The Best of Styxology 2021, Part II
Concluding installment of our two-part end-of-year series looking back on some of the most thrilling moments chronicled during Styx’s most recently concluded 365-day cycle.
Text & photos by Mike Mettler, resident Styxologist
Band photos by Jason Powell
“I couldn’t wait to feel that group energy when we got back on the same stage together again. We did something extraordinary in creating Crash of the Crown, and we couldn’t wait to bring these songs to life the way they were meant to be played.” —Tommy Shaw, on playing live music again after experiencing such a long break away from the road
Hello to all my fellow Stygians out there, and a most hale and hearty welcome to the very first installment of Styxology for 2022!
We here in the Styxworld at large look forward to having all of you come on in and see what’s been happening over the past 12 months before we accelerate headlong in Styx: Mach 2022 — which, as most of you certainly know by now, will be a year-long celebration of our favorite band’s 50th anniversary.
Naturally, we also trust everyone had a safe and healthy New Year’s Eve — just like we did! — and that you’ve come unto us here ready to roll and rock right on into the new year ahead as we conclude our two-part look-back recap series covering the many splendored and fantabulous things Styx made happen and/or participated in during the relatively nonconventional year of 2021.
Before we get into closing out our 2021 review/overview, I’d like to extend an additional warm greeting to those of you who may be checking in on our weekly Styxology column for the very first time after having activated your brand-spanking-new holiday-gifted Styx Lounge membership. In this exclusive insiders area of the Lounge, you’ll see each weekly Styxology installment get posted every single Monday morning at 10 a.m. Eastern time on the dot by yours truly, your trusty Styxologist, just as we’ve been doing without interruption for the past 362 consecutive weeks — and counting.
Not only that, but I should further note each and every Styx fan far and wide is always more than welcome to check out all the new FYIs and/or the informative FAQs regarding all upcoming Styx-related activity in a number of ways including Styxworld’s separate News and Tour sections, as well as via our Facebook page and official Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube accounts.
And now, let us return to the recapping! Last week in this space, we heard about the first half of Styx’s super-fine 2021 by way of comments from lighting director and designer Libby Gray, guitarist/vocalist Tommy Shaw, co-founding guitarist/vocalist James “JY” Young, and bassist/background vocalist Ricky Phillips.
This week, we get the goods on all the big doings from the back half of the band’s totally amazing 2021 journey with Crash of the Crown-centric observations from COTC producer/newest fulltime bandmember Will Evankovich, co-founding bassist Chuck Panozzo, keyboardist/vocalist Lawrence Gowan, and drummer Todd Sucherman, not to mention additional comments from the aforementioned Ricky, JY, and Tommy. Take it away, gents. . .
Tommy Shaw (guitarist/vocalist and chief COTC content generator, on why Will Evankovich is the right man to produce Styx in the studio and ultimately join the group fulltime): Over the last several years, Will has become a welcome and integral part of the band behind the scenes with the co-writing and production of our new music. This time around, we encouraged Will to take on the album mixing job for COTC as well. It was then a natural next step to continue his role with us onto the stage. Will also took his first overnight trip in the band bus after the first show [back in June 2021]. We are now taking this to a new level out there onstage, where the creativity levels we enjoy during writing and making records can continue uninterrupted.
Ricky Phillips (bassist/background vocalist, who also had a music co-writing credit on the uplifting “Coming Out the Other Side,” on why it’s important to be a team player while recording new Styx music): Because we connected so well as a band when we recorded [June 2017’s] The Mission, I just had to go there [i.e., to Nashville] to make my contributions. Tommy and Will are very clear about what they wanted for each song, and my job is to play the best parts I can, in order to make every song better.
Chuck Panozzo (co-founding bassist who provided his signature low-end tone for COTC’s inspirational “Our Wonderful Lives” and the acute aquatic fever dream “Lost at Sea,” on his commitment to contributing to the new album any way he could): I traveled over 900 miles by car to record with Will and Tommy in person. They’re both so good at getting the best bass performances out of me in the studio. Making that trip to Nashville was the highlight of my year!
