Interview with Styx’s Lawrence Gowan
Interview conduct on August 12, 2019
by Mary Andrews
Styx has had a very successful career in rock music since the 1970s. Their music is a blend of progressive rock with pop rock and soft rock. Very few bands can rival having four consecutive certified multi-platinum albums in a row as well as eight singles in the Billboard top ten.
After 18 years of a rigorous touring schedule, the band managed to release an album of new material that has been embraced by fans worldwide. The Mission has achieved gold status in physical sales. The band has had its share of ups and downs over the last 50 years, but it has managed to maintain relevance in the modern times of the music business.
Unrated was able to catch lead singer and keyboardist, Lawrence Gowan, for a telephone interview while on tour. Here is what Gowan had to say.
Unrated: Do people call you Lawrence or Larry?
Lawrence Gowan: Funny enough, my family always called me Lawrence. A lot of people called me Larry that I used to play hockey with. (Laughing) Lawrence really isn’t a hockey player’s name. There was actually one of my solo records back in 1993 that was called “Lawrence Gowan, but You Can Call Me Larry.” It’s like a used car salesman.
Unrated: Styx is currently in the throes of a big tour now. Where are you performing now?
LG: We are playing Meijer Gardens Amphitheatre tonight and it is a beautiful setting. I love this area of the country. We did a great show last night in Detroit. I had a great sleep on the tour bus and I’m now ready to have this interview.
Unrated: You just performed in Tucson last week. Tucson has a long-standing love affair with Styx. How did you enjoy the summer heat?
LG: Yes we played a great venue and we do have a long-standing relationship between us, Tucson, and the whole state of Arizona. It’s something we really look forward to. I particularly look forward to it in the winter. (Laughing) I’m originally from Canada.
Unrated: Do you still live in Toronto?
LG: I do. I am the lone Canadian in Styx. When I joined the band, 21 years ago now, I really thought I would be moving to the U.S. fairly soon. We tour with such a lengthy schedule that we see each other plenty. We do over 100 shows a year. We go back to our respective cities when the tour is done. It really doesn’t impede on our program as far as touring and doing everything else we have to do.
Unrated: You replaced Dennis DeYoung over 20 years ago. You had a very robust solo career in Canada at the time. What made you decide to make the change from being a solo artist to being in Styx?
LG: It wasn’t something to leave behind. As you mentioned, I had a successful run as a solo artist. But when a band with the legacy, the history and the level of musical proficiency of Styx, gives you a call, it is a call you take seriously. It has been a frustration for me that I record and have multi-platinum selling records in Canada and I haven’t had a proper release of any records in the U.S. other than a few import copies that just went across the border. It was frustration.
I thought in 1999 when the band called and I was talking to Tommy and I thought just maybe this is the proper path for me to get myself involved in the U.S. market. I knew it was going to involve major changes. The first 11 years that I was in the band I didn’t do any solo shows or any solo recordings or anything connected to my solo career. In 2010, I began to pick it up again. By the end of the year, I will have played 20 solo shows this year and about 100 Styx shows. In other words, I’m busy.
Unrated: It seems like Styx is constantly on the road. Although you still have a significant amount of time off. How do you handle being on the road for that many days of the year on a bus?
LG: Being on a tour bus is not the hardship that people envision. Tour buses these days are like rolling five-star hotels. They are not that tough to live on as long as you get enough sleep. That is a prime objective especially if you are a singer. We really have adapted to that part of the music industry. Things shifted in the early part of this millennium where the live performance increasingly became the only thing you can’t download. It is a unique experience that you actually have to be there to properly encounter. We wanted to make sure that we took full advantage of that.
This was the most pivotal change that the band had to make the commitment to playing and traveling to countries all around the world. In June, we were in England after that we were in Oslo, Norway and sold out. Two days after that we were in Sweden playing to 40000 plus people. A few days after that I played a solo show in Vancouver. The next day, I was back with Styx in the U.S. It’s the reality of being a musician if you are fortunate enough to have an audience with the global magnitude of Styx. It’s something to embrace as often and as strongly as possible.
Unrated: So physically you do well as long as you are not sleep-deprived?
LG: Yes, we really look after ourselves. We love doing shows. When I get off the phone, I will go do my daily exercise routine to stay in as good of shape as possible. When we hit the stage, we feel like we are 15-year-olds anyway. That’s when the adrenaline hits us.
Unrated: It seems like such a smooth transition when you took over DeYoung’s place with the vocals and everything. You are such an energetic entertainer and such a pleasure to hear and watch.
LG: Thank you I always felt like it was such a monumental change for the band to make, but they had gone through some member changes in the past like any band that has been around for 50 years. Potentially cataclysmic changes inevitably have to be made. If the gods of rock are smiling on you and if the stars are on your side, it’s amazing how bands can make a transition and make it work. It is the spirit of the band itself and in my mind is an entity that exists outside of the individual members. It really comes down to whether the spirit of that band can survive a change of that level.
It’s been done in the past. Genesis survived after Peter Gabriel left. All of a sudden Phil Collins was at the front of the band. Who would have thought that he would rise to be the megastar that he is? The same thing happened with Van Halen and quite a few bands. Each one is a unique situation, but with Tommy, J.Y. and Chuck, I wanted to make sure they knew that they had made the right decision.
Unrated: Most of your recent interviews have been focused on the band’s latest album release, The Mission. Can we talk a little bit about the album? I hope you are not tired of that subject.
LG: There is no subject I enjoy speaking about Styx more than The Mission. It is the pinnacle of my era with Styx. It’s the album I dreamed of making when I joined the band. It took us 18 years before we got to release an album of that quality and one that can proudly stand alone alongside of their great legacy of albums from the past like Grand Illusion, Paradise Theatre, and Pieces of Eight. The Mission sounds very similar sonically speaking. It’s not a great leap from those records to The Mission. That’s because we recorded it in analog. Good old tape machines and good old technology that still exists in Nashville. It was that and embracing the subject with space exploration is a great topic for any classic rock band to approach. The timing was perfect to come up with a concept album like The Mission. It’s been so well received. It’s garnered the greatest reviews of any album the band has produced throughout their career. To me it is our greatest highlight. Our manager was here yesterday. He told us it continues to sell in great numbers. It’s at 100,000 units sold now in physical sales. The download sales are in hundreds of thousands. It’s been a great two years by just having that album. The younger people have come to the band have an album that is concurrent with their lives to champion. We see them as the largest number that has their Mission tee shirts and singing all along with the lyrics when we play the songs.
Unrated: Now that the album is two years old, is the band working on new music or is that a secret?
LG: We are always working on new music. It’s funny because of the 14-year gap between The Mission and the previous studio album is incredibly long. We did manage to release some live DVDs and albums in the interim, but really we make new music all the time. It depends upon if we really have time to do it properly, promote it properly and get it done without it interfering with our heavy touring schedule. That’s what came about with The Mission and I can foresee because of the success of that record, us putting out something again. Hopefully sooner than later because there always some great ideas floating around sound checks. We have all kinds of new things we are cobbling together. It is a great opportunity to release them.
Unrated: Which songs from The Mission are played or requested in your live shows?
LG: Two songs that we have done every single night are “The Overture” which is the walk on song and the first song performed is “Gone, Gone, Gone.” It’s a complete ‘barn burner’ song. It sets the tone for the energy of the show. That segues into the “Blue Collar Man” so we have the classics next to the brand new. Halfway through the show, we play a song called “Radio Silence.” A pivotal moment in the story on the record is where one of the crew on board is completely cut off from communication with the rest of the crew. The magic of the album is the human interaction between the crew members on this mission. So “Radio Silence” goes over so well every night. The beauty of that is I think people can easily hear an astonishing connection between that song and “Crystal Ball.” I think that is part of what they have responded so strongly to.
Then toward the end of the show, I have a moment in the show where I have the stage to myself where I can play around with the audience a little bit and do a snippet of some classic rock. I’ve been playing a piece called “Khedive” and that’s a very short piano solo piece. That’s on The Mission as well. That piano solo usually leads into “Come Sail Away.”
Unrated: You are classically trained as a pianist. How did you get started playing the classical piano?
LG: When I saw Paul McCartney plying piano on a video of “Hey Jude” I started thinking the piano is a really cool instrument when I was ten-years-old. My mom really encouraged me to take it up. I took to it right away. But, by the time I was 14, I could play okay. The level of musicianship in rock really elevated to musicians like Elton John, Rick Wakeman, Tony Banks of Genesis and Keith Emerson. I realized that what all these guys had in common was that they all went to the Royal Academy of Music. In Toronto, we have the Royal Conservatory of Music. It’s the very same thing. It says royal that means that the queen says it all right. So, I enrolled in the Royal Conservatory. I fell in love with classical music. I went all the way through getting a degree in classical piano performance. Once I had that I felt okay. Now at least I have the technical ability. I can play the pieces that I really love. That included some classical pieces but also, I could play pieces by Genesis, Yes, Elton John and Queen you know. One thing set into the other.
Unrated: Would you say that McCartney is one of your biggest musical influences?
LG: Undoubtedly the four Beatles have had a gigantic influence on me. Probably they have influenced every person on the planet that has picked up an instrument for the last 50 years. It all goes back to the Beatles. Billy Preston actually came on stage and played with us a couple of times. He was the keyboardist who actually played with the Beatles towards the end of their career. I made one of my solo records in Ringo Starr’s home. He had a recording studio there. Ringo was there for the entire making of that record. That was in 1984. I’ve always had them spiritually and physically as a close influence.
Unrated: Do you have any personal dreams you would like to have come true at this point in your life?
LG: Well, sure. There are musicians I would love to play with. Being from Canada, I still dream of being an NHL professional hockey player. Sometimes I think wouldn’t it be nice to be an astronaut. There is that kind of pipe dreams. Quite honestly, I really am one of the most fortunate people to be living what I really hoped would happen since I was a young teenager. I wanted to play music every day of my life. I wanted to be able to help affect people the way that I was affected by growing up. I still want to do that. Those are my biggest ongoing dreams as well as wanting personal happiness. So much of that is connected to music anyway.
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