On June 18, classic rockers STYX released their 17th studio album (and first studio album in four years), Crash of the Crown, via Alpha Dog 2T/UMe. It is the follow-up to 2017’s The Mission. The new album, which was written pre-pandemic and recorded during the trying times of the pandemic, has released two singles so far – Crash of the Crown in May and Reveries on June 4.
In June, STYX went back on the road after some forced time off, due to the pandemic, to play a handful of U.S. dates with Collective Soul. STYX is currently on a headlining tour in the U.S., which began in early July, in support of the new album.
Crash of the Crown producer, Will Evankovich (who also produced The Mission), is currently touring with the band, playing guitars and mandolin.
Crash of the Crown debuted at #1 on the Billboard Rock Albums chart and #5 on the Top Current Albums chart.
Vocalist/keyboardist Lawrence Gowan, who has been a member of STYX since 1999, took some time out recently to speak with Dawn Hamilton for Music Life Magazine about the new album, touring, the band’s upcoming 50th anniversary, and more! The following is that interview.
Dawn Hamilton – I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me.
Lawrence Gowan – My pleasure!
Dawn Hamilton – You are currently out supporting your new album Crash of the Crown, how did you go about recording the new album and was it difficult due to the pandemic?
Lawrence Gowan – Great question to start with. I’ll take you back to 2019. So before the pandemic, we had scalped out the album and kind of mapped out what it was going to be, all the songs but two. We were prepared to go into the studio and finish up the record in pretty much the spring of 2020. When the pandemic hit, however, we thought oh you know like the rest of the world, it would be a six-week vacation and we will get right back to it. Then after about the third month, you know, once you start getting into June and July, the third and fourth month of the pandemic we thought we better not let the album just kind of linger, let’s go back and listen to it and see where we are.
Well, the curious thing was that we noticed so many of the songs seem to relate so seamlessly with the pandemic and what people were going through. We all began to kind of hear individual songs as being kind of where our mindset was. That became the incentive, that and the two extra songs that came out written after the pandemic started. That became the incentive and the driving force that made us want to finish the record under the new circumstances.
The new realities of using zoom calls, there’s an app called Audiomovers, the musical world will be very familiar but with non-musician people might not know. You can be in one studio in one part of the world and you could be working with people in a studio in another part of the world and you’re both listening to your monitors simultaneously and you were able to comment on each other’s playing. There’s no real lag in the sound so that’s very very different than just sending email tracks around where you’re overdubbing that way.
So we wound up finishing where Todd Sucherman was in his studio in Austin, Texas and I have a studio in Toronto with my engineer partner there and Tommy Shaw and Will Evankovich, our producer, were in Nashville and we were able to finish all our parts on the record doing it that way. It became so second nature and in some ways, I think it really helped the record. In my case I can tell you, I’ve got a great vintage keyboard collection in Toronto that goes back to I think the oldest one is from 1971 and I was able to use all those instruments on the record rather than newer versions of them.
It was great from that standpoint and then, I guess, the most important ingredient was the fact that our record company Universal Records really like the record, like really really thought we were onto something very strong. It was decided let’s hold the release until you guys are back on tour and we’ll simultaneously release it with that. It was great marketing on their part because within the first week it went number one on Billboard’s Rock Album Chart and that’s never happened with the band before in such quick succession in the past. That’s basically how we navigated our way through the whole 16-month break let’s call it that.
DH – It was definitely a long break.
LG – Oh yeah.
DH – Did the pandemic force your hands to learn anything with the recording process for Crash of the Crown?
LG – Yes, it did. First of all, I had never done a Zoom call in my life, I didn’t even know what it was. There was Skype, I had done that before but Zoom seems to be a much more refined version of that, linking that into being able to connect to studios elsewhere in the world. We had to adapt to that and we adapted well, just as everyone else does in whatever line of work they are in, somewhere along the line technological advances played in everyone’s life to some degree and for us, it was a great benefit.
DH – Did you have any unsolvable issues and/or did you have to change or leave out anything?
LG – We did not. In fact, it was quite the opposite. It actually gave us more options because, as I mentioned to you, with my own set up in the studio in Toronto I have this 1926 Steinway and a 1950s B3 I’ve got my Mellotron from 1971 it opened up all kinds of possibilities that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. Todd Sucherman, his drum studio in Texas is one of the most sophisticated in the world but, it would not have been possible to have that on this record had we all had done it the way we did The Mission, all of us in the same studio in Nashville. So no, in many ways it opened up a lot more possibilities and we had to kind of figure out which ones we were going to follow and which ones we were going to let go by the wayside.
