here [The Last Ship] and I don't know if
it's called a writer's block [that kept him
away from full albums of new material
for ten years], but until he was able to
go and write for a different medium, we
all feel like "what's the point?" And
that's a hard thing to get over for people
from a particular era. I know young
musicians who say "what's wrong with
him? He should write for the love of
writing?" I just say to them "bite me."
Literally "bite me." When you write,
you're attempting to reach an audience.
Adam and Eve were Lennon and
McCartney and the rest of us were
begat from them. We saw what rock
bands could do. We saw what rock
bands singing and writing could mean.
You could reach people. It was the goal
for a tour and I asked them for a little
more time to get well and they said if I
didn't show up they would replace me
and they did. We really had no communication since 1999. None.
IE: Bands like Styx, Chicago, Journey,
Foreigner and Boston are still absent
from the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.
What do you think it's going to take to
get those bands inducted?
DDY: Well there's hardly any room left
with Leonard Cohen and Madonna in
[The Hall] and I say that with all do
respect to them to what they created
and what they did. I think the Rock and
Roll Hall Of Fame is a misnomer. It really is going to, I guess, reflect the tastes
of the people who own it and run it no
11•2014
Dennis and Suzanne DeYoung with the head of Mr. Roboto (Photo by Andy Argyrakis)
to reach as many people as possible
with your music, so that's been, in most
cases, taken away from the writer. You
need motivation to think that if I do this
and pour my heart into it, will there be
an audience for it?
Frontiers has just offered me the
chance to make another studio album
and I'm probably gonna do it, but I
don't sit around in the house and write
songs for my own edification and pleasure. Writing songs is work. It's hard
work. You sit there and you pour out
your guts and you spend hours trying
to figure out how to make great records
and I feel the goal posts have shifted.
IE: Everybody always wants to know
has there been any ice melting between
you and your previous bandmates?
DDY: I would direct them to the recent
Rolling Stone articles. Just Google
"Styx/Dennis DeYoung in Rolling Stone
and two articles come up. Tommy Shaw
was interviewed and then they came to
me for a rebuttal interview, and just
read those rather than drag it out here
in this interview. I'll say what I've
always said. Had it been up to me, I
would've never not been in Styx. It was
a decision made by two guys and they
chose to replace me when I was ill. They
offered me the opportunity to show up
14 illinoisentertainer.com november 2014
matter what anybody says. And the
bands that you mentioned – the mainstream bands of the '70s who were not
necessarily doing anything radically
creative, but seemed to write the best
songs they could – have been viewed
historically as not worthy of critical
praise, but the songs remain and the
song is king. The [songs are why] these
bands are still functioning and I guess
still valid 40 years later. It wasn't about
breaking down doors or rebelling…We
were just trying to write and record the
songs that we liked and be the best we
could be at what we did. I guess more
like the "Blue Collar Man," not to drop a
song title, but we were out there and we
were just doing the work. Being the best
we could be and, I always say, making it
up as we went along. We didn't know
shit. We just made it up and hoped people would like it. That's all you're doing.
Nobody had a grand plan of reaching a
target audience or genre, not in our
band. No, we were just doing what
came natural to us as writers and performers – nothing more and nothing
less.
Andy Argyrakis