It’s not uncommon in families for little brothers to want to follow their big brothers into some endeavor or another. And that includes siblings in rock and roll.
Lawrence Gowan—lead singer and keyboardist for classic rockers Styx since 1999—is about to experience some of that secessional family closeness. The band recently announced that his younger brother, Terry, will be picking up bass duties for the band after the departure of 20+ year veteran Ricky Phillips.
But don’t expect to see any Everlys/Davies/Robinson-style “Battling Brothers” stuff going down.
“Fortunately, we’ve had that phase of our career in the ‘90s! So, all those brother squabbles have dissipated!” Gowan says.
“It was actually [Styx drummer] Todd Sucherman who suggested Terry for the slot, because he also played about 100 shows with my solo band, Gowan. And that surprised me, because they already had brothers in this band. But he fits right in!”
He’s referring to Styx co-founding members Chuck (bass) and John (drums) Panozzo. John died in 1996 and health issues have limited Chuck’s current stage time, though he usually pops up for 3-4 songs toward the end of the set when he’s feeling up to it.
Gowan is Zooming via video from his hotel room in Quebec City, with the native Canadian calls “the most beautiful city in the country” and “the oldest city in North America,” even maneuvering his laptop camera to give a glimpse of the town below.
He’s there for a gig with Styx this night, their last show before kicking off a summer amphitheater tour with Foreigner (“Hot Blooded,” “Cold as Ice,” “Feels Like the First Time,” “I Want to Know What Love Is”) and John Waite (“Missing You,” “Change”) opening. It will land in Houston at the Woodlands Pavilion on June 22.
As a performer, Gowan is better known in Canada than the U.S., having a solo career and also fronting the popular band that bears his last name and whose lineup also included brother Terry (the group still occasionally gigs). The current Styx set list includes Gowan’s biggest hit, “A Criminal Mind.”
So, does the Styx man get a little extra love playing in the Great White North?
“I do! I can’t lie!” he laughs.
In fact, it was an energetic 1997 Canadian show opening for Styx that first brought him to the attention of Styx co-founding member James “JY” Young and classic member Tommy Shaw. They were eyeing him as a possible replacement for co-founding singer/keyboardist and principal songwriter Dennis DeYoung, with whom the pair were clashing and subsequently fired. It’s an issue that to this day is divisive among the Styx fanbase.
In addition to both Gowans, Young, Shaw, Sucherman, and Panozzo, longtime collaborator/keyboardist Will Evankovich (who also serves informally as the band’s musical director) rounds out the current lineup.
As veteran road dogs, Gowan is fully aware that there’s a different timber and texture to an audience at large outdoor sheds in the summer touring with one or two other known Classic Rock acts than a Styx-only show in a smaller indoor venue.
“We might be playing to a third of the audience that are there for one band and have never seen the other. So, this is their introduction to what it’s like. It’s kind of—I have to say—a perfect setting for that,” Gowan offers. He says they the band even adjusts their set lists, bringing out their strongest and most popular material.
“We’ve toured a lot with REO Speedwagon, and they’ll up their game, which makes us up our game. It’s not even a competition. You just don’t want to be the weaker of the two acts! And that’s actually a good thing.”
Studying recent Styx setlists, summer audiences will likely hear plenty the band’s big rock hits (“Too Much Time on My Hands,” “The Grand Illusion,” “Blue Collar Man (Long Nights”),” “Come Sail Away,” “Renegade”), ballads (“Lady,” the recently added “The Best of Times”), and some deeper cuts (“Suite Madame Blue,” “Lorelei,” “Miss America”) and even a few “new” songs.
Those will come from the band’s two most recent full length studio albums, 2017’s The Mission and 2021’s Crash of the Crown. Both were more than solid efforts, and reminiscent of the “classic” Styx sound. They also released an EP with new and live material, The Same Stardust, in 2021.
But Gowan—like most Classic Rock-era acts still being creative and productive in 2024—are under no grand illusions that sales or airplay will be a fragment of their ‘70s and ‘80s work.
“We are very realistic in our expectations,” Gowan says. “Our main goal is to stay within that Classic Rock idiom. Half the audience on any given night are under 40 and weren’t even around when those [older] albums came out. But that’s the sound they know and have embraced. For us to make a record trying to compete with today’s pop artists will be an exercise in failure.”
Gowan posits that you could put The Grand Illusion or Pieces of Eight on, followed by The Mission and there won’t be “this huge bump in sound.” He also feels that the greater amount of divided Billboard charts can help legacy acts like Styx, noting that Crash of the Crown hit #1 on the magazine’s Rock Album ranking.
In fact, the band usually doesn’t announce the bathroom-and-beer-line forming tee up “And here’s something from our new album” for something like Crash of the Crown’s “Sound the Alarm” or The Mission’s “Radio Silence.” They simply segue into the more recent cut, leaving some fans to try and recall which record it came from. And then perhaps stoke interest in the new release.
Gowan has noted that he’s the “Prog Guy” in the band who is always pushing the band’s sound to be more akin to their first few albums (with DeYoung). And indeed, keyboardists like Keith Emerson, Geddy Lee, Rick Wakeman, and Tony Banks have made their instrument arguably even more important to the genre than the guitar.
But Prog Rock is a polarizing subgenre. Adherents get happily lost in the musical and thematic intricacies, long multi-suite songs, and fantastical/historical themes while detractors deride the endless noodling and overindulgent pomposity as “Math Rock.”
“It gets in there, the Prog! On Crash of the Crown on something like ‘Common Ground’ I get a whack at the tree there!” Gowan laughs, adding that the band has “lots of new material they’re hacking away at” for a new record “if the Gods of Rock smile upon us.”
“And even the [title track]. When Tommy, Will and I were writing it, we wanted something that changed directions, and it does three times. It’s why I always think of Queen as having great Prog parts to their music. They’re adventurous, and their songs change directions in the middle. There’s pop and rock sensibilities. I like it all, but I do champion the Prog element.”
Finally, when the Houston Press spoke with current Foreigner vocalist Kelly Hansen last year, he said that while he knows he would not be among the members considered for induction, it’s been long past the time that Foreigner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Since that interview, Foreigner went on the ballot, was chosen for induction, and will be enshrined in that glass pyramid in Cleveland this coming October.
That means that for many, Styx is still at or near the top of the Snub List for a long overdue induction. Gowan—who know that any potential honor for the band would likely not include him—takes a similar outlook to Hansen.
“I’m very much in tandem with him on those feelings. But what I’ve noticed in my 26 years with the band is that if the accolades that this band receives on a daily basis is not enough to get them over the bar…,” Gowan says, trailing off.
“If they can’t recognize at least the guys who were in the band in the ‘70s, what else do you have to prove to be in that club?” he continues.
“But it only comes up in interviews. Quite frankly, it’s only a discussion that comes up on the [tour] bus about a minute and a half once a year. But I’d like to see it for the band itself, and as validation for all the faithful people who have supported the band forever.”
Styx will play at 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 22, at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, 2005 Lake Robbins. For more information, call 281-364-3010 or visit WoodlandsCenter.org. Foreigner and John Waite open. $29.50 and up.
For more information on Styx, visit Styxworld.com
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