James “JY” Young (co-founding guitarist/vocalist, on his respect for Will as a producer and the trade-off vocal style deployed on COTC’s powerful title track): Perhaps the closest thing to that for me would be how Tommy and I traded lead vocals on “Snowblind” [one of the key tracks from January 1981’s Paradise Theatre that also continues to make an occasional appearance in the band’s setlist]. Will would sometimes ask me to do up to eight passes on various things, and I never like to do more than two or three. (laughs) But I respect Will as a producer and Tommy’s vision for the album, so we made it work. I gave them plenty of options.
Will Evankovich (COTC producer and newest fulltime Styx bandmember, on how the album’s writing process got underway, plus his take on the respective prowess of his guitar-playing brethren in the group): The first song written for Crash of the Crown was “Hold Back the Darkness.” Tommy and I wrote it about a mutual friend, and we were mourning her loss. At that point in time, opioids were the big epidemic causing a lot of social mayhem. After we decided to write that one, it kind of set the tone for the Crown record — all these different social problems we have as people, and what the frequency of them are at this juncture for society. Of course, that was all pre-pandemic — and, of course, it ramped up exponentially from there. The lion’s share of the songs were written prior to the pandemic, and it was more about the social consciousness of where things are at with everyone at this moment in time.
As for “Long Live the King,” it’s the sign of the times, but it’s also very timeless — kind of like a Game of Thrones thing, you know? I can’t sing like Tommy, and Tommy can’t sing like me. I can’t sing like Lawrence, and vice-versa. This will happen sometimes when you throw a song out there like “Long Live the King” where I’ll go, “I think you’d sound great singing this one, Tommy,” and he’ll go, “Well, I don’t know.” And then he lays down the vocal just like he did for that song, and I’m like, “Damn — that is great. It’s really cool.” Actually, we almost had Lawrence sing it, but I think Tommy had a special affinity for it like he did with [The Mission’s] “Locomotive,” right after I had first sent him a version of “Locomotive” with me singing it.
I love JY’s guitar playing. JY is this unique hybrid of [Eric] Clapton and [Jeff] Beck — and [Jimi] Hendrix. I mean, that’s like if you were to take those three guys and then turn them all upside-down, because what James has is a phraseology in his playing that is absolutely the most unique thing I’ve ever heard in any guitar player. I can play most guitar player’s solos, but when I try to play JY’s, I can get it pretty close, but there’s a phrasing thing that’s all his. I pulled him aside and had him show me how he played his solos on “Renegade,” “The Grand Illusion,” and two other things. I made him do that just for the archives because I wanted to get them down as, “That’s the way JY phrases it.” So, while he is a combination of those three guys [i.e., Beck, Clapton, and Hendrix], he’s also very much him.
Tommy’s playing is maybe not as complicated as JY’s, but it’s more — honestly, I think it’s because he has so much of an R&B and Motown background. As you know, Tommy played a lot of styles and a lot of standards gigs, and funk gigs — he’s more like [Pink Floyd’s] David Gilmour in that all those guys loved and listened to blues and R&B and Motown in the ’50s and ’60s growing up, so their rock solo style has all that swagger and cool to it. It’s almost Buddy Guy-like, and Howlin’ Wolf-like. There’s all this weird stuff going on there in their playing, and that’s the same with Gilmour. You know, all those British guys who loved the jazz and R&B from the States — that music was a staple for them growing up. They all have this amazing kind of lexicon of cool R&B licks, and that’s what I see in Tommy’s playing. It’s not just Gilmour — it’s the sum total of everything he went to school in the music world with.
Lawrence Gowan (keyboardist/vocalist, on how he became part of the creation of COTC, and how he thinks people will view the album in the future): I started getting involved with the album in 2018, and I think they already had “The Fight of Our Lives” at that point. I know Tommy played “Fight of Our Lives” in the dressing room. And then it was probably in either the middle of 2018 or in late 2018, but certainly from there throughout 2019, where I went to Nashville probably about four times — and each time resulted in another song I was part of the writing of. Those would be tracks like “Common Ground” and obviously “Lost at Sea,” “A Monster,” and a bit of “Save Us From Ourselves.” I got involved on the music side of that one, and that’s how it went. We did a lot of “Crash of the Crown” too. Those would be the ones I worked on during those four separate trips to Nashville.