DH – You recently had your first show back with STYX since the pandemic, how was it? Did you have to shake some cobwebs off or was it like you never had a break? Were you nervous going back on stage?
LG – Hahaha, we play at a pace of over 100 shows a year for the first 20 years that I was in the band. I’ve been in the band now 22 years, I’m actually now in my 23rd year now, we knew that you just don’t pick up our show. It is a highly energetic, very kind of kinetic experience to put a STYX show together. It becomes effortless once you’ve played about 50 or 60 shows and then the last 40 or so every year become far more you know it’s such a fine-tuned machine.
We knew we could not just hit the ground running so we got together at the first venue we played at which was in St. Augustine, Florida. We were there about a week before the show and we used that theatre and that venue to make sure first all of, our gear that had been in storage for over a year that everything was in working order and that was one of the first hurdles we had to get past. Yeah, you’re quite right. We all worked well together individually but when you’re back in each other’s faces and you’ve got new material and some songs you haven’t played in over a year and how to kind of pull the band together into a cohesive unit that did take a few days.
The first show was so exciting, it was just exciting to see a live audience again. I have to say there was a very palpable feeling of excitement and elation and a little bit of fear because you know people were coming out into the open again. We saw lots of masks in the audience but there was definitely this overwhelming feeling of joy to a degree that I’ve never quite experienced in my life because this has been a unique experience for our time on the planet. That was evident in subtle ways and not so subtle ways with the audience and their response.
DH – How was the response?
LG – Overwhelming, it was overwhelming. You see people that just had their arms in the air right off the bat and just to look in their eyes and probably in ours as well, was one of, there is no real one word for it it was relief and joy and ecstatic moment of I guess hallelujah. Haha!
DH – Now that the pandemic hopefully is coming to a close did you learn anything about yourself or pick up any new hobbies?
LG – I did. It wasn’t a new hobby, it was one that I found after the first three or four months. I began to realize if I’m going to keep myself in the same shape, in stage performing shape, I had to start doing a lot of these live streams which I did and I revisited a lot of the material from my solo career that I had prior to STYX. I was able to do a full concert, three full concerts in theatres around Toronto where we had the theatre empty but we had eight robotic cameras. We had to put those shows together so that was a new experience musically speaking.
For the physical side of it, I rediscovered the joys of riding my bicycle every day. I haven’t ridden a bike in about 25 years maybe even closer to 30 years and it used to be a daily part of my life up until 1990/91. I rode all the time on my bike, it was a regular thing and then I completely stopped but I realized what a great way “A” to stay in shape and “B” it pulls your head together in a really cool way. I find if I spend an hour and a half on the bike just riding around the city every day even throughout the winter. You know how Toronto gets, it can be tough but we have enough plows and I was able to kind of get through it. That kind of kept my head together in a lot of ways so that was my new hobby.
DH – STYX is now approaching its 50th anniversary. Are there any plans for special releases or tours to celebrate 50 years?
LG – 50 years will be achieved by February 22, 2022, so 2-22-22. The main thing we have to do is navigate our way over the next six months to getting to that. Let’s see, there are so many dates on the books for next year, it is the opposite of the pandemic here. We’re almost playing every single day of the year, that’s going to be our planned celebration at this point.
It’s just to continue playing and playing and playing. Quite honestly, Crash of the Crown, this album reaching number one on Billboard’s Rock Album Chart, the first two weeks that it was released we are seeing the results of, just in the response that we’re getting from the audience. It’s quite likely that we will like we did with The Mission. We will probably have to come up with some new show where we played that album in its entirety alongside a second show or a second set of all the legacy material that people have known for decades. I have a feeling we will probably attempt to broaden the setlist even further by maybe touching on some of the earliest stuff. I mean some of the really early stuff from 1972 just because that marks the 50 year anniversary. We shall see. There are lots of ideas in the works and we’ll see what arises.
DH – Using one word describe each member of the band and why?
LG – Wow, I’ve never been asked that before. Let’s get my vocabulary going, haha. So I’ll start with the newest member Willie Evankovich. There is a serenity to his approach that I really find a joy to work with so I’m going to use the word serenity for Will.
