Fountain Of Youth

Music legends keep themselves, audience young

Rockers Chuck Panozzo, Ricky Phillips, Todd Sucherman, Tommy Shaw, James “J.Y.” Young and Lawrence Gowan return to Arkansas on Thursday with guest Honeyjack during Styx’s 2016 tour.
Rockers Chuck Panozzo, Ricky Phillips, Todd Sucherman, Tommy Shaw, James “J.Y.” Young and Lawrence Gowan return to Arkansas on Thursday with guest Honeyjack during Styx’s 2016 tour.

Fifteen albums of new music. Ten members through the years. Forty years as a group. Styx has been around the block. Pretty much every block. But the American rock band from Chicago is still going strong: 71 tour dates already in the books this year and 32 more will take the musicians through the middle of November, including a stop at the Walmart AMP in Rogers on Thursday.

"We're very fond of the state of Arkansas," says lead guitar player James Young. "Back in the day when radio was independently owned and we were struggling to get started, our song 'Lady' was only played in three places -- and one of [the cities] was Little Rock. Two years later is when it became a national hit. Styx has a special place in its heart for the great state of Arkansas."

FAQ

Styx In Concert

WHEN — 7:30 p.m. Thursday

WHERE — Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion in Rogers

COST — $31-$51

INFO — arkansasmusicpavili…

Despite more than 40 years of living the rock star life -- a good portion of that as the lead guitar player for Styx -- Young easily demonstrates an impressive memory for place and detail as he recalls an early performance at the University of Arkansas outdoor track.

"This is going back to [the early '70s], they had recently repaved the track at the university, and we tore it up a little bit getting all the equipment in there," he says with a laugh. Seeing multi-generational crowds at shows throughout the band's lifespan shows Young that Styx continues to get college kids rocking, too. "The Internet killed the physical record business. But what it's given back to a touring band like Styx is young people are hearing about Styx and have instant accessibility to our music that they didn't have 30 or 40 years ago. That has worked in our favor, and I have watched our fan base grow."

Personnel changes, exploring different artistic directions and four decades of music trends all combined to form a varied body of work from the band. While they try to change up the show every few years, the band members have decided on a more narrow focus when it comes to their performances.

"From Styx, people expect a certain thing, and we're going to give it to them," Young says. "We've gone away from the super soft side of the band. We still do 'Come Sail Away' and a number of other songs Dennis (DeYoung) was involved in, but we don't do the soft ballads. Jimi Hendrix was a big influence on me, and I love the guitar-driven rock, so this is more what I enjoy. But there's still a tremendous breadth and range to our performance."

Young is one of the two founding members from the band's 1972 inception still with the group -- unless you count Tommy Shaw as an original member with his 1975 addition, and most people do. It's been 10 years since the group released new original music, and Young says they may or may not come up with some new material in the future. He says he really doesn't know either way, but for now the group has adapted to what the fans enjoy, and the members are having fun continuing to tour -- with an average of just over 100 dates a year.

"I've always loved the live performance aspect of it -- when you get thousands of people in the same place, and they're screaming and hootin' and hollering," Young says. "A rock concert now is where people go to forget their troubles and enjoy what they love in their heart. Music really is the universal language. It keeps me feeling very youthful and the audience feeling youthful -- it really is our fountain of youth, and that's a great thing to tap into every night."

NAN What's Up on 08/26/2016

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