Styx + Friends Tackle the ‘Almost Famous’ Question

There’s a moment near the end of “Almost Famous” — the movie that inspired Topeka Music Vacations’ very name — when young rock journalist William Miller finally gets his long-awaited sit-down with Stillwater guitarist Russell Hammond. He leans in, flips on his tape recorder, and with a wise-beyond-his-years look in his eye, asks a question that is both remarkably simple and impossibly deep: “What do you love about music?”

That scene has always struck me as the emotional heart of the film — honest, unguarded, and utterly personal. Covering all three days of October’s Rockin’ in Paradise: Styx + Friends event in Miramar Beach, Fla., that same question kept echoing in my mind.

So I decided to go on script, as it were, channel my inner William Miller, and ask it myself to the very people who make these moments possible. The responses? Let’s just say they were pure rock ’n’ roll: honest, passionate, and straight from the soul.

Here’s how the members of Styx, and a few of their musical friends, answered.

‘What Do You Love About Music?’

By the third day of the festival, everybody was pretty loose and open in the artist village behind the main stage. Not surprisingly, most everyone I talked to had seen the movie and were familiar with the question and their assignment.

Lawrence Gowan and Todd Sucherman were my first two test subjects.

“Well, my answer is that I've yet to encounter anything that's enriched my life to the degree that music has,” said Gowan. “When you're with like-minded people or people who have had similar experiences, it's going to be a fantastic time every time. That's basically what music's done for my life.”

Sucherman tapped into the unique ability of music to transport you to another place and time.

“I would say it can jettison you back into time, like a time travel machine with more power and gusto than any photograph can,” he said. “You can hear a piece of music and you're back to someone that you once were.”

James Young championed the therapeutic nature of a memorable rock riff.

“Music is the universal language,” Young said. “If I’m listening to a great band play, you know, that lifts my spirits. To me, music is like good medicine.”

Styx and friends were dispensing shots of good medicine throughout the three nights at Miramar Beach. Side effects included dancing in the coves, quick outbursts of air guitar, spontaneous hand clapping to “Too Much Time on My Hands,” and a sudden urge to sing along.

Then again, as Will Evankovich pointed out when I asked him, music is also a great prescription for bringing people together. No matter all our inherent differences, the love of music is a great equalizer.

“No matter what, music conquers all divides,” Evankovich said. “I think we need music because we're so divided. For me, there’s a personal joy experience with music — and it’s always been in my life. I think it's also very important for everybody else to have it, so we can smooth out those lines. That's what I think is probably the most important thing — and what I think I like the most about it.”

And being in the position to actually bring music’s power to the people is something that can never be overstated.

“It's an honor,” Evankovich said. “I mean, thankfully — or maybe sometimes not thankfully – I have songs running through my head at all times. To be a part of the creative process with other people as well, it's a joy. It's great.”

Terry Gowan prefaced his response by noting it’s both the simplest and most honest answer he could give.

“It's the way it makes you feel,” he said. “There's nothing else that can make you feel like that. If you love a piece of music, it'll never let you down. It's there for you and it's your friend. And it's something that, you know, we all fall in life, and it's something you can reach for when you fall. And that's what music will always be, and it's always there for you. And I think that's the best way I can put it.”

Tommy Shaw’s initial response to the “What do you love about music?” question was a direct, “It takes what’s inside my head and makes it real.”

Yes, I said, but what’s it like to actually have the ability to create music from what you hear — you know, like normal people who may experience music on a personally deep level but not have the ability to express themselves on an instrument?

Shaw said he got a guitar for his 10th birthday and it was love at first fret.

“The very first time I picked up a guitar, I figured out how to play it right when I got it in my hand,” he said. “And I learned ‘Ring of Fire’ or something like that. I taught myself how to play it. It always came easy to me and it was just taking what was in my head and my body, and getting it out. I think I was just born for this.”

One of his earliest musical memories, he said, was making up a song on the spot and singing it for his mother when he was just 5 years old. 

“It was almost like something was wrong with me,” Shaw laughed. “ And I think people still think that.”

“Or more likely,” I countered, they think, ‘Why can’t something like that be wrong with me?’”

