You can calm down, because the new Styx album, Circling From Above, isn’t a concept record about birds — at least not in the way that you might expect.
But in conversation, the band’s guitarist and vocalist Tommy Shaw can certainly fill your ear with some conversation about his love for the things with wings. “I forget not everybody loves birds,” he laughs during a conversation with UCR. “I think some people are still afraid of them.” LIving in the Nashville area, he paints a good picture of the mornings where he’s able to enjoy the sunrise with his wife, Jeanne.
The cacophony of bird sounds draws him outdoors where he records audio of the moment, documenting the different variations of feather symphonies day by day. They spend a lot of money on birdseed. “You know, it’s an expensive venture, but I relate it to the years of buying cocaine. This goes a lot further and it’s a lot better cause,” he quips.
The band’s 18th studio album takes the listener on a compelling journey. Advance press materials detailed that it was a collection navigating “the complexities of the human experience through the intersecting lenses of technology and nature.” The tone of “Build & Destroy,” the initial single, certainly plants that seed — with the music video helping to further illustrate how the two combine.
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Watch Styx’s ‘Build & Destroy’ Video
What is ‘Circling From Above’ All About, Anyway?
“Nature is ultimately going to win the battle in the end. We already know that. It’s a foregone conclusion, but we are determined to impose our will as long as we can as human beings,” the group’s keyboardist and vocalist Lawrence Gowan explains during a conversation for the UCR Podcast. “Technology is probably the biggest thumbprint we can impose on on our existence here. To my mind, that makes for great progressive rock material to delve into. People will naturally, as I do myself, when I listen to certain records, naturally try to stitch together a concept.”
But it’s okay to just enjoy it as a collection of songs, too! “The first couple tracks have a thematic relationship, and the rest of it isn’t really related to that, necessarily. So it’s fine if people think it is, but it’s [not really] a [concept record],” guitarist and vocalist Will Evankovich tells UCR during a separate interview. “[2017’s] The Mission absolutely was, and that was because we had enough songs and ideas that went together to create a storyline.”
“I think there’s always a thread of Styx talking about their surroundings and their world, and we adhere to it,” he continues. “The one thing we try to do is put hope in there. It’s never disparaging — there’s always a silver lining.That always seems to be what we try to do. Sometimes, if lyrics can get a little dark, the three of us, someone will chime in and say, ‘We might want to kind of gear it towards hope, you know.’ That’s what humanity needs. I believe.”
Taking stock of their surroundings, Shaw relishes the moments when “real life intrudes,” as he puts it, using the bluegrass-tinged “Blue Eyed Raven” as an example. “That’s a song about a friend of mine who lived in Indiana. He loves getting lost up in the farm country on those little roads that [are] hard to find on the map,” he explains. “It’s an experience he had one day and it’s very sweet. There’s a mandolin on it and a standup bass. It’s folky, but it’s [also] a bit of a love song. It’s not your typical Styx song, it’s like a ‘Boat on the River‘ kind of song. I think people will relate to the story.”
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Listen to Styx’s ‘Blue Eyed Raven’
The Tao of J.Y.
Styx cofounding guitarist James “J.Y.” Young gets his licks in too, playing the smooth-talking character in “King of Love.” With his unmistakable voice, he details how he’d approach making the world a better place. Evankovich confirms that it’s fun to have Young as a muse when writing Styx music. “He’s kind of Styx’s savior. He’s the godfather,” the guitarist and songwriter says. “J.Y. is the one that’s always watched out for this band. And so lyrically, with “Trouble at the Big Show” [from The Mission] or anything he does, [including “King of Love”], it’s directed at his personality, because we love him so much.”
“He’s very authoritative. He knows what he wants and if he’s not going to get what he wants, he’ll make a stink about it,” Evankovich adds, recalling the early days when he was getting to know the legendary Styx member. “Just finding his comfort zone in the beginning was where it was at. Then he started to put some trust into me, and I put trust into him and we forged a great relationship. He’s very easy to work with. You just have to speak his language. He’s a love child of [Jimi] Hendrix, [Eric] Clapton and Jeff Beck. That’s where he comes from — and I happen to love those guys too.”
‘Circling From Above Sends Love From Styx to Classic Rock
Circling From Above plays out like a love letter to classic rock, as UCR’s Nick DeRiso noted recently. It’s fun to spot the intentional nods to their influences, from Queen to the Who and of course, the Beatles. But the album also continues to indulge, without apology, in revisiting the band’s progressive rock lean, which means lots of vintage and era-appropriate sounds and instruments.
Listen to Styx’s ‘Everybody Raise Your Glass’
‘Circling From Above’ is an Album For All Styx Fans
Gowan also revealed that there’s a bit of a science to it all. Styx as we know, has been a number of different things and you’ll find those areas represented in certain ways. “There’s a faction of fans that are prog rock fans. I put myself in that category,” he says. “There’s a faction of people that love the band that have a completely pop mentality. They just think of the hits that Styx had long before I was in the band. There was a pop element to it, and then there’s a straight down the middle rock and sometimes even a heavy rock element that people love about the band.”
“It’s not that we’re catering to any one of them. It’s just that between myself, Will,Tommy, Todd [Sucherman], J.Y., Chuck [Panozzo], and now my brother [Terry Gowan] in the band, you have a myriad of of influences that all want to be kind of represented,” he continues. “You can do it the way Yes did it and do Close to the Edge where you have one [piece with contributions from the individual members]. It’s funny, because that’s really a collection of individual pieces that just happened to sew together so beautifully.”
He points to the Beatles as one group who offered important influence, indirectly, thanks to side two of their landmark Abbey Road. “We love that the ideas were short and punchy,” he explains. “To me, that’s one of the precursors of what progressive rock became, because it’s so musically adventurous, jumping all around from classical influence stuff to choral things to, you know, heavy rock stuff to drum solos. It’s all in there on side two of Abbey Road — and we like that approach.”
What’s Old Can Be New Again
In the end, it’s a familiar stew that as Shaw points out, they’ve been quite good at stirring together for a long time now. “We’re an AOR, album-oriented rock band. So we’ve had long songs, minor-key songs, big solos, songs with dramatic stuff going on. ‘Man in the Wilderness’ and things like that,” he says. “But we also have songs….you know, we’re a rock band that goes off in different directions. ‘Boat on the River’ is a mandolin song. Even ‘Renegade,’ I wrote the basic parts of it on piano.”
“I’m not a piano player, but in my living room, I had a reel-to-reel four-channel tape recorder,” he remembers. “I’d been listening to Tales of Mystery and Imagination by the Alan Parsons Project. [Shaw imitates instrumental section] I had to learn that with my ham-fisted guitar hands. I finally got it and I recorded it on one track. Then, I used the other tracks for three vocal parts. I wrote the words quickly and then recorded it like that. I listened back to it and it was like, ‘I think this is good!’ I played it for the band and then they started coming up with the arrangements of it. ‘Let’s speed it up. Let’s not make it this dirge thing that you’re playing. Let’s rock it up and then let’s put some high Styx vocals in the big parts.’ I told Alan Parsons that. ‘I feel like I need to confess to you that I kind of ripped off ‘Renegade’ from one of your songs.’ He said, ‘Paul McCartney says I ripped it off from him.'”
So perhaps that’s the “something borrowed” part of their process and Circling From Above certainly also has plenty in the category of “something new” — witness the clarinet solo on “She Knows” from guest Jeff Coffin (Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Dave Matthews Band) as just one example. Rest assured, if you’ve been on the Styx path for a while as a fan, as an album, it probably won’t leave you blue. But let your ears decide.
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Gallery Credit: UCR Staff
