It took me a while to realize that the only way to really communicate with people is to give them your point of view.
— Dennis DeYoung
I never imagined that I would have a successful solo career, let alone one in musical theater.
When it came time to do 'One Hundred Years' I had been encouraged to really make a Styx album without the guys. I gave myself permission to do that. I set out to get people who sang with me who could make those harmonies.
I don't understand the joy of sitting in my house with nothing to do.
I wear sunglasses almost all the time except when I'm on stage.
If you think marriage is gonna be easy, don't do it because when there are children involved, you screw up the rest of society.
I am what I am. Whatever it was that made me what I am, I thought I should stay around and be that.
I wasn't a guy who grew up wanting to be in 'Funny Girl,' if you know what I mean. I wanted to be in the Beatles.
Sometimes your limitations become your strengths. It forces you to create your own niche.
Every artist thinks his most recent work is his best. If you didn't feel like that, you wouldn't do anything.
What people fail to realize is that any album we did, really, 90 percent of it reflected the songs people brought in. If someone had brought in two great rock songs for 'Cornerstone'... they would have been on that record.
Our music did not sound like the Beatles in any way, shape or form. I could never find it in myself to use those Beatles tricks in Styx records because they were sacred to me. But what they did always influenced my thinking.
There are all kinds of pretensions about art, but I'm just a guy who sings for his supper.
Is there anything in life more exhilarating than having 15,000 people absolutely ecstatic to be seeing your human form?
When we started, there were no other distractions like the Internet and video games, so music was central to young people's lives.
There are no electric guitars. 'Hunchback' has arias; it's operatic.
If you are going to take me a to a musical, you'd better give me three songs that I'm gonna like. Nobody goes to the opera for the recitative. They go for the aria.
I love Styx as much as I could love anything in my life. I started playing in the band when I was 14 years old. You become so involved in something when you start in it that young; you're doing it purely out of love of what you're doing and a belief in it.
When I wrote 'Grand Illusion,' I was making it up as we went along. I wrote this stuff and tried to do the best job I could.
People always want to romanticize relationships within bands. Most of these relationships are based on music first.
Technology has made music ultimately more democratic.
Back in 2000, I had come to a crossroads in my life, unsure about what career path I should pursue. Shepherd, bouncer, philosopher king, ventriloquist or perhaps man on the flying trapeze. Fortunately, I was guided back onto the path of the magical world of music.
Americans are really good at throwing their hands up and walking away from things.
People always ask me: How are you? I say I'm the envy of millions. I've been a lucky guy.
If you have talent and you work really hard, it increases your odds but it doesn't ensure anything. But every now and then, the universe must tilt in your direction.
As an artist you always want to challenge yourself, but as you get older you want to bring the audience with you while expanding creatively.
I can do anything onstage. Here's the misconception: You could record an album called 'The Best of Styx.' And all you would have to do is pay the individual songwriters a mechanical royalty.
This is no condemnation of Chuck Berry, who I greatly admire. But Chuck Berry's music will not translate as well to orchestration because of its very three-chord rock 'n' roll nature. It is the music of the artists that are more pretentious, pompous or closer to the kind of big dramatic stylings that orchestras are good with.
It was a song I wrote for my wife as a present, never intending for it to be a Styx song. 'Babe' was a demo. The demo became the hit record, including all the background vocals, which were done by me.
When I play the first few notes of a song and people start screaming, I think: 'That's why I did this. That's why I wrote this song. That's a good job.' And it is a job.
Touring is real demanding. You swing between sadness and euphoria. But for us to cry about it isn't fair.
I want to see the '70s guys, if they're gonna do something, stay valid in the '90s. Then they belong. If they're trapped in the '70s, then it's nostalgia. You're not getting me in those platform shoes again.
If you try to do a genuine rock musical, rock people will think you're flaccid and Broadway audiences will think you're too loud.
Many musicals you can take and throw in the garbage can because no one took the time to write a song you can care about.
If you pretend to be somebody that you're not when you write songs - and I did that on some of the early Styx albums - nobody cares about what you have to say.
I was ill in '98. By the end of '99 I was recording and recovering.
I'm proud of the body of work I was part of and I want people to enjoy it as long as they choose to.
I've lived a charmed life.
I think a lot of bands would rather put mediocre rock tracks on their album to try to maintain some sort of testosterone badge of courage.
My views are simple. If you're gonna make a commitment, particularly marriage, stick to it. If you can't compromise, you've got no chance.
101 Dalmatians' espouses virtues good to revisit: In times of crisis, families must pull together through love and commitment to overcome obstacles.
My voice doesn't sound like anyone else's. I wanted to sound like my favorite singers when I was young because when you're young you don't put much value on uniqueness. But later I realized I had something special to offer.
A unique style comes from not being able to do things in a conventional manner. If David Byrne could have sung like Paul McCartney, he would have.
When I went out and started making solo records, I was determined not to, I guess, put my name on an album that sounded like Styx. I wanted to carve my own niche, so quite frankly I went in a different direction.
I just believed in 1979 that prog rock was finished. I just saw the handwriting on the wall. And I believed that if we continued in that direction, our career would be finished. So I kind of led the band to making 'Cornerstone,' which is an album from my point of view which was not trying to be necessarily softer, but more natural.
I still see myself as the kid who plays accordion and tries to keep people happy for 45 minutes. And there's nothing wrong with that.
I had worked so hard on three projects 1997 that it knocked the gas out of me. It was a mystery to the medical profession, but you can test positive for Epstein-Barr and not have it. When you get a post-viral syndrome, for some people it causes chronic fatigue or hearing loss. For me it became light sensitivity.
Music was everything. But what the digital revolution has done, with streaming services and downloads, is take the value out of music. When things lose value they lose their meaning.
I don't see how 'Hunchback' could ever appeal to children. It's a very adult story that deals with repressed sexuality.
I'm very proud of it. 'Hunchback' contains some of my favorite music I've ever written in my life.
