I am sitting at the critic’s desk with the translucent "clear" vinyl pressing of *Crash Of the Crown* catching the light. It is a strange object. It is a physical relic in a digital era, yet it represents the most vital STYX has sounded since the Carter administration. After more than a year of locked doors and the eerie silence of empty arenas, the multi-platinum titans are back on the tarmac. They are opening sets with "The Fight Of Our Lives", a track that functions less like a song and more like a mission statement for a world emerging from a fever dream.
I caught up with Lawrence Gowan, the band’s keyboardist, vocalist and a man who carries the weight of Canadian musical royalty with a surprisingly light touch. We talked about the new record, the mechanics of surviving the industry and why the band is currently outperforming its own history.
The industry metrics are, quite frankly, absurd for a group of this vintage. While most heritage acts are content to play the hits and collect the check, STYX is actually moving units. Gowan is not shy about the numbers, and why should he be?
"It’s been overwhelming. It went to number one on the Billboard Rock Album Charts I’m very pleased to say and I’m enjoying saying that at the top of every interview. That’s quite an astounding achievement for a band that’s been around for nearly half a century. Just to see that number one next to our names and number one on the bestseller list from Amazon as well, but the billboard distinction is really quite remarkable," Gowan says.
But the Billboard chart is a fickle beast. For a band that has been around for nearly 50 years to plant a flag at the summit is a rare feat. It suggests that the audience is not just nostalgic; they are hungry.
Gowan has been the "new guy" for 22 years. It is a running joke in the industry, much like the late Neil Peart’s tenure in Rush. You can spend two decades in a foxhole with these guys and still be the sophomore.
"That’s right, he was. I don’t mind being referred to as new for anything at this point in my life. When they put the word new next to me, I’m quite happy to accept it," he says.
And yet, there is a palpable sense that this specific lineup is hitting a stride that the classic era never quite sustained. The writing on *Crash Of the Crown* is dense, complex and surprisingly urgent. It does not feel like a legacy obligation.
"Thank you for saying that. Dan, you should definitely quote yourself on that. It surprises me from the perspective of being 15 years old and hoping that I could have a music career that could maybe get me to 23 or 24 years of age without having to get a job. So it does surprise me that the longevity of it has proven to be a great thing," Gowan admits.
He traces this current streak back to 2015. That was when the gears for *The Mission* began to turn. It was a pivot point.
"I think I felt that we were entering into this great kind of creative renaissance in the band around 2015 when we were putting together 'The Mission' album. There was a sense that we had struck the right balance between the prog side of STYX, which is what I’ve always been most attracted to and what I try to champion the most in the band, and the accessible pop rock side of STYX that makes it so easy for the masses to absorb and to see themselves in the songs," he explains.
The balance is the trick. You need the 12-minute space odysseys, but you also need the dirt-under-the-fingernails anthems.
"That’s the other side of the band that I’ve always thought was really unique, you know, 'Blue Collar Man', 'Come Sail Away', 'Renegade'. People can see themselves in these songs, in the narrative and I think we’re just in a great spot right now and having found the right producer and now band mate in Will Evankovich helped facilitate this to where we’re in a very good creative mode," Gowan says.
Evankovich is the secret weapon here. He has tightened the screws on the band’s sonic architecture. Look at a track like "Khedive" from the previous record. It is two minutes of concentrated power that shows a band in total synchronicity. They are lifting each other up rather than competing for the spotlight.
"That is extremely astute. We enjoy each other’s company and we particularly celebrate the notion of what you just brought up. We really do kind of lift each other up on stage, and when you’re doing that in front of thousands of people, that creates a bond that is very unique and something that we’re very fortunate to share. Even now, because we’re touring right now, the dressing room rehearsals, you can feel everyone tightening the little nuts and bolts before we go on stage," Gowan notes.
The live show is where the theory meets the road. There is a specific energy that happens at the end of a STYX set. It is a shared catharsis.
