Styx Tickets

Styx (pronounced "sticks") is an American rock band that was popular in the 1970s and 1980s, with such hits as "Come Sail Away", "Babe", "Lady", "Suite Madame Blue", "Mr. Roboto", and "Renegade." Styx is the first band to have 4 consecutive albums certified Multi-Platinum by the RIAA.With the intention to prove the flair and love for the rock music, the group was originally formed as "The Tradewinds" in the Chicago, Illinois, area in 1961 and played local bars while attending Chicago State University. This early line-up of the group included brothers Chuck Panozzo and John Panozzo on guitar and drums, respectively; and vocalist, pianist, keyboardist, and accordion player Dennis Deyoung. Changing their name briefly to "TW4", Chuck switched to bass guitar and the band added guitarists and vocalists James "J.Y." Young and John Curulewski.

The band members decided to choose a new name when they signed to Wooden Nickel Records; several suggestions were made and according to DeYoung, Styx was chosen because it was "the only one that none of us hated."

The band's Wooden Nickel recordings, Styx (1972), Styx II (1973), The Serpent Is Rising (also 1973) and Man of Miracles (1974), were a mixture of straight-ahead rock with some dramatic prog-rock flourishes and art-rock aspirations. The Serpent Is Rising would foreshadow later endeavors by the group-the so-called concept album would be a medium upon which Styx would rely heavily by the 1980s.

After producing several albums by 1980, Styx had established themselves with their lyrics, criticizing unemployment ("Blue Collar Man"), consumerism ("The Grand Illusion"), and materialism ("Pieces of Eight").In January 1981, Styx released Paradise Theatre, a loose concept album that became their biggest hit, reaching number one on the Billboard pop albums chart and yielding five singles, including the top ten hits "The Best of Times" by DeYoung (#3) and "Too Much Time on My Hands" by Shaw (#8).

The band was accused by a California religious group and later Tipper Gore's P.M.R.C of back masking satanic messages in their anti-cocaine anthem, "Snowblind." J.Y. has often gone on the record, refuting this charge during his concert introduction for "Snowblind," with Dennis saying on In the Studio with Redbeard which devoted an entire episode to the making of Paradise Theatre that "we had enough trouble to make the music sound right forward. It was the name Styx which is the river that runs through the underground. Can you imagine attacking the band that made Babe, I mean please!"

Owing to its accessibility and quality production, this album helped win the band a People's Choice Award in 1981, and became the band's fourth consecutive multi-platinum album. Throughout the 1980s, the band has used the album's opening track, "Rockin' the Paradise," which hit number six on the rock charts in 1981, to open their shows. The album closes with J.Y.'s "Half-Penny, Two Penny" which segued into Dennis' "A.D. 1958" and ending properly with "State Street Sadie".Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw released a string of solo albums, beginning with DeYoung's Desert Moon and Shaw's Girls with Guns in 1984. Both Shaw and DeYoung generated a moderate amount of interest with their first solo albums. DeYoung, in particular, scored a Top 10 hit with the title track, "Desert Moon", which was also heavily featured on MTV.

Shaw also cracked the Top Forty with "Girls with Guns" and "Lonely School," and he made a cameo appearance on the NBC television series, Miami Vice. DeYoung's follow up single "Don't Wait for Heroes" also featured a video that was heavily featured on MTV, but it failed to generate significant airplay at radio