Styx Founder Dennis DeYoung's Final Album is his Love Letter to Fans and the Beatles
The former Styx frontman says goodbye to his recording career with a comprehensive final statement.
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This week’s newsletter is a treat for me to bring you because for more than an hour, I talked to Styx founding member Dennis DeYoung to discuss what he is calling his final album, 26 East, Vol. 2. The former Styx frontman is retiring as a recording artist and exits the stage after releasing a two-volume set that serves as about as perfect a sendoff as possible for someone so accomplished. Because the newsletter focuses on reviewing the album and Dennis talked about a plethora of other topics, I’ve included the video of the interview below and it will be in the podcast version as well.
Have a read, have a watch, and let me know what you think!
Dennis DeYoung doesn’t half-ass anything. Everything the Styx founding member and former frontman does is big, grand, and dramatic. And so, it’s no surprise that the album he calls the last one of his career is all of those things.
DeYoung and co-writer Jim Peterik (former Ides of March lead singer/guitarist and founder of the band Survivor), a fellow Chicagoan, delivered tracks for what was to be the Styx legend’s final album to Frontiers Music, but they had more songs than they needed. Rather than pare down the number of songs to accommodate the new album, Frontiers said they’d be happy to pay for a second album. So DeYoung released 26 East, Vol. 1 in 2020 and set about writing a few more songs so he could release 26 East, Vol. 2, which came out June 11.
“Jim Peterik and I wrote like 18 songs to begin with, and the record company then said we want all of them,” DeYoung said. “I said, ‘You can't have all of them, pick the ones you like, for God's sake. I want to make one record and leave me alone.’ And they said, ‘No, we'll take them,’ and then they said there's extra Lira involved. I'm not a math major, but if you said you're going to double the guaranteed (money)...I thought, ‘Well, I recorded ‘em, you can have ‘em.’ That's how it got divided (into two volumes).”
The new album consists of 12 tracks that run the gamut of what DeYoung is best known for, which means he’s written and recorded some of the most Styx-sounding songs since his former band’s classic era closed with Paradise Theater (1981). He also performed multiple fantastic ballads on the new record.
The two volumes of 26 East are named for the Roseland, Illinois address where DeYoung lived as a boy, where he fell in love with music after discovering the Beatles, and which includes the basement where he and friends Chuck and John Panozzo founded the band that would become Styx.
Now 74, which is something DeYoung is quick to point out when talking with him, the man’s voice probably has no right to sound as good as it does. While he doesn’t sound like he’s 25 anymore, he sounds extraordinarily good and strong and is still recognizable as the primary voice of Styx.
The album opener ties into the cover art, which pays tribute to the cover of Meet the Beatles. “Hello Goodbye” kicks off the record and it’s DeYoung’s love letter to the Beatles. It is musically and lyrically tied to so many songs by the Fab Four that it’s difficult to count all the references. Here’s a sampling of just the lyrics:
We bought tickets to ride down to Strawberry Fields
On a magical bus where nothing was real
And we learned every note, every word, every song
As John and I sang along
Hello Goodbye
It’s a great, energetic album opener and is the perfect song title for DeYoung’s last album. It welcomes the listener, takes you back to his beginnings as a musician, and walks through his success with Styx, while also reminding you that he’s bidding the listener farewell. The whole thing has a bittersweet feel as a result, particularly the final word: a whispered “goodbye.”
“‘Hello Goodbye’ was supposed to be the first song (on what ended up being Vol. 1),” DeYoung said. “And then it became two (volumes), so then I took ‘Hello Goodbye’ and I put it on the second volume. And, God I love the song. I don’t love every song on the record. I think they’re all good, but I love ‘Hello Goodbye’ because it’s the Beatles, man. And I got it right.
“I didn't trip up. I didn't screw myself, because the lyrics are so honest and open about what (the Beatles) meant to me and millions — billions, probably — of people. And I took their song titles, and I weaved them into a story. And the paraphrasing of their musical styles, which I did. That was the part that I was most judicious about, right? It's like, okay, you're good to go right up to it. Don't go over the line. It worked.”
