Classic rock act still bent on creating new music even after 50 years

Lawrence Gowan is deep in the heart of Texas as he joins our Zoom call, raving about the upbeat crowds that have been turning out to see Styx during its dates in the Lone Star State and still buzzing over getting the chance to visit the Buddy Holly Center in lovely Lubbock.

The vastly talented vocalist-keyboardist comes across every bit as enthusiastic and energetic online as he does on the stage with Styx, the classic-rock act he’s been helping lead ever since Dennis DeYoung was booted from the fold at the end of the ‘90s.

Gowan, a classically trained pianist who also forged a very successful solo music career in Canada in the ‘80s and ‘90s, made his Styx recording debut with “Cyclorama” in 2003 and has been on all of the band’s albums that have followed.

Of course, these newer offerings don’t get the attention bestowed on the multiplatinum-selling classics — like 1978’s “Pieces of Eight” or 1981’s “Paradise Theatre.” Yet, the Styx recordings featuring Gowan — including last year’s “Circling from Above” — are all enjoyable and worth the attention of classic rock fans.

The same can be said for the group’s live show, which I most recently caught back in January and can attest that the 2026 version of Styx — featuring Gowan, Todd Sucherman (drums, percussion), James “JY” Young (vocals, guitars), Tommy Shaw (vocals, guitars), Terry Gowan (bass, vocals), Will Evankovich (mandolin, guitars) and, in a reduced role, Chuck Panozzo (bass, vocals) — still rocks.

Find out for yourself when Styx brings its co-headlining tour with fellow Windy City classic rockers Chicago to Toyota Pavilion at Concord on Sept. 4. Showtime is 7 p.m. and tickets are $24, livenation.com.

Here’s my chat with Gowan.

Q: Good to hear that the crowds have been treating Styx well in Texas. I’ve always wondered — and you are in a great position to answer this for me — are concert audiences noticeably different from region to region?

A: I’ve talked about that in the past. Crowds are very different in different parts of the world and even in different states and even in Canada, in different provinces, when we’re playing there. However, crowds start out very different — very unique to their personality in that area — but it’s amazing how alike they are by the end of the show. It’s astounding to me.

Q: So, by the end, everybody’s just rocking out — no matter the locale.

A: Yeah, I have observed audiences — whether we’ve been in England or Sweden or America or Mexico or Japan — and they’re very different at the beginning. By the end of the show, indistinguishable. It’s amazing to see.

I could be projecting, but this, to me, is what happens over the arc of a really good rock show and just how effusive people are by the end of the night.

Q: Sounds like the power of rock ‘n’ roll in full effect.

A: I can’t underplay it because my life has been infused with that observation. I mean, as I just mentioned, I was at the Buddy Holly Center. And I’m just knocked out with the fact that this guy only lived until he was 22 years of age and his music has stuck with people. It’s not particularly complex or overly cerebral, I suppose, but yet it has a charm and an immediacy of communication that just is incredibly infectious and stays with people.

Q: Do you remember the first album you ever owned?

A: I like telling this one. My piano teacher, when I was like 11-years old, she called me and said, “Oh, they’re having a talent contest at a big department store.” So, anyway, it’s about 4 p.m. She said, “It’s only on until 5 p.m., so if you get over there quick, maybe they’ll let you be in it.”

So I got on my bike and rode over to the store.

They let me in and I played and then they polled the audience just by applause — and I was able to win it.

But when they told me what the prize was I was blown away. They said, “You can choose any LP in the store.”

Q: Oh, that’s a great prize. Did you have a hard time picking which one you wanted?

A: I already knew what album I wanted and where to find it. The guy in the store was really impressed, because I knew to go up the escalator, turn left, turn right, because that’s where the records are.

I went straight to the “Revolver” album by The Beatles and plucked that out and kind of went, “Can I have this one?”

They’re like, “Yes, that’s yours.” I couldn’t believe it.

Q: Like a dream come true.

A: But when I got home, we didn’t have a record player at that point. So, I put the album up on a high window down in the basement, where (my younger siblings) were too small to reach it, and I said, “OK, that stays there. Don’t touch it.”

The following summer my parents get this record player and I’m thrilled because it’s time to go play my “Revolver” album from the year before. Of course, it’s been sitting in the window for over a year, so the thing is as warped as you’ve ever seen an album.

I’m so incredibly shocked at this, but thinking to myself, “I wonder if it’ll still work?” So I put it on and it’s just so bumpy and the needle’s going boing, boing, boing.

Q: That’s funny. And I had something like that happen to me with Bob Seger’s “Live Bullet,” only it wasn’t me who warped it but somebody else. I remember putting the horribly warped album on the turntable and the needle would launch right off the grooves and into the air. Funny how those early music memories stick with you.

A: I’ve bought several copies of “Revolver” over the years, but none will ever be as precious as the one that I won.

Q: Do you have a first memory of hearing Styx?