"It’s quite a euphoric outcome that leads to the end of the night where we really share this triumphant moment together after you see what I call a sea of a thousand smiling faces looking back at you and telling you that something just happened through that musical medium that we don’t fully understand but we use to enrich our lives. It’s just a phenomenal moment that really happens, so that that is a very accurate assessment on your part," he says.
But getting back to that "sea of faces" was not a given. The pandemic was a brutal hiatus for a band that lives on the road. They did not just sit around waiting for the world to reopen, though. They used the isolation as a laboratory.
"You don’t want to make too much of that because a lot more people have had a much tougher time than we did. We were able to navigate our way through the year by focusing on finishing the record and getting it ready to release when and if the time came that we would get back on tour. Having the focus of that was really a great galvanizing thing where we were able to stay together, and doing Zoom calls, like you and I are doing right now, became the norm for millions around the planet. It did for us as well and this is how we stay connected and focused on what our trajectory was going to be as far as getting back out on tour," Gowan says.
There’s definitely an extra layer of emotional release that’s very evident in the audience. Throughout the show, quite frankly right from the very beginning, it’s quite an emotional moment because we did learn over the course of the pandemic just how valuable music was to people’s lives. ... I think if there’s one positive aspect of this pandemic, I think we take our time a little more to drink in the things that we really enjoy or want to delve into so maybe the album as a format is making a great resurgence.
The return to the stage has been heavy. You can feel it in the front row. There is an extra layer of grit in the performances.
"You asked me about the tour. So we’ve been out now for just over a month and I don’t know if I’m projecting this onto the audience, but there’s definitely an extra layer of emotional release that’s very evident in the audience. Throughout the show, quite frankly right from the very beginning, it’s quite an emotional moment because we did learn over the course of the pandemic just how valuable music was to people’s lives," he adds.
Sonically, *Crash Of the Crown* is a gear-head’s dream. It sounds like the 70s because it was built with the tools of the 70s. "Our Wonderful Lives" feels like a spiritual successor to Tommy Shaw’s "Boat On The River".
"It is. I think that’s very much in the tradition of 'Boat On The River' for Tommy to write something that is so poignant and from such a unique perspective he brings to a song such as that. The other connection I see between that one and 'Boat On The River' is on the original recording Dennis DeYoung played accordion. On our live versions of that I use a harmonium which is a little acoustic keyboard that you usually see in Indian Raga type bands. On 'Our Wonderful Lives' he plays a banjo and I play that harmonium, so we got to use some kind of folk elements that brought those into the circle and it’s a very far reaching album with the instrumentation," Gowan explains.
The commitment to the period-correct sound is obsessive. Gowan is not reaching for a digital plugin to mimic a Hammond. He is moving the real thing.
"I think part of what you’re noticing with the overall sonic picture of the band connecting so well with the classic rock era is because we do go to great lengths to make sure that the instrumentation we’re using ties well to that era. There are a few exceptions like I just mentioned with the banjo and the harmonium on one song, but by and large it’s a band that consists of two guitars and some vintage keyboards," he says.
"I go to the Steinway piano and I go to the Hammond B3 first and foremost to sculpt whatever the keyboard approach is going to be with the song, and then when it gets enhanced with the synths, I have a vintage Oberheim and Moog and I even got a chance to use my Mellotron which is in working order just enough to make it onto several songs on this record. Sonically it’s going to pull you into that era while at the same time being very representative of a band that’s alive and very active in 2021."
The recording process itself was a logistical puzzle. Because of travel restrictions, Gowan was holed up in Toronto while the rest of the band was scattered across the States.
"That’s exactly what happened to me. We had about two thirds of the parts that Tommy, I and Will had set up for the album prior to the pandemic arriving and those first couple of months of the pandemic everyone thought this would be over in six weeks. Then we got a little bit of a history lesson when we found out no, pandemics usually take about a couple of years to run the course and maybe with modern science we might be able to shorten that a little bit, but not much," Gowan says.
The lyrics, written mostly before the world stopped, took on a haunting new meaning. It was an accidental prophecy.
