Posted on: July 23rd, 2008 Fake Bands: Styx
Domo origato Mr. Fakotto. Styx was hands down the soundtrack to proms everywhere during the late 70’s and early 80’s, with hits like Lady, Come Sail Away, Babe and of course the ultimate trying to score song, The Best Of Times. Now Dennis DeYoung was the chief songwriter and lead vocalist, but Tommy Shaw the lead guitarist was also a singer and songwriter his big hits were Blue Collar Man, and Renegade. Dennis was more Broadway than rock and Tommy was a rocker, so the seeds are already planted for classic rock shenanigans here.
So Dennis won out with his craptastic master work of cheese, Kilroy Was Here, the album that spawned the most ridiculous yet catchiest song of the 80’s “Mr. Roboto”. But the in-fighting proved to be too much, and the band split up in 1984. They got back together in the late 80’s without Tommy Shaw, who was then rockin’ with Damn Yankees (oh how I miss the supergroups of the 80’s). Well of course it was not meant to last and they split in 1992. In 1995, this with Tommy Shaw, they tried once again and lasted for a good 6 years, but these guys
just couldn’t get along,
Dennis DeYoung was to busy thinking that he was Liberace and the rest of the band just wanted to rock out, so
later that year DeYoung was permanently replaced by Lawrence Gowan, though no official statement regarding a
firing or replacement had been made. This is where it goes from ridiculous to surreal. I mean I expect nothing
less, this is Classic Rock after all. As a result of the replacement, DeYoung filed a lawsuit, charging that
the remaining members of the band were using the Styx name without his consent, and he in turn was countersued
by Shaw & JY for using the billing of “Dennis DeYoung, the voice of Styx” in his solo concerts.
The suit was eventually settled on the grounds that DeYoung could bill himself as “performing the music of
Styx” or “formerly of Styx”, but not as “the voice of Styx”, and Styx continued on with Shaw & JY at the helm.
You just can’t make this crap up, you can’t. So now Styx is touring with this wanna be Dennis DeYoung.
This is a tough call, Tommy Shaw did sing some good Styx songs, but Dennis as goofy as he is, did sing the
bulk of the songs, especially Mr.Crapato. So I’m gonna half to call Styx without him, Fake Styx.
Sorry, RockHeap has spoken.