MUSIC

Interview with Styx singer-guitarist Tommy Shaw

Mark Hughes Cobb Tusk Editor
The band Styx performs at the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater during the Styx & Foreigner "Soundtrack of Summer Tour" Thursday, May 29, 2014. Don Felder, former guitarist for The Eagles also performed. Michelle Lepianka Carter | The Tuscaloosa News

Tommy Shaw had already become kind of a hometown hero in his native Montgomery, before the call came from Styx. He'd left to work with bands including MSFunk, out of Chicago.

To club bands like his, the also-Chicago-based Styx was kind of mysterious.

"They didn't run in the same circles as the club-band guys," Shaw said, in a phone interview. He'd see ads for their early albums, and think, "Who are these guys?"

After MSFunk broke up, Shaw returned to Montgomery, playing with childhood friends at a bowling alley called Bama Lanes.

Styx had the Montgomery kid audition with "Midnight Ride," off the then-new "Equinox," which Shaw hadn't heard.

"It completely blew my mind," Shaw said. "I'd never really been in what I'd call a rock band. There was usually some kind of soul music vibe. That's what I'd played in high school, the kind of bands I gravitated toward."

His voice won him the role; Shaw never even took his guitar out.

"(Styx was) looking for someone who could play adequate guitar, but mostly they needed somebody to sing those high parts," he said. "The high part in 'Lady' (the band's first top 10 hit) goes from a high B up to a high E. I was used to singing higher parts, but in more of a mellow thing, covers of Eagles songs, kind of falsetto.

"But I just kind of sucked it up, because these guys were playing so loud; I just took a deep breath and went for it."

In Shaw, Styx found not just its high harmonist, but a co-lead guitarist with James "J.Y." Young, and a sometime lead singer and songwriter. The 1976 album "Crystal Ball" was named for Shaw's song, on which he sang lead and played lead guitar. "Mademoiselle," which Shaw sang, and co-wrote with Dennis DeYoung, became that album's top 40 hit. For the 1977 "The Grand Illusion," Shaw wrote and sang top 40 hit "Fooling Yourself (The Grand Illusion)." But it was with 1978 album "Pieces of Eight" Shaw's star rose higher, as writer and singer of all three singles, "Sing for the Day," "Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)" and "Renegade."

Though Styx continued to sell platinum with 1979's "Cornerstone," and Shaw still wrote and sang about half the songs, singer-songwriter and keyboardist DeYoung became more prominent, pushing the band more toward theatrical pop: DeYoung's ballad "Babe" became the band's only No. 1 hit. For 1981's No. 1 "Paradise Theatre," DeYoung took lead on eight of 11 tracks, though Shaw's "Too Much Time On My Hands" scored a top 10 hit. DeYoung crafted 1983 concept album "Kilroy Was Here," the nature of which ultimately lead to the breakup of the band. Young talked with the Chicago Tribune: "Dennis really wanted to do these soft, intimate love ballads, and that was against the grain for me and Tommy Shaw, so our differences got magnified, because Dennis was insisting on going outside the boundaries we lived with. He's an assertive and strongly opinionated guy."

Members went on to solo careers; when Styx reunited several years later, it did so without Shaw, who was tied up with his band Damn Yankees. Following success with the 1990 album "Edge of the Century," the reunion sputtered out. Shaw returned in '95 to re-record "Lady" for "Styx Greatest Hits." The band began working together again, culminating in 1999's "Brave New World," but the divides returned. Lawrence Gowan replaced DeYoung as keyboardist and co-lead singer in 1999.

So Sunday's Tuscaloosa Amphitheater show won't feature more theatrical, DeYoung-driven songs such as "Babe," "Mr. Roboto" and "The Best of Times." DeYoung's still represented, as writer or co-writer of “Lady,” “Come Sail Away,” "The Grand Illusion," "Snowblind" and "Rockin' the Paradise." Recent Styx setlists also show in heavy rotation hits such as “Blue Collar Man,” “Renegade,” “Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man),” “Too Much Time on My Hands,” “Lorelei," and album cuts such as “Suite Madame Blue" and “Pieces of Eight.”

Recent shows opened with "Gone Gone Gone" from 2017 album "The Mission," a concept disc Shaw said felt like "... the missing album between 'Pieces of Eight' and 'Cornerstone.'" They strove for an old-school sound, all analog, vintage amps, recorded on tape.

"it's not modern-sounding at all," Shaw said, "not a lot of high end, not compressed. If you're gonna play something new, first of all, it better be really good, and you'd better be playing it really well."

"The Mission" landed on Billboard charts, but radio-format fragmentation leaves Styx between a classic rock and no place.

"Stations won't play new music from a classic-rock band," Shaw said. "And new rock stations won't play classic rock at all."

But writers write, and bands record, he said.

"It felt really custom-made for Styx: theatrical, in an emotional way. A human experience" about a mission to Mars from which voyagers won't return. Shaw wrote or co-wrote each of the 14 songs, with longtime writing partner Will Evankovich, or with Young and Gowan. Some day the group hopes to perform the disc live, but that's a what-if for now. Until then, Styx and Shaw still hit those high notes, 40-plus years on.

"It's too much fun to do it by rote," he said. "The opportunity to still get out and do this, to play, it's a great way to end the day. The hardest part is just the getting there, and the getting home of it, and that's not bad.

"No one is feeling sorry for us," he said, laughing.

Shaw remembers fondly Styx's last Tuscaloosa Amphitheater show, in 2014.

"But I also remember going up and playing on the Quad one time, with a band from Montgomery, standing outside playing in the hot sun, playing on concrete," he said, laughing.

Most Tuscaloosa/UA memories are sunny ones, though.

"Both my brothers went to the university, so I should close by saying 'Roll Tide.' "

REO Speedwagon and guitarist-singer-songwriter Don Felder open Sunday's show, 7 p.m. at the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater. Tickets have been on sale for $30, $50 and $74.50, through Ticketmaster, the Amphitheater box office, and by phone at 800-745-3000; some limited $20 seats have been offered as well. Gates open at 6. www.tuscaloosaamphitheater.com.

When: 7 p.m. Sunday; gates open at 6

Where: Tuscaloosa Amphitheater, 2710 Jack Warner Parkway

Tickets: $30, $50 and $74.50, through Ticketmaster, the Amphitheater box office, and by phone at 800-745-3000

More information: www.tuscaloosaamphitheater.com

Styx, with REO Speedwagon and Don Felder