"We began to really realize it’s ironic and beautifully synchronistic I guess that the lyrics to the songs and the themes related so well to what people were going through in a pandemic year. As a result we decided let’s record like this, let’s use the Zoom calls and use the Audiomovers apps," he says.
The remote setup actually allowed Gowan to use gear he normally would have left behind.
"So Tommy will be set up in his studio in Nashville, Todd did his drum parts from one of the most sophisticated drum rooms on earth in Austin, Texas, at his home, and I had my studio in Toronto, with Russ, the engineer that I work with all the time, and all my vintage gear made it onto the record. It wouldn’t have otherwise. I would have used the stuff that I keep in Nashville, which is newer and I guess, almost reverse engineered, the very reliable, you know, new Oberheim and new various pieces. But I got to use all the old stuff on this record and I think they really shine," he admits.
There was a long stretch where STYX simply did not record new material. The industry was in a tailspin, and the band found more value in the live circuit.
"When I joined the band, it’s 22 years ago now, we thought it would be a regular kind of touring and recording schedule that we’d follow. However, even then, it took us four years before we made our first studio record together, because the record industry was beginning to fragment and get into some serious trouble, quite honestly. The focus went entirely on to let’s just keep playing live, keep making live DVDs of our shows, play with symphony orchestras and play a residency in Vegas, do a DVD of that, and we were kept really busy. We never played less than one hundred shows a year around the world so we kept extremely busy, but that fragmenting in the music business side of things, the recording part of it got worse and worse," Gowan says.
The dark ages of the industry, roughly between 2008 and 2013, were particularly grim for legacy acts trying to find a foothold in the digital shift.
"I’d say it was at its lowest from my vantage point probably 2008 to 2013, something like that. Then, as they began to come up with what the new paradigm is for the music industry, and how intricately connected with the internet it is, it was a force to be reckoned with and they finally reckoned with it I guess. All the streaming services became part of the common way that records were being exposed. Universal Records came back and STYX was with them before and wanted to make a new album, so that was a great incentive to make a record that didn’t have to be on the radio because we know that’s moved in another direction," Gowan explains.
The band leaned into the concept album format. They stopped chasing singles and started building worlds.
"Classic rock radio is going to continue to represent STYX to a great degree for as long as they exist, but they wanted us to make an album that felt like a real album that it wasn’t reliant on any one song or anything but it carried you all the way through. So we embraced that and made a concept record called 'The Mission' and they stayed with it, promoted it over the two or three years of us touring that record to the point where we wound up playing shows where we would do that album in its entirety. We did three of them in Las Vegas. We did one in Boston, and we were about to do two in New York the week that the pandemic was announced. That was a really unfortunate thing that was actually the thing that took the wind out of our sails the most when everyone got that first initial punch of it, but Universal have been very, very supportive. They said this record did well, let’s do another one, and 'Crash Of the Crown' is the result," he says.
*Crash Of the Crown* is a theatre of the mind. It is designed to be heard in a single sitting, a 40-minute journey that mirrors the structure of the greats.
"It is very odd. I can connect every single one of those songs to the experience that I had over the course of the last year and I think that’s really what people are doing. They can see themselves in 'Fight Of Our Lives' or even 'Crash Of the Crown', obviously in 'Our Wonderful Lives'. 'Our Wonderful Lives' was written after the pandemic, two of them actually, I think the other one was 'Stream'. You can easily hear this as a conceptual album because the songs do interconnect in a very seamless fashion, but really what it is, it’s an album, and an album is a sort of theater of the mind that carries you through a forty minute adventure where you absorb the whole thing as one piece. If you can somehow see yourself in the picture of what this music is conveying, then it works in a conceptual way and that’s what the beauty of an album always has been," Gowan says.
The flow of the record is intentional. It takes cues from the masters of the format.
