Styx’s Lawrence Gowan on embracing classic rock pomposity ahead of Saturday’s show

Styx (left to right: Todd Sucherman, Lawrence Gowan, Chuck Panozzo, James “JY” Young, Tommy Shaw, Terry Gowan, Will Evankovich). // Photo Courtesy of Jason Powell

Formed in Chicago in 1972, classic rock band Styx is a perennial summer staple on the Kansas City concert calendar. Fresh off this summer’s co-headlining tour with fellow rockers Foreigner, the band comes to Cable Dahmer Arena in Independence this Saturday, Sept. 21. Whether you’re there for the nostalgic hit which is “Mr. Roboto,” the massive love ballad, “Lady,” or the prog-rocking brilliance of “Too Much Time on My Hands,” you’re sure to hear it Saturday night.

Styx has been absolutely on fire lately. Not only did they release their first album in four years in 2021, Crash of the Crown, their tour with Foreigner saw them release a split live LP with that band, which found its way onto the vinyl charts. We took the opportunity of Styx’s upcoming local stop to speak with band’s keyboardist and lead vocalist Lawrence Gowan and discuss the band’s current state of affairs.

The Pitch: Styx and Foreigner released a split LP for your summer tour. What’s the appeal of releasing treats like this for the fans?

Lawrence Gowan: Funny enough, we did a similar thing back in ’01 or 2002. We did it with REO Speedwagon, but, in that case, I don’t believe they were available for shows. I think they were just basically a store item as I recall, but this one, completely different. We decided it’s only available at the show and then, the shocking thing is—because of the vinyl resurgence that’s kicked in and keeps increasing every single year—we haven’t been able to hang on to it.

It’s gone into several reprints and it charted. Nobody saw that! It charted on Billboard just from sales at the shows. It’s pretty amazing. When I’d see people in the audience that obviously got their copies, I’m wondering, How many of them actually have turntables? But, at the same time, I guess this is kind of seen now as a relic. A real piece of memorabilia for if you’re seeing a classic rock band. I mean, I can’t think of a better actually piece of memorabilia other than that. Hopefully, they got a t-shirt as well. Something like that, they can actually refer back to, that was recorded by the bands that they saw.

One of the things I love about Styx is that you always tour with some great acts, be it Foreigner this summer, REO Speedwagon you mentioned, and you’re bringing John Waite of The Babys when you play KC. Do you feel fortunate to go out on the road with so many compatriots over the years?

Here’s the great thing about that. I’m into my 26 year now with Styx. In the first five years or so, when we would tour with other bands, I could see that—call them heritage bands—They were kind of struggling to figure out how to present their show because they had huge success in the ’70s or early ’80s, and were kind of stuck in that period of time.

We really leaned into it though. Styx, I guess, because we had a couple of younger members join the band back then. I’m including myself as a younger member back then. We leaned into it in a very obvious way and every subsequent year, I could see that the other bands that we tour with, the notion began to dawn on them: “Yeah. We should really start raising our show up to the kind of pompous level that bands of the classic rock era presented themselves.”

Part of it was that the shows were always larger than life and we’d been through different eras, especially with the ’90s, where it was hipper to be dressed down and, and not to be too flashy in your shows. But, as each one of those bands began to re-embrace that notion the way that Kiss never gave it up, it became more and more joyous to tour with these bands because you could see the level of entertainment just begin to rise on a very obvious and a very observable scale.

Somewhere between 2010-2015, these guys and other bands like Foreigner or REO or Boston, Journey, even Def Leppard, bands that we toured with, their shows had elevated up to the point where we knew that it’s a great night of entertainment. People are gonna see three, four hours of classic rock presented as well as it possibly can be with all of the extra accoutrements.

Along with that kind of show, inevitably, because of the success of these tours, we began to realize it’s one big show that we’re doing here. We’re separate bands and we still have something of a competitive instinct to us, but we really rely on the other acts that are on the bill to keep the level of that entertainment as high as possible.

The result, quite frankly, is, this summer, every night has been a capacity crowd. It’s to the rafters every single night and it’s been just a joy to to ride along with this. It’s a shared adventure and shared victory, quite honestly, with the other bands we tour with.

Lawrence Gowan of Styx. // Photo by Nick Spacek

I mean, you’ve got a keyboard stand that spins. I remember the first time I saw you all perform and you started running around with it. I was just like, “This is showmanship!”

Well, now you’ve cut to what really matters. Do you know how that came about? In 1990, prior to joining Styx, I was on a Sony/Columbia Records in Canada. My records were very successful in Canada, multi-platinum records, and it never got released in the U.S., unfortunately. On my fourth album, the guitarist on that album was Alex Lifeson from Rush, and we did a video for the title track, which is called “Lost Brotherhood,” and the video was loosely based on George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

We had that as a premise for the video. We’re in a barn and people are transforming into animals. Alex has got this smokin’ solo that he plays in the middle of the song and in the storyboard, I’m stuck behind the piano for the entire song. I just thought, I’ve got the most boring part in my own video, and I don’t quite know how to fix this, then the notion just came where I said to the lighting company, “Do you have anything that could revolve, that I could put the keyboard on that could spin?”

There were a couple of engineers there that just grabbed that by the throat and came in with this spinning stand as a video prop and as I used it in the video, it was great because I could look around the barn and see all the shenanigans that were going on. Just being able to pivot like that made me feel much more like what a guitar player is able to do and as we were shooting throughout the two days, one by one, the guys in the band, the crew, and then Alex comes up and says, “Can you take that on stage?”

Well, it was not my intention. It was a video prop, but I might just add it to my keyboard rig on stage, see how that goes. A few weeks later, we started our tour. We brought it with us and I took it on stage, and, for me, it worked because I was able to engage the whole audience, not have my back to one section for the entire performance, but instead be able to pivot around and do that.

So when Styx and me in 1997 did a couple of shows together, they saw that keyboard stand. They saw how that worked into it. When I joined the band and came to the first run through they said, “Did you bring the spinning thing?” “I didn’t know if you guys wanted to use it or not, but did you want to?” “We’ll do a run through with it.”

We brought it on stage, we did a run through and they went, “Okay, get rid of all the other keyboards. Let’s just go with that,” and that basically is how it’s been for—1990 to now—would be 34 years.

Styx plays Cable Dahmer Arena on Saturday, September 21, with special guest John Waite of the Babys. Details on that show here.