Lawrence Gowan of Styx

STYX presents

CRASH OF THE CROWN

Interview by Ken Morton - Live Photo by Joe Schaeffer Band Photo Courtesy of Todd Gallopo and Styx

A new era of hope, survival, and prosperity comes calling with the release of Crash Of The Crown, Styx’s new studio album, which was written pre-pandemic and recorded during the trying times of the pandemic. The legendary rockers-James “JY” Young (lead vocals, guitars), Tommy Shaw (lead vocals, guitars), Chuck Panozzo (bass, vocals), Todd Sucherman (drums, percussion), Lawrence Gowan (lead vocals, keyboards) and Ricky Phillips (bass, guitar, vocals)-has just unveiled their 17th studio magnum opus via Alpha Dog 2T/UMe, and it’s destined to thrill their fans all over the world. Highwire Daze recently interviewed Lawrence Gowan to find out a whole lot more about the grand and sweeping Crash Of The Crown..

Is there any overall story or concept behind the new album Crash Of The Crown?

We tried to put out something that was really open to interpretation, but to my mind it means the mountaintop suddenly being cut off – sliced off. And what happens then? Well, a big hole in the ground opens up and things go forth that wouldn’t otherwise. That’s my little lyrical interpretation of it. I don’t see it connecting to monarchy or anything of that nature at all – but really, whatever’s been held in the highest

scheme or relied upon to always be there is suddenly removed – and everyone has to react and find a way to build something new after it. Sound familiar?

Yup, these pandemic days for sure. Now the title track is the one with the three lead vocals on it. What was that experience like having all three of the vocalists singing lead – and was it easy or difficult to decide who sings what?

It was actually quite easy – funny enough. I knew when writing the song that I was thinking of JY for that opening section entirely – on the demo of it I’m actually trying to do a JY impression of singing those lyrics as I thought they related well to him. I couldn’t wait for him to sing that part – so that was pre-decided. The middle section, where mostly Tommy and I sing together, and then he takes over – that was something in the writing stage where we just felt like this works with two vocals in unison, and then kind of letting him take the lead towards the end of that section and breaking into harmony. So that kind of unfolded – however the last section I anticipated that Tommy would sing that because he wrote that last section of the song. So, it kind of surprised me when he said, “Oh, no, I don’t want to sing this. I want you to sing this!” And as we got into it, that’s how it evolved. I love the fact that we squeezed this progressive rock kind of epic down into a four-minute song. It’s just really three songs smashed together with all three lead vocalists.

Another song that I think is a real highlight on Crash Of The Crown is Save Us From Ourselves. Tell me a little about the song.

What a great one that one is to be part of. My interpretation on the lyric on that one – it’s really the overindulgence of how we’ve extended ourselves way too far in whatever direction you want to interpret that. And really, we need help from wherever we can get it. For me, I seek help from people that I know are smarter than me – I kind of look to their directive on things in a lot of ways – and that’s the way I hear that song. You know, there’s no hiding all the clashes that we’ve seen in the streets – it’s been going on for decades, but particularly now, they seem so polarized and divided that sometimes what we’re fighting over gets lost in the fight. So, I hear that woven into the song, and how to navigate our way through tough situations.

Let’s talk about Hold Back The Darkness and the inspiration behind that one.

Hold Back The Darkness is great. I hear it as a song about mental illness – someone going through a terrible anguish – and those around them that love the individual are trying to bring them back from that dark hole that they’ve fallen down mentally. And I think that there’s a lot of people who can relate to that – to somehow find a way to not surrender to those forces that we’re all subject to at some point. We need each other and we need others to help us out of a situation like that. It’s a brave topic to go into and come out with a song that is catchy and relatable.

And tell me a song that you are really excited about on the album and what it means to you.

One that I’m quite excited about is called Common Ground. Common Ground is adventurous – I’ve always enjoyed the progressive side of Styx, so I’m always pushing that agenda as much as I can – because I think it makes the songs that follow a more traditional pattern of songwriting – it makes them more meaningful – so when the prog stuff kicks in, I could hear the band being very adventurous. And Common Ground does that. It’s a song that speaks to the positive ideal of what humanity – what we’re able to accomplish when we set aside our differences. And I love how the song – much like Crash Of The Crown – it evolves through several sections that are quick left turns that happen – and I find that really conducive to a live performance in particular. It starts very ominous, and it ends very uplifting and goes through some pretty intense musical shifts, rhythms, time signature changes and things like that, that Todd our drummer is so adept to navigating through. It’s just a fun ride.

I believe you’ve played your previous album The Mission in its entirety live. Is Crash Of The Crown something you would also like to play in its entirety?

Well, you know, of course, because one of the really great things that happened with The Mission was the first year it came out in 2017, we played a couple of the new songs and then on our social media, we started seeing request after request from people to do more of the new album – which is what we were hoping for. So, one by one we started doing these songs, and finally The Palms in Las Vegas asked if we could do a show there where would we do The Mission in its entirely alongside some of hits. So, we did – we put together a show where we played The Mission from beginning to end – then there was an intermission – and then we came back and did all the legacy songs of the band – and what a great night it was! So, I’m hopeful that a similar thing could happen with Crash Of The Crown. (Please turn the page for more...)

What are you looking forward to the most about your upcoming tour with Collective Soul?

They’re a great band and it’s a great pairing. The thing that I’m most looking forward to is that reawakening, quite honestly, that this album is alluding to. Just seeing that and seeing people again and being able to celebrate the fact that we’ve gotten through probably the toughest challenge of our time on Earth. Probably the closest thing we would ever have happen would be again going through a world war, or something of that nature where the entire world is involved. So, I’m very much looking forward to the whole experience and getting back from the pandemic groove.

And do you have any messages for Styx fans who are reading this right now?

First of all, thank you for this past year and staying with the band and following all of our Styx posts that we put out. We’ve really become a tight knit virtual community through technology that has kept us together. I have to say the number of messages from people saying how much they missed seeing Styx and missed the experience of the band coming to various towns and concerts and all of that and how it’s been reaching their lives – it’s really been such a great inspiration to keep on going – to keep on striving – to keep the band alive – for our upcoming rendezvous which is going to be glorious.

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