Dennis DeYoung

Musician

1947-02-18

Quotes by Dennis DeYoung

• I never wanted to be a solo artist.

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• It's great when it all comes together in a great musical like 'Sweeney Todd,' when Stephen Sondheim writes songs from heaven, the book is good and the staging is good. But it's very rare when that happens.

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• When it came time to do 'One Hundred Years' I had been encouraged to really make a Styx album without the guys. I gave myself permission to do that. I set out to get people who sang with me who could make those harmonies.

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• Originally, AXS TV came to me last year and asked me if I'd be interested in doing an acoustic 'Live from the Grammy Museum' performance. But I was bound and determined to do an electric show with this great band to dispel any notion that I wasn't a 'rock guy' in Styx.

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• Look, nobody is a bigger fan of Tommy Shaw than me. The day I met him in 1975 I knew he was going to be a great guitar player, performer and songwriter. I was his biggest fan, and I'm Styx's number one fan.

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• Styx was always a theatrical band. In fact, we played City Center in 1983 with a rock opera, 'Kilroy Was Here.'

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• I love Styx as much as I could love anything in my life. I started playing in the band when I was 14 years old. You become so involved in something when you start in it that young; you're doing it purely out of love of what you're doing and a belief in it.

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• I can do anything onstage. Here's the misconception: You could record an album called 'The Best of Styx.' And all you would have to do is pay the individual songwriters a mechanical royalty.

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• Our music did not sound like the Beatles in any way, shape or form. I could never find it in myself to use those Beatles tricks in Styx records because they were sacred to me. But what they did always influenced my thinking.

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• I gave my life for Styx and I'm really very proud of it and I didn't want to perform that music and screw it up.

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• I don't wanna be a solo artist. I wanna be in Styx.

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• After being replaced in Styx, everyone around me encouraged me to try and stop them legally. I just couldn't. It would have been like suing myself and I held out hope they'd ask me back. They toured under the STYX name for a year and a half before I initiated legal action. I didn't sue for money or use of the name. I simply wanted back in the band.

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• I made 'Desert Moon' and when I made those solo albums, I was trying not to be Styx, because I thought, 'That belongs to us.' So, I made different kinds of solo albums that were not dipping my hand back into the magic Styx jar and pulling out all the tricks - because bands, they have tricks, don't they? That's what makes them different.

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• If you pretend to be somebody that you're not when you write songs - and I did that on some of the early Styx albums - nobody cares about what you have to say.

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• When I went out and started making solo records, I was determined not to, I guess, put my name on an album that sounded like Styx. I wanted to carve my own niche, so quite frankly I went in a different direction.

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• It was a song I wrote for my wife as a present, never intending for it to be a Styx song. 'Babe' was a demo. The demo became the hit record, including all the background vocals, which were done by me.

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• The Beatles are here, and if you could see me my hand is on the ceiling. Styx is here, and my hand is in the basement.

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• We were together; we were a group; we were a team; we wanted people to love Styx.

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• I think a lot of bands would rather put mediocre rock tracks on their album to try to maintain some sort of testosterone badge of courage.

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• If you have talent and you work really hard, it increases your odds but it doesn't ensure anything. But every now and then, the universe must tilt in your direction.

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