"It evolved into being two or three really good hits and then some other tracks and with our last two albums they really are complete musical statements for one thing, and you’ll see that one song bleeds into the next like side two, 'Lost At Sea' is kind of an integral little bridge that takes you into 'Coming Out The Other Side', so it all kind of flows that way. We used side two of 'Abbey Road' as a little bit of a roadmap of how to do that in an effective way," he notes.
And then there is the vinyl. The demand has been so high that the band themselves are struggling to find copies of the limited editions.
"It’s out on vinyl, and it’s back-ordered. They brought it out on regular black vinyl but they also have clear vinyl, and I’m scouring eBay right now trying to get a copy of that one. The clear vinyl was the first one I got a chance to open but of course it went to prize winners and stuff," Gowan laughs.
"I have a digital copy and we’ve signed a ton of them but yeah, Tommy just showed me last night on eBay he found one for like fifty-six bucks. That might be a little over my price range but you know what? I’ll do it; I’ll throw down for it."
Twenty-two years in, Gowan still views the career with a healthy dose of skepticism and gratitude. In the rock idiom, nothing is guaranteed.
"No, quite honestly in music you might be best to look at your life in music in six month increments and don’t really plan too much beyond that because you don’t know how the gods of rock are going to play the cards quite frankly, I did get a sense when I joined the band that this was going to work. I have said in the past and I stand by it, I had this inner feeling that I was doing the right thing because I felt so simpatico with them both musically and even more so personally. I felt like yeah, I think I’m the right guy for this tour they’re doing over the next six months and then we’ll see. So we’re still in that I guess we’ll see mode and I have been for most of my life quite honestly, I don’t really project that far ahead. Not when you’re in an idiom that is as volatile as music is. But things worked out well so far," he says.
That openness has allowed him to maintain his solo identity, which in turn feeds the band’s collective energy.
"Well, it does that and it also it keeps me connected to my solo years as well. I’ve been doing more and more solo tours over the past 11 years now and it’s keeping that part of my life engaged. J.Y., Chuck and Tommy actually said that every time I go into a solo run I bring something fresh back to the band. Something in a subtle way shifts and so one kind of is helping the other and I know that I have solo things booked for 2022 coming up so that as far as my mind is projecting ahead at this point and getting through this and absorbing every great aspect of this current tour that we’re doing," Gowan explains.
For the local crowd, the question is always about the next stop in the Windsor and Detroit corridor. Caesars Windsor and Pine Knob are holy ground for the STYX faithful.
"I certainly hope so. I keep looking for Michigan on the schedule. I think there are a couple of shows there. I don’t know if they’re in the Detroit area but certainly within the next 12 months we’ll definitely be in that area. And when Canada opens up, I’d love to come and play in Windsor again at Caesars because that’s been a great venue both for STYX and for myself. I did a solo Gowan show there as well and STYX has played there at least probably four times now," he says.
"Great venue there and Detroit obviously, we love playing Pine Knob and we’ve played Joe Louis Arena, yeah, we will be in the area. Michigan is such an important vital piece of the whole fabric of the STYX faithful, you know and Windsor being across the border I get to wear my own flag for a day."
Gowan is encouraged by the fact that people are actually listening to the deep cuts. In a world of ten-second bites, the long-form album is making a stand.
"You too Dan, thank you for listening to the record. I mentioned this yesterday during the interviews as well and earlier this morning. It’s great how people I have been speaking to have actually listened to the whole album. You’re bringing up deep cuts that are on there, they’re not even deep cuts, they’re just part of the record and people seem to be absorbing it. I think if there’s one positive aspect of this pandemic, I think we take our time a little more to drink in the things that we really enjoy or want to delve into so maybe the album as a format is making a great resurgence," he says.
"Exactly, I go through this as well where everything’s in ten second bites and I get that, I like how fast paced it is. But this isn’t the pace that I want my life to move in. I want to be able to drink things in and absorb them in a meaningful way that will stay with me, and the albums that I grew up loving, that’s how it is. 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' means as much to me today as it did when I first got it. I like putting the needle on and all that, and we want 'Crash Of the Crown' to be that experience for people and so far that seems to be the case.
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