He’s right. “Hello Goodbye” works like a charm. It’s one of the songs I keep coming back to most from the album.
“Land of the Living” is a solid pop/rock song that seems like it could be about coming out of the pandemic, but it was written before COVID-19 hit.
“(Jim Peterik) sent me the bones of that song three and a half years ago,” DeYoung said. “And I said, ‘Okay, Jim, let's see if we can finish this song.’ And so we finished it together.”
DeYoung said the song was finished before the first volume but was held for the second and, when he realized the chorus sounded like a post-pandemic sentiment, he consulted with Peterik on whether they should change the lyrics in the verses to reflect that, but ultimately he decided against it.
“Since people don't really pay attention completely to the lyrics anyway, all they're going to remember is ‘it's good to be back in the land of the living,’” he said. “It was really a song about our wives, collectively. We’ve both been married a long time. You know, (it’s) about that moment when love could bring you back from whatever depths you've sunk to.”
Former Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello contributes a solo to “The Last Guitar Hero,” which features the first real echoes of the Styx sound. Much of that comes from DeYoung providing his own backing vocals, giving the chorus that identifiable Styx harmony sound. The song is a bit of a lament of rock music’s fall from prominence in the mainstream and a criticism of technology replacing musicians who work with their hands on an instrument.
“Your Saving Grace” is the album’s first ballad, but a spiritual one rather than a romantic power ballad. It features the Michael Manson Gospel Group in the chorus, and it provides a 1-2 spiritual punch on the album with “Proof of Heaven” — the next track that follows. “Proof of Heaven” includes more Styx-like harmonies and chord progressions in the chorus, while the verses have more of a DeYoung dramatic solo album flair. It’s no surprise that these two songs sit next to each other on the album, because DeYoung is wrestling with the same question we all ask.
“There is only one question,” he said. “Why? That's the only question. Everything is after that. Why are we here? Everyone has been trying to answer that question, you know, since we sprung out of the trees and started talking to each other.”
DeYoung doesn’t profess to be religious. His word for it was ‘hopeful.’
“There's the facade that to be a believer you have to be a true believer,” he said. “And I said it in ‘Show Me the Way’ in 1990, ‘Every night I say a prayer in the hope that there's a heaven.’ That's me.”
“Made for Each Other” is another in a long line of love songs that DeYoung has written for his wife, Suzanne. This one stacks up among the best ballads of his career. It’s got a great melody and signature harmony vocals.
“There’s one romantic song, and that’s ‘Made for Each Other,’” DeYoung said of 26 East, Vol. 2. “I’ve made a lot of money and been very successful by musically explaining my relationship with my wife.”
The acoustic guitar intro to “There’s No Turning Back Time” sounds like it walked in off the classic Styx album Crystal Ball and that album’s title track. There’s an excellent keyboard solo in the middle with some Grand Illusion-esque flourishes that shows DeYoung hasn’t lost the magic in his fingers. Lyrically, as the title suggests, the song is about looking back at a life lived and some of the things we’d like to change. But DeYoung said his only regrets are personal ones.
“Most of my regrets are personal, not professional. I did nothing to get myself removed from Styx in 1999,” he said. “I got very sick and I still have light sensitivity. I’m a long hauler of a virus I got in 1998 that nobody understood.”
DeYoung said with that illness — much like our current pandemic — he lost his sense of taste and smell, and doctors had no idea what to do about it. He still wears sunglasses, even indoors, due to his light sensitivity.
“St. Quarantine” was one of the songs written after the original tracks had been submitted to Frontiers for the first of the 26 East albums. DeYoung wrote three tracks related to the pandemic and this is the most obvious one.
“Little Did We Know” brings more Styx-ish echoes in a catchy, but rocking package. Throughout the album, Dennis lets you know he was instrumental to the initial development of the Styx sound. Lyrically, the song scathingly describes what a lot of us are going through, watching people around us determine that their beliefs are fact, ignoring factual sources (which have been irritatingly labled as #FakeNews) and trusted experts, and immediately turning on anyone who says anything that flies in the face of those beliefs.
