By Ralph Greco, Jr.
If you have been lucky enough to see Styx live over the past 20 or so years, you can’t help but notice the dynamic stage presence, solid key tickling and wonderful voice of keyboardist and singer Lawrence Gowan.
After enjoying a lengthy and fruitful solo career in Canada, Gowan joined Styx in 1999. It was a tough transition because he was tasked with replacing Dennis DeYoung, a founding member and primary vocalist and songwriter, as well as keyboardist, for Styx. Big shoes to fill indeed, but Gowan’s powerful voice and spinning keyboard have endeared him to the world of Styx. It’s hard to imagine him being anywhere else.
In the following exchange, I spoke to Gowan about Styx’s return to the road after the pandemic shutdown, the making of Styx’s 2021 studio release, Crash Of The Crown, and how he came to join such a classic American rock band.
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Styx is back out on the road. Where are you today?
We’re in Reno right now, play tonight here. We were in Salt Lake City yesterday. Prior to that, we were in Albuquerque, Phoenix, jumping around pretty much.
I have to assume it is a bit challenging coming back from the pandemic layoff.
It’s as much trying to make up dates and filling in playing what we missed, as it is just going out to hit the regular shows already scheduled. So yes, we are piling on best we can. The main thing is that we are out their playing, still making it enjoyable. We now have a COVID-compliant officer touring with us, making sure everything is as safe as it can be, and, of course, we are all staying as careful as we can be. Luckily, as I look at things right now, we don’t have any cancellations coming up at the moment.
When I caught Styx at your residency in Las Vegas in 2018, it was a night you were suffering from what every Las Vegas performer knows as “Vegas throat.” I was especially taken though with how admitted it all humbly and the audience just went right along, championing you.
Yes, I recall that. We had been in town doing those shows for about a week and it was a particularly dry few days, the grit in the air was very high; yes, the old “Vegas throat”. As a vocalist, it’s pretty much center in your mind to hit all the notes, to deliver in that way. But once the show begins, you feel the vibe of the room take over and you realize what’s happening is much bigger than any one person. What you are making people feel, responding back to you, is the magic of it all, as much as there can ever be magic. That’s how you get through moments like that.
Let’s talk about how Crash Of The Crown was made. In the midst of the pandemic, you all managed to rally around getting it together.
When we first heard that some dates were going to be canceled due to this COVID thing — first with May 2020 looming and then we realized well into June that there was going to be no definitive end — I began to get on Zoom — and believe me before this all, I had no idea even what Zoom was — and we all began to talk about making a record.
Was that particularly hard to do during lockdown?
Actually, it was kind of second nature to us as we usually work. We began to put things together, working through this new app that allows for a musician to be in a studio in one part of the world, and everybody at other places with band members playing in real time listening to each other, as if they were standing side by side in a studio. So, I was up in my studio in Toronto, with my Neve console and all my analog keyboards. Todd Sucherman (Styx drummer) was in his studio where he has his big set-up. Tommy (Shaw, guitarist/vocalist/songwriter) was with our producer in Nashville.
Once we got stuff under our belt, J.Y. (James Young, founding member, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter), Ricky Phillips (Styx bassist) and Chuck Panozzo (Styx’s original bassist) later traveled to Nashville to fill in their parts at Tommy’s home studio, and it was all mixed and mastered in Nashville.
I really love Crown as much for the fact that on the title track you have three lead vocalists, as well as overall this sounds to me like an old Styx record, recorded in the present day. There are some real great magical moments for me throughout that really make it part and parcel of what I feel Styx has always been about.
Yes, we certainly targeted that late 70’s sound, the full analog studio sound. The magic moments you’re mentioning — those interacting nuggets that appear on this album — certainly define it, place the music it that category where I feel it’s close to that magic I mentioned before, that we come to in the live show. Even the title song, “Crashing The Crown” can be viewed as coming from that old progressive rock sense, and certainly in that song, the stylistic elements of progressive rock appear, where you are in a scene change within a song even before you realize it.
