Gowan still the new guy in Styx
After 20 years fronting Styx, Lawrence Gowan is fine being referred to as the new guy
Lawrence Gowan laughs when asked if he still considers himself the new guy in Styx.
Now celebrating 20 years with the prog-leaning, classic-rock band, Gowan’s tenure as Dennis Deyoung’s replacement has lasted nearly twice as long as his own 1982 to 1995 run as a recording artist in Canada.
But Gowan, who supplies lead vocals and keyboards to the veteran American band, has no problem being considered a newbie.
“At this point in my life, I like to say that I’m very happy for anything I do in my life to be referred to as new,” Gowan says with a laugh, in a phone interview with Postmedia to preview Styx’s headlining slot on Sept. 1 as part of Party in the Park at Winsport Arena. “So if you want to refer to me as the new guy, I accept that with great gratitude.”
OK, Gowan is hardly new. But he realizes Styx is almost 50 years old and has a history that stretches back far beyond his own involvement.
“Part of me knows that it’s the legacy of the band that they are trying to uphold, the spirit of the band,” he says. “That’s a big, big part of it. But, you know, I saw the Rolling Stones a couple years ago and during that show it dawned on me heavily that Ron Wood is such an integral part of that band and yet he’s the third guitarist I’ve known in that band. How is that? I know the Brian Jones Rolling Stones and the Mick Taylor Stones and the Ron Wood Stones and yet they all seem to seamlessly be part of the same thing. I began to realize that, for the most successful transitions in bands that have to get a new member, the spirit of the band has to survive.”
And Gowan says he always felt a kinship to the spirit of Styx and a connection to progressive rock acts in general, whether it be Yes or Rush or Genesis. While it was hardly fashionable during his own 1980s heyday, he says he often slid prog influences into his own pop-rock material, including hits (You’re a) Strange Animal and A Criminal Mind. He enlisted musicians such as Rush’s Alex Lifeson, Yes’s Jon Anderson and members of Peter Gabriel’s backup band for his own records.
“So when I came into Styx, it felt like we were definitely of the same tribe,” Gowan says.
His sense of belonging has only deepened over the years, particularly when he began participating in studio records such as 2003’s Cyclorama and 2017’s The Mission.
When the band hits Calgary on Sept. 1, fans can expect hits and selections from what Gowan calls the “Big Four”: 1977 album The Grand Illusion, 1978’s Pieces of Eight, 1979’s Cornerstone and 1981’s Paradise Theatre. But they have also been including up to five songs from The Mission for recent shows, which is pretty bold for a classic-rock band with a 47year collection of favourites to draw from.
Part of that is because The Mission doesn’t sound all that different from the band’s classic output. Sonically, it recalls the prog-rock strains of fan favourites such as Come Sail Away, The Grand Illusion, Blue Collar Man (Long Nights) and Too Much Time On My Hands. Also, in a day and age where it’s assumed most listeners’ attention spans are as fragmented as a Spotify playlist, The Mission is a stubbornly old-school concept album that comes complete with a heady narrative about the first manned mission to Mars in 2033. In January, the band played the album in its entirety during a sold-out show in Las Vegas.
“We don’t hear a great sigh from the audience when we go into something from that album,” Gowan says. “There are enough people in the audience now who are anticipating something from that record will be played that it goes through extremely seamlessly. There’s a piano solo piece that I have on the record called Khedive and I use that to segue into Come Sail Away and that’s really well-received every night.”
Still, the most high-profile “new” song in the band’s setlist is actually an old one from the 1980s. In 2018, Styx began playing its techno-pop hit Mr. Roboto for the first time in 35 years. Given that the song reached No. 3 on the Billboard charts, non-purists might be surprised that the band has avoided playing it up until now. Turns out Mr. Roboto has a troubled history. Spearheaded by Dennis Deyoung, the rock-opera concept album that spawned Mr. Roboto, 1983’s Kilroy Was Here, became a near career-ending disaster for the act. At least that’s what Styx guitarists James (J.Y.) Young and Tommy Shaw have always maintained, suggesting it cut the band’s fanbase in half and sent them on a high-concept, money-losing tour of theatres. It apparently also caused deep tensions that never fully healed. Shaw left after the tour and didn’t return until 1996. Three years later, Deyoung left the act and hasn’t performed with them since. Still, while the song may have brought bad vibes to certain member of Styx, fans have often requested it over the years.