Chuck Panozzo opted to play the long game when I asked him the question. He recalled how initially, playing music boosted his street cred.

“It raised my status with friends,” he said. “Maybe they could play baseball — but we could play music.”

Then he marveled at just how long and how far the Styx musical journey has taken him.

“I’ve been doing this since about 1962, we got a record deal in 1972 and I’m still here now,” he said. “The way this thing has grown over the years, there’s just so many things that can go wrong. I could never have perceived that it would be this big. I think it takes discipline and really respecting each other. But being on stage and seeing the fans and how much they love the music is amazing. It’s a lifetime thing that we’ve done forever.”

What the ‘Friends’ Said

Of all the people I spoke with, Cheap Trick singer and guitarist Robin Zander was the only one who had never seen “Almost Famous.” But after sharing the CliffsNotes version with him, he eloquently flipped the script.

“Well, for me, it's more that music must have loved something about me when I was born because that's all I've ever done,” he said. “I've done this since I was just a young kid. My mom bought me a set of drums back when I was like 8 years old. And then I got a guitar when I was 12 and started my own band.”

Zander said his original band was called The Destinations and they covered British Invasion bands like The Animals and The Kinks. Later, he got into Neil Young.

“So music found me, you know? I really didn't search for any of it. It just came to me very young.”

When asked if he’d seen “Almost Famous,” Loverboy lead singer Mike Reno offered an immediate, “Absolutely!” 

His answer to the film’s overriding question was just as enthusiastic.

“What don’t I love about music, right? Come on!” he said. “It’s like energy. It’s like life. It’s like the stories that we’ve written into songs, you know, we make it and people join in.”

Reno shared that two of Loverboy’s biggest hits, “Turn Me Loose” and “When It’s Over,” were both written about the same girl, stemming from his desire to remain friends after breaking up.

“For me, music is all about 40 to 50 years of rock and roll,” Reno reiterated. “I said to somebody at dinner tonight. I said, ‘What could I do if I retired?’ I wouldn’t have anything to do because this is all I do. All I know how to do is rock and roll, baby!”

Will Turpin, bassist and band director for Collective Soul, echoed Sucherman’s time travel sentiments.

“The power of music, there's a lot of different facets to it, right?” Turpin said. “But I just love the overall power of music — how it can lift you up. It can take you back to a certain place, time, a certain smell, a certain memory. Yeah, I think that's what it is. I think it's the nostalgia of putting you in a certain place and time in life. I think that's my favorite thing.”

National rock radio and TV personality Eddie Trunk, who served as host of the three-day event in Miramar Beach, may not be a musician, however, he’s made a tremendous impact promoting music and the live concert scene.

“Wow, that's a heavy question,” said Trunk, noting that he personally relates to the young William Miller character in “Almost Famous.” “It's inspiring. It takes you on a journey every time you hear it. It's emotional at times. Music always puts me in the time and the place of when I first heard it.”

Because of that phenomenon, Trunk said the bands he considers his all-time favorites never really sound old to him.

“I think in some ways it keeps you young because when you hear that older stuff and the stuff you grew up with, it brings you back to where you were at the time. When I first got into rock music, it changed my life, because the first time I heard distorted guitars and great vocals, it immediately made me want to be involved in it in some way. And although I couldn't play anything and wasn't a musician, I was like, ‘Well, how can I do this?’

“And for me, it was about learning how to spread the word about the music I loved and support the bands that I loved. So that's why I went on the journey I went on. And I’m still on radio and TV selling it — anything I can do to help push the bands that I love. So music changed my life in so many ways. And it was so impactful the first time I heard it.”

Walking the near mile back to my hotel on Miramar Beach’s main drag at the end of that final night, my mind was filled with a swirling cocktail of sounds and songs — guitars, laughter, fans singing one more chorus as “Renegade” closed the final show — all while the “Almost Famous” question lingered in my mind.

By the time I reached the hotel, the answer felt obvious. What do we love about music? Everything — the memories, the escape, the electricity, the way it refuses to let us forget who we are. It lifts us, heals us, moves us, claims us. And just like in the movie, the real truth is this: We don’t just love music. Music loves us back.