Oh, unable to face the truth of the facts
We start our vicious attacks, come what may
Man what’s wrong with us? Oh the price that we’ll pay
We don’t listen, only speak, cause man we know everything
Don’t you mess with my beliefs when you don’t know anything
Oh, unwilling to change or even to bend, we lose our family and friends
No compromise
When all reasons to reason are lost, we lose all control
“Always Time” is another excellent ballad that calls back to the spiritual songs earlier in the record. Clearly DeYoung has been wrestling with the basic questions that all humans struggle with — why am I here? What’s it all for?
Time is gone like a wish down a wishing well
With never a pause on its carousel
Always leaving us wanting for more
Time racing away to the stratosphere
Reminding us all of the wasted years
As we wonder what life has in store
“The Isle of Misanthrope” is a miniature progressive rock epic and one of the album’s highlights. Prog held a lot of appeal for DeYoung because it gave the keyboard player prominence within the band’s sound.
“Prog allowed keyboard players to exist on a plane that was almost as important as guitar players. Rock and roll is really the realm of guitar playing, first and foremost,” he said.
The song wouldn’t sound out of place on The Grand Illusion or Pieces of Eight. “Isle” is an indictment of the U.S.
And will we ever learn
All empires built will someday burn
Musically, “Isle of Misanthrope” has some sounds that were lifted right out of classic Styx and DeYoung even ties the song back to The Grand Illusion during a quiet passage at the end. He also says goodbye again in the final verse.
And when we crossed the bridge of sighs
We bowed and said our last goodbyes
Then set a course for better days
Then once again we sailed away
“Grand Illusion Finale” (or “GIF”) closes the album in the most fitting way possible. DeYoung’s son Matthew plays drums on it and uses a ride cymbal that was gifted to him by the late John Panozzo. Dennis wanted his son to be part of the last song on his final album and with original Styx drummer Panozzo’s equipment being played and recorded for it, it could hardly be a more perfect closing statement.
Musically and lyrically, “GIF” is a simple reprise of “The Grand Finale” from The Grand Illusion and DeYoung reminds us with his final recorded thought of what he’s been trying to get through to us all along — we’re all humans (regardless of status) and that’s the most important thing to keep in the front of our minds at all times. Deep inside, we really are all the same, regardless of race, religion, political affiliation, social status, or to whom (if anyone) we’re attracted.
“It says everything it needs to say in less than two minutes and it sounds like the closing of a door to me,” DeYoung said. “At that moment I’m saying to this audience, ‘Remember that? That (music) was magic in your opinion and in my opinion. Don’t forget.’ And I say ‘Deep inside we’re all the same.’ And it goes up to the high C, and there’s Matt, my son, on drums and me singing. That’s all I need. I don’t need no more.”
For me, the album has plenty of highlights. Chief among them are “Hello Goodbye,” “The Last Guitar Hero,” “There’s No Turning Back Time,” and “The Isle of Misanthrope.” It’s hard to imagine a Styx fan — or someone who has followed DeYoung’s solo career — not liking 26 East, Vol. 2. If some listeners think it’s just DeYoung ripping off his earlier work, well you can’t steal from yourself. This is the man’s epilogue, so of course he’s going to borrow from his overture and everything else that led up to this final curtain.
He’s reminding listeners that he started Styx, was a driving force behind its success, created the sound that launched the band to rock and roll’s most dizzying heights, and he’s summing it all up here on the final page.
The lyrics, melodies, harmonies, musicianship, and production are all top notch. In short, this is a great record, and it’s great because Dennis DeYoung is an excellent songwriter, arranger, and musician. If 26 East, Vol. 2 is indeed the last recorded work we get from him, it’s worthy of his name and it honors his career in an appropriate way.
“In my last two albums, I’m just trying to pay tribute to what I have done musically and give my fans one more spin around the block with me,” DeYoung said. “It encompasses, I think, who I have been musically in popular music. And I’m happy with that.”
Great work Mike