Tommy and Will have a great working rapport. And it is great, in a band with this much talent and pedigree, to have an “outside inside guy,” you know? (chuckles) We really, really need that. It’s really necessary to have someone who’s almost in it for the band but also is in it for themselves, in that he’s trying to make a great record he can put his name to. At the same time, Will’s an excellent writer, and he understands the inner workings of the band now, particularly having done The Mission.
The thing is — I like everything Will writes. I like everything Tommy writes. And even when I’m not sure it’s all the way there, that just means it’s something we can work on together, you know? It gets kicked around the room that way, and that’s become a good working way of us getting somewhere.
What do I want people to say about COTC 50 years from now? Well . . . (slight pause) I’ve never been asked that kind of question before. I have a feeling a lot of the album’s themes, lyrically, will still ring true. I think they’re just about the human condition, the messes we get ourselves into, and what the light is at the end of every tunnel we try to construct, you know? (laughs) I think they’ll be relatable. I think listeners will still be able to relate to a number of the themes that are in these songs — and that’s part of the great charm of what we now call classic rock. So many of the songs, and what they express, are very universal things that still make sense, in a weird way.
Todd Sucherman (drummer, on how he recorded his drum parts for COTC remotely, and his view of the album’s longevity): I had become aware of Audiomovers, a kind of recording technology that would allow an engineer anywhere else in the world to be able to drive the studio here [affectionately known as “Todd’s Studio”]. And others could get on a private invite link and listen in, in their studios, in full high-resolution audio. Ideally, I had wanted to do the drums at my studio anyway because of the quality of the drums I have here — I mean, I’m in a room surrounded by some of the best snare drums in the world. And the way the room is tuned, I knew we were going to get killer drum sounds.
It just took a little bit of convincing. I said, “Hey, look. There’s this new technology. Let me get it. You guys can listen in on high-resolution audio, and then we can get on a Zoom call. If you want me to play a different fill going to the chorus, then boom! We’re all here. We’re all together — just on our laptop screens.” I recorded something like 17 songs in three days, and I couldn’t believe there was never really any problem at all, technically. I kept waiting for some sort of thing to happen. (laughs) Audiomovers worked like a champ. It was smooth and easy. And when we were done, I thought, “Gee, that was fun! 17 songs — do we have any more? Let’s keep going!”
[Your Styxologist clarifies: Of the 17 songs Todd mentioned he recorded via Audiomovers, 15 of them wound up on Crash of the Crown, and the other two, “The Same Stardust” and “Age of Entropia,” appeared on The Same Stardust vinyl EP that was a Record Store Day exclusive released a week ahead of COTC back in June 2021.]
What would I like people to get out of this album in the future? I think it would be the way any good music would be enjoyed. I hope the music on Crash of the Crown would bring something positive to their lives, that the music might mean something to them, or that it might document that particular period in someone’s life when they got turned on to it — and that it would still bring joy to them down the road.
You just try to do the best work you can, and be proud of it. And, like any music, I hope people can attach themselves to it on an emotional and visceral level — that they can actually sit with it in their hands and put on the headphones and go along for the ride, and have it not just be something they have on when they’re doing laundry, or cooking. I’d like it if people could actually sit and listen to it, enjoy it, and have it mean something to them. That’s my hope for any music.
Tommy Shaw (on what it meant for Styx to return to the live stage in June 2021 after being sidelined for 17 months due to the pandemic pause, and why it was equally as important to play new music once they did so): I couldn’t wait to feel that group energy when we got back on the same stage together again. We did something extraordinary in creating COTC. It came to us so naturally, and we couldn’t wait to bring these songs to life the way they were meant to be played.
Next week: Our first all-new-content post of 2022 brings us a brand-new interview series with. . . well, that would be telling — so we’ll see y’all right back here in 7 days to find out who it is and what they have to say!!
