Rewind: Styx Members James “JY” Young, Lawrence Gowan, and ME!? on Rock Talk
Most of you who read We Will Rock You routinely probably already know that I am the author of a book from 2007 entitled The Grand Delusion: The Unauthorized True Story of Styx. That book changed my life and career in a number of ways. I went from “little-known freelance writer” to “kinda-familiar-guy-who-wrote-that-book-you-read-something-about-somewhere”. My name appeared at the top of an (unimportant) Amazon sales chart. I received very favorable reviews in Classic Rock magazine, Goldmine and Record Collecter. I appeared in a (really bad) show on VH1 with Dennis DeYoung (separately, but I was there, damn it).
One of the most unexpected side effects of going out and promoting my Styx book was a fairly in-depth interview I got to do on a radio show in Canada called Rock Talk. Someone from my Yahoo group emailed me and told me that there was this cool Canadian radio show called Rock Talk, and the host - Greg Godovitz from the Canadian band Goddo - was an old friend of Styx singer/keyboardist Lawrence Gowan. I sent a copy of the book in the hope that Greg might mention it on the air, and was floored when he wrote me an email saying that he loved the book and would like to have me as a guest on the show.
I called Greg, and in talking about building the most interesting show possible he mentioned putting together a roundtable with me and his old friend Lawrence, who lived in Canada and could be there live in the studio while I joined in by phone. “That would be great, but don’t get your hopes up,” I cautioned him. “Gowan wouldn’t give an interview for this book, so I don’t know what his position will be on the finished product.”
A day later Greg called me to say, “Lawrence is in, and he’s going to speak to (Styx guitarist and founding member) JY about it, too.” I remember I laughed out loud at that. “Now you’re really reaching,” I said. “JY is never going to do this. He’s been against this project from the very start.” Which was true - JY had spoken to various people involved with the career of Styx and told them that the band had nothing to gain by speaking to me.
Imagine my utter astonishment when Greg called me the next day to say, “JY is in - he and Lawrence can do this Thursday if you can.” Seriously?! Damn right I’ll do this Thusday, or any other day you can name. At this point I could scarcely believe it, but I figured I’d just roll along and just see what ended up happening.
Thursday comes along, and I dialed in to the number provided. The way the show was structured was this: Lawrence was in the studio with his keyboard, and the first interview segment was all about him. I dialed in during the first commercial break, and Lawrence and I were briefly introduced while the show was off-air for commercials. We exchanged a few pleasantries, and in mapping the next segment Greg mentioned that my book said Gowan had been hired by Styx after playing the Queen song “Somebody To Love” at the palace at Althorp for the Diana Memorial.
“No, that’s not right,” Lawrence said. “It was my song ‘Healing Waters’ that I played on the show. That’s why I did that show. It was a favorite of the family.”
Uh-oh . . . this story had come to me from Styx drummer Todd Sucherman, who said he had recommended Gowan as a replacement for Dennis DeYoung after seeing him sing “Somebody To Love” at the palace at Althorp. Had he steered me wrong?
“This was at the after party,” I ventured, upon which Gowan immediately exclaimed, “Oh, the after party, of course! That’s exactly right!” So as we were headed back for live air, Greg asked Gowan to play us back on the air with “Somebody To Love”. Gowan obliged, but changed the opening lyric to say, “Each morning I get up I die a little/ I just read Sterling’s book”, at which I exploded into laughter. That set the tone for the next segment with me and Gowan, which was pretty light-hearted and allowed me to say a lot of what I wanted to say about my book. Gowan turned out to be an absolute blast.
We went to commercial again, and Gowan was perusing my book for the first time, having been given a copy by Greg Godovitz. He made some nice comments, and then JY called in for the next segment and came on the line. He and Lawrence exchanged greetings, and then he and Greg spoke, and right as we were getting ready to go back to air Greg said, “and also on the line, JY, is Sterling Whitaker.” JY laughed at that - I had the impression he thought they were kidding - and I gave a sort of mock-evil laugh and said, “Hey, JY.” That’s all we had time for and then it was straight back to live air and the next segment, which featured Gowan, JY and me together.
This could have been uncomfortable, but I credit everyone involved for being cool and moving the show forward. It was obvious to me at this point that the reason JY had agreed to do this show with me as the other guest was because he hadn’t been told I was going to be the other guest. That could have been a disaster if he had chosen for it to be, but he was cool, and it turned out to be a great spot for all involved. At one point JY did say, in response to a question about my book, “I never really agreed to be interviewed by Sterling, and in fact this is the first time I’ve spoken to him - and I thought you were kidding when you said it, but I recognize you’re not.” That was that . . . we did the show, I got to promote my book a lot (thanks Greg!), and JY and Lawrence got to talk a lot about Styx and its current endeavors. As we were wrapping up off-air I bid each of them goodbye, and Lawrence’s parting words were, “Good to talk to you, Sterling; we’ll talk again.” So I went away feeling that I had not only just had a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but that I had forged a new business relationship with at least one of the guys.
That turned out to be absolutely true. When I first conceived We Will Rock You, one of the first interviews I wanted to do was with Styx drummer Todd Sucherman, who by that time was an old friend by interview standards. I thought it would be interesting to spice it up by including Lawrence, and asked Todd if he thought that would be possible. It was, and my dual interview with Todd and Lawrence was one of the things that launched We Will Rock You and helped me to do as well as I have done with it.
Thanks once again to Greg Godovitz, Lawrence Gowan, and James “JY” Young, as well as Todd Sucherman.