Recording with that sensibility is one thing. How did you come to write the songs so they are as much part of the tradition and part of the now?
Writing alone you have a certain working formula that you fall into, you’re moving to your own pace. When co-writing, and in this case, writing with such great players, you all sort of sort it out, work to your strength and weakness. Somebody brings in something and as you play it through, work it out, surprise moments happen that lay at the heart of what is created. It all masses to a head and you get a final result. So, what you hear is the effort of all of us as we create now.
How about taking us through your live rig, all that spinning and stuff, for our gearhead readers. I’d love to get a good bead on what you are using.
Sure, I’d love to take you through it. It’s all Roland gear. I have a Roland RD-800 piano keyboard controller, a Roland VK-8m organ module, a Roland Jupiter XM synth, and a Roland XV-5080 rack mount multi-sample synth.
As you mentioned, in your home studio, you have some vintage analog gear?
Definitely, I have some great old analog keys at home. But I don’t take them on the road. And, of course, the old Steinway.
Can you take me through the progression of events that led you to join Styx, and what that felt like at the time? I have read a few accounts, but I’d love to hear it directly from you.
When they called and asked, “Do you want to join?”, it was a huge decision for me. I had never seen myself as anything but a solo artist; that’s what I had been for my entire life. But what happened was, I warmed up for Styx in Montreal for two shows. I had a pretty solid fan base up there and the promoter just shifted me and my audience from this great 1,000-seat venue to the forum, which was great, as I got to play in front of that many more people. That happened to be the first time I ever saw Styx, and although I knew of them, I was quite surprised how strong they were live.
My set went off so well that I was asked to do two encores and when I came off stage — the Styx guys had been standing there all along, which I didn’t know — Tommy Shaw told me that nobody ever gets encores when they warm up for them. So, that went down well I thought and then, of course, we all went our separate ways.
Later that same year I get a call from a P.R. lady I know who told me that there were a couple of big bands looking to soon replace a specific member and would I be interested. She wanted to float my name around. I thought that was a nice compliment of course, these were very well-known bands but I told her that wasn’t what I was into, still keeping to the solo thing.
The following year, I was in the UK to perform a solo piece for the BBC for a Princess Diana. On the bill with me are Duran Duran, Sir Cliff Richard, David Hasselhoff.
The Hoff? I always wondered if it was true that he kind of has a big musical career in Europe.
Yes, he does! Playing that show in one of the bands was none other than Todd Sucherman. So, we meet there, but he doesn’t at first speak to me because he figures I only speak French, as he heard me do at the Montreal show when I warmed up for Styx. I speak French okay, but I do speak English and finally we start talking and he mentions how he remembers me from that Montreal show. Nice guy, nice chat and we go on our separate ways after the gig.
Todd goes back to the Styx camp and as the guys are talking about a replacement, when my name is floated, Todd says, “I just saw that guy in England.”
Still, I am wearing my solo hat, not even knowing any of this is going on behind-the-scenes. Long story short, I eventually do get a call and go over to meet the guys at Tommy’s house. They all remember me and it seems from even that first minute we are sympatico. When we start playing it seems to us all that they might have chosen the right guy and it feels to me like the universe might be telling me something, to indeed put down my solo hat and join this legendary band.
Todd remarked at the time, “Hey, the first three times I met you was in three different countries!”
So, you and Styx were kind of a good match from the jump, huh?
Well, I’ll tell you, before we even played our first show, we were all on stage playing and J.Y. stretched out his arms, which is quite a big stretch actually, smiled, and in that particular Chicago accent of his he said, “I’m extremely confident that this is gonna work out,” and that became our mantra then for those first few weeks, months, and then a year that we were all playing together.
And this many years later?
The fruition of this last record, combined with what we do at our live show, and this amazing company I keep, we have managed to keep such focus and creativity, from in the studio and onstage that time. It’s been proven in the integrity of what we seem to be able to keep delivering where we time and again find our testing ground.