A: There was a record store in Toronto called Sam the Record Man and that was very much kind of a real listening post. I would go into that record store three-four times a week, just to kind of look at album covers and listen to whatever the guy at the desk was playing.

He was like the equivalent of the local disc jockey. He was the arbiter of taste, because whatever he’s kind of already gleaned, having gone through a good number of records, probably during the day when the store is empty, just determined what’s going to be played.

I remember that I’d heard (Styx’s) “Lorelei” and “Crystal Ball” on the radio in Toronto. And I really liked both those songs. I assumed that the band was from England because they had this kind of progressive rock sound and I thought they were just singing with quasi-American accents.

Q: And I’m guessing you were a big prog rock fan, so Styx had your interest.

A: I was deeply into Genesis and Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, so they were kind of the next band that came on the horizon of the progressive rock thing.

One day I’m in the record store and I see the cover for (1977’s) “The Grand Illusion” and I’m immediately taken by the artwork. And I took the album up to the front of the desk.

(The store employee) put “Grand Illusion” on, and I heard the opening of that record, and I just thought “wow.”

Q: And you were hooked — just like millions of other rock fans at the time.

A: It piqued my interest and then shortly after that it was ubiquitous — every radio station was playing Styx in Toronto. It was like Styx radio all the way. You could barely change the channel and not hear a Styx song for the next four years.

Q: And the next album was another blockbuster — “Pieces of Eight” — which I saw you and Styx perform in its entirety at the Venetian in Las Vegas earlier this year. The evening served as yet another reminder of the power that can come from hearing a full work of art — in this case, an album — from start to finish.

A: When we play (the album) live, it’s a different audience experience that I’ve witnessed. We’ve all had this experience where we’ve listened to this record usually alone, right? Usually it was a solitary little experience that you had at home, and now you’re sitting with a few thousand people listening to it. It’s a shared experience.

When you lay an album out in its sequential order, it kind of elevates it to a higher reverence than just playing the songs individually.

It is a different experience and I’m glad you liked it.

Q: Because the band had so much success with power ballads and straight-ahead rockers, do you think people sometimes overlook or downplay Styx’s prowess in the prog-rock world?

A: Really good question. I think the heat of a hit single can categorize a band forever in the general public’s mind. It’s quite possible there are people who know “Owner of a Lonely Heart” by Yes — which is progressive, but at the same time very much ‘80s and using Trevor Horn’s production — and not know that the same band would do something like “Tales from Topographic Ocean” or “Close to the Edge,” something that’s a much kind of deeper dive, so to speak, into the progressive world.

Q: That’s probably true of 50 percent of the people who were watching MTV in the first half of the ‘80s. So, I get what you’re saying.

A: I think that the faithful who come and see Styx shows year after year are completely educated in the depths of how light some of the music can be and just how heavy some of it can be. They know.

But the general public was quick to categorize things and you could suddenly think that a song like “Lady” completely categorizes the band and not realize there are songs like “Renegade,” “The Grand Illusion” and “Great White Hope.”

Q: Zooming ahead quite a few years, but sticking on the prog rock topic, I have to say that the prog is very strong on “Circling From Above.”

A: First off, I have to say that was the aspect of the band that I was most drawn to when I joined it over 27 years ago now.

They are prog experiments. Let’s call them that, because that’s what progressive music is supposed to be in a lot of ways. It’s experimental, but, at the same time, still has the potential to be quite commercial. So, it’s that part of the band that I really try to champion. That’s my own little corner, but Tommy (Shaw) and Will (Evankovich), especially, wade into that aspect of the band a lot — as does Todd (Sucherman) and my brother (Terry Gowan).

At the same time, you know, you’ll get songs like “Only You Can Decide,” which is a Tommy song and a straightforward ballad, or “Blue Eyed Raven,” which is very much a folk-influenced song.

Over all, as you listen to that album, you would feel it’s a progressive rock record that dips into other influences.

Q: For many of your contemporaries — classic rock acts that have been around for decades and experienced much success in the ‘70s and ‘80s — the words “new material” can be quite taboo. And I get that. There’s just not as much return on investment, so why keep putting out new albums if fans just want to hear the old stuff? But Styx makes new material a priority, as if you’re saying to listeners “We’re not just a nostalgia act and creating new songs is important to us.”

A: You couldn’t have put that better, quite honestly. This is Styx’s 54th year of existence now. And there’s never going to be a Styx show where we’re not going to play “Come Sail Away,” “Fooling Yourself,” “Blue Collar Man,” “Grand Illusion” and … I could keep going.

Those have to be in every show. That’s what most people have bought tickets to hear.

But as new musical ideas come into our heads, it keeps us engaged. And it’s not about reaching the top of the charts that is driving it. It’s more to do with keeping the audience out there fully engaged in the fact that, “Wow, they’re still doing new things, they’re still finding new ways of extending what Styx can explore musically.”

These are really vitally important things to us, and as long as everyone’s committed to do it and leaning into it then it’s very worthwhile to push on and do it.