For Ricky Phillips, I would say there’s, it’s going to be two words, there’s a rock pedigree, haha, to his playing and to his demeanour that is just, you know, again there’s a great pedigree to his knowledge that’s fantastic.
For Chuck Panozzo, I’m going to have to use a couple of words here, Dawn. Chuck is the ultimate warrior in that he has survived living with AIDS. He’s had a couple of cancer scares over the time that I have known him and he has survived and thrived. He walked out on stage last night looking like the man has never had a bad day in his life and yet I know what he has had to struggle through and yet he has battled on to this point.
Todd Sucherman is musical dynamo that’s just what he is, just a flat-out dynamo. He’s so deeply versed in every aspect of musical performance and nuances. You could add the word encyclopedia of music to that as well.
James Young would be next, James, he is a giant in every sense of the word both metaphorically and physically. He’s the biggest guy on stage but he is a giant in his character and his whole demeanour. That’s the way I think of him.
I’m gonna have to fall back on the word rockstar for Tommy Shaw because that’s what he is.
DH – That sounds perfect to me. I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me today.
LG – My pleasure Dawn.
Connect with STYX Online:
www.styxworld.com
www.crashofthecrown.com
www.facebook.com/styxtheband
www.twitter.com/styxtheband
www.instagram.com/styxtheband
www.youtube.com/styxtheband
Listen to or purchase Crash of the Crown here.
STYX Headlining Tour:
Sat 7/3 Dubuque, IA Five Flags Center
Sun 7/4 O’Fallon, MO O’Fallon Heritage & Freedom Fest
Fri 7/9 Prior Lake, MN Lakefront Music Fest
Sat 7/10 Greenville, WI Greenville Lions Park/Catfish Concert
Sun 7/11 West Fargo, ND Red River Valley Fair
Thurs 7/22 Fort Wayne, IN Sweetwater Performance Pavilion
Fri 7/23 Kettering, OH Fraze Pavilion
Sat 7/24 York, PA York Fair (with REO Speedwagon)
Sun 7/25 Whitehouse Station, NJ New Jersey Festival of Ballooning
Thu 7/29 Youngstown, OH Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre
Fri 7/30 Sharpsburg, KY Barnyard Amphitheatre
Sat 7/31 Jim Thorpe, PA Penn’s Peak
Thu 8/5 Clearwater, FL Ruth Eckard Hall
Fri 8/6 Augusta, GA The Bell Auditorium
Sat 8/7 North Charleston, SC North Charleston PAC
Sun 8/8 LaGrange, GA Sweetland Amphitheatre
Tue 8/10 Norfolk, VA Chartway Arena
Wed 8/11 Durham, NC Durham PAC
Fri 8/13 Sylvania, OH Centennial Theatre
Sun 8/15 Lewisburg, WV State Fair
Wed 8/18 Des Moines, IA Iowa State Fair
Thu 8/19 Evansville, IN Aiken Theatre
Sat 8/21 Woodstock, IL McHenry County Fairgrounds
Sat 9/4 Milwaukee, WI Summerfest
Wed 9/8 Phoenix, AZ Celebrity Theatre
Thu 9/9 Phoenix, AZ Celebrity Theatre
Sat 9/11 Brighton, CO Adams County Amphitheatre
Tue 9/14 Salt Lake City, UT Utah State Fair (with REO Speedwagon)
Wed 9/22 Puyallup, WA Washington State Fair (with REO Speedwagon)
Fri 9/24 Las Vegas, NV The Venetian Theatre
Sat 9/25 Las Vegas, NV The Venetian Theatre
Sun 9/26 Las Vegas, NV The Venetian Theatre
Fri 10/1 Atlantic City, NJ Tropicana Atlantic City
Sat 10/2 Waterloo, NY The Vine at Del Lago
Fri 10/15 Lake Charles, LA Golden Nugget
Sat 10/16 Arlington, TX The Levitt Pavilion Arlington
Thu 10/21 Amarillo, TX Amarillo Civic Center
Sat 10/23 Austin, TX Nutty Brown Amphitheatre
Sun 10/24 Helotes, TX John T. Moore’s County Store
Thu 11/18 Ralston, NE Ralston Arena
Fri 11/19 Salina, KS Stiefel Theatre
Sat 11/20 Springfield, IL Sangamon Auditorium
Thu 1/6/22 Nashville, TN Ryman Auditorium
