both ballads and rockers, in addition to his considerable skill as a keyboard player made Gowan the natural replacement for DeYoung.
But does Gowan like the music of Styx?
“Oh yes! They are the only non-British band that writes and performs progressive rock really well! As a classically trained keyboard player who grew up loving Yes with their guy Rick Wakeman and Emerson Lake and Palmer with Keith Emerson, I mean great musicians, playing Styx music with its prog-rock is wonderful.”
Lawrence Gowan is a happy guy, and why not? “Life for me these days is, I must say, very good. I’m able to do the only real thing I can do with any authority, which is play music I love, and I do it with a great band. I have little to complain about.”
