Styx Bandmates Share Their Thoughts on Dennis DeYoung | The Big Interview

well the ground's been covered many times but you had success and then you broke up so in short for somebody who doesn't know the story what's the story things are going great for you the band's going great well it was we had three main songwriters and and Dennis and Tommy were the most successful of those um and I was a very known figure as as the tall guy at the center of the stage who played leag guitar and had been there from the beginning and but Dennis had this vision for an idea that that none of the rest of us agreed with and we battled about it for quite some time we all finally gave into him on this this concept record of Kilroy was here and he believed in it but none of the rest of us really did but we tried we tried our best to make something out of what we had and we changed management as a result of that and it was a financial disaster uh it alienated probably half our fan base I would say there was more underlying situations to that we we had worked nonstop pretty much for for years uh and never taking significant amount of time off and I think had we still had the same manager he would have recognized that and he would have said okay here's what we're doing next year we're doing nothing you guys are going to go get away from each other uh miss each other Dennis insisted on firing the manager that had managed us to this great success so but I think that's a lot of what what it had to do with we we should have gone out go you know cuz take a year off take a year off go do a solo album do this sort of thing but then get back together and you and you'll maybe appreciate each other a lot more we never really got to that point the only way to really continue to you know survive and succeed is to go out and play Live concerts and he wasn't a team player in this regard and when the time came in 1999 we had a new record ready to go and we had offers Galore to go out and perform live and Dennis refused to leave the house he said for a medical reason so I I said tell you what you've worked on Broadway and I said you have underst studies there when you're not well one night somebody else plays your part so I said why don't you just come with us and we'll do this and you don't have to do all the shows and he said I don't want you to do that and I said well we're going with you or without you and uh I think he thought we would fail and I knew we would succeed and we did succeed and a year later he sued Us in court over the use of the name um we settle out of court on the whole thing and uh have gone on without him well the inevitable question what are the chances that he comes back in in in some form in some way is it absolutely positively never no way or is there something in the works or nothing in the works but you're open to it you know I I I've forgiven Dennis for everything he's done that I I feel that uh was not right and I wish him the best he's a really talented guy um but he's uh I have no desire to work with him again to depend on him being where he's going to be when he says he's going to be there and it's um I wish him the best you know what it's it's like a like a divorce you know you get married when you're young and everything's Rosy and then as you start to get a little older you realize you didn't have that much in common and then you go through a uh a tough divorce you've got all these kids and you just can't agree on anything and you you you'll try and it goes south it's kind of like that you know we've we've tried to just have even the simplest arrangements for things and it just is just what they call I guess irreconcilable differences and we still have songs that we co-wrote together and those are are our children and we've managed to find a way to to keep those things in play but um personality wise I I you know at this stage in my life I want to be happy I want to be around people who love me and that have my best interests at heart and I don't have to fight with and uh so there's just not enough years left that I would want to risk not having that again Amen brother Tommy well Lawrence you've been very good to set through and listen to this I I I love listening to stick's history like you wouldn't believe uh I you know i' I've I've heard a lot of the stories I I don't like to comment on people's former marriages I can understand that but you know people still to this day some people like to focus on the fact that Dennis is not with the group right anymore yeah that's fine uh but you've actually I I I checked this out you've been in the band longer is it time to retire this talking point if Dan Ry wants to talk about it I'm fine with it listen uh you know it's I I see the band it's funny because I I hear the The Angst and and the the history that they had to live through and uh as a band and I'm respectful of that from my perspective although I've been in the B I'm going into closing 20 years yeah now so it's a third of my life uh so I look at it as if we are a great band and what's made us great is that we are the culmination of the efforts of everyone who's ever been in the band there's only ever been 10 members of sticks from way back in 1971 I think that's a relatively low number for a band that's been around for over half a century and uh in order for a band to continue on you know sometimes in life you need a blood transfusion and sometimes you know although I was I'm Canadian I apparently I was a match

Channel: AXS TV

Views: 566,134

Keywords: Music, AXS TV, Classic Rock, Rock Music, Concert, styx, styx interview, styx tommy shaw, styx dennis deyoung, styx come sail away

Id: LTflI7kkWl4

Length: 6min 11sec (371 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 03 2023