{"id":480566,"date":"2026-06-07T09:37:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T09:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/480566\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T09:37:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T09:37:17","slug":"styx-ex-dennis-deyoung-on-bad-blood-and-reasons-to-forgive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/480566\/","title":{"rendered":"Styx ex Dennis DeYoung on bad blood and reasons to forgive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having co-founded Styx<\/a> in 1972, keyboard player and singer Dennis DeYoung wrote many of their finest songs, including Come Sail Away<\/a> and The Grand Illusion, as well as the US chart-topping ballad Babe. Styx broke up following 1983’s poorly received concept record Kilroy Was Here, and although he was part of a reunion in 1990, DeYoung was controversially replaced by the band nine years later when a medical condition prevented him from touring. In 2019 he released 26 East, Vol. 1<\/a>, the first of two farewell albums, and told Prog about his life and times.<\/p>\n

How did you fall in love with music of an adventurous nature?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The vast majority of prog influences in Styx, when we had that going on, came from me. It had begun with Emerson, Lake & Palmer<\/a> and Yes<\/a>, but earlier than that there was The Moody Blues<\/a> and some of the things The Beatles<\/a> did. I was playing my Hammond organ, trying to be Jon Lord<\/a> or whoever. That style of music gave a keyboard player a chance to show off like they were a guitar player \u2013 and of course I wanted some of that.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

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Do you consider your music to be progressive?<\/p>\n

We brought some of that into Styx, but we were an American rock\u2019n\u2019roll band. I want you to write this: \u2018The next prog rock lyric I understand will be the first.\u2019 And also write: \u2018He laughed\u2019 afterwards! But we were never a fully-fledged prog band. I\u2019d say we were a hybrid.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

In the 1970s when Styx were labelled as pomp rock, did that bridle with you?<\/p>\n

It all depends on the context. Rock critics have an impossible job: how do you describe music? It\u2019s organic and touches our souls, so summing that up in words is pretty much impossible.<\/p>\n

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Styx – Come Sail Away – YouTube
\n\"Styx<\/p>\n

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Save for Vol. 2, which will follow, why is 26 East your final album?<\/p>\n

Have you noticed that rock music is dead? Or that there\u2019s no radio anymore? Not to say that people aren\u2019t still trying to play it, but it\u2019s gone. The internet has ruined it, or maybe rock\u2019n\u2019roll played its part \u2013 I don\u2019t have those answers. Anyhow, I had to be talked into making a new record by Jim Peterik [formerly of Survivor<\/a>] and Frontiers Records. They wore me down.<\/p>\n

Peterik played a massive part in that decision.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

Yeah. Jim sent me a song called Run For The Roses that made me think, \u2018Okay, you got my attention.\u2019 And slowly it came together.<\/p>\n

Even at 73 years old your voice still stands up magnificently.<\/p>\n

Because I knew early on that I had got lucky I did everything possible to avoid screwing up my gift. I wasn\u2019t a drug taker, an alcoholic or a smoker, and when somebody was needed to yell at the children I hired a large Ukrainian woman. A voice is finite \u2013 singers must respect that.<\/p>\n

“To The Good Old Days” Official Music Video Ft. Dennis DeYoung (Formerly of Styx) & Julian Lennon – YouTube
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Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

The album offers some definite reminders of Styx, notably its Paradise Theater<\/a>-style finale of AD 2020.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m most noted for being in Styx \u2013 shouldn\u2019t I give people what they want? If you listen to East Of Midnight [a throwback to the band\u2019s classic era] and don\u2019t know what this is, then I can\u2019t help you. I had that ending [AD 2020] in mind right from the beginning. I wanted to say goodbye in those last notes that you hear.<\/p>\n

I really don\u2019t care whether or not people remember me. The music is so much bigger<\/p>\n

To The Good Old Days is a song you wrote as a duet with John Lennon<\/a>\u2019s son, Julian.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important for me to say that The Beatles changed my life. I had never met Jules, and I never expected a response to my email, but he wrote back and said he\u2019d love to do the song. He sang the shit out of it and I harmonised. And cooler still, Jules told me that he wasn\u2019t doing music when I contacted him, and now he\u2019s back in the studio.<\/p>\n

In the album\u2019s biography you say that To The Good Old Days is about \u201cthe sweetest days of my past with my fans, friends, family and forgiveness\u201d \u2013 does that last part extend to the current Styx line-up?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe that I have to forgive them; I\u2019ve never said that. They replaced me when I was sick and then had to convince the fanbase that they hadn\u2019t fired a sick colleague. They even said I had ruined the band, though why is still beyond me.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, I still believe that we should do one last tour for the fans. They\u2019ve said a thousand times that they\u2019re not interested, so what can I do? That reference to forgiveness was a more general one. All human beings are flawed.<\/p>\n

Should these two albums turn out to be your grand finale, how would you like to be remembered as an artist?<\/p>\n

Look, it\u2019s very simple: I really don\u2019t care whether or not people remember me. The music is so much bigger. If in 50 years\u2019 time people are still getting what they need from what I have created then I\u2019ll be very happy with that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having co-founded Styx in 1972, keyboard player and singer Dennis DeYoung wrote many of their finest songs, including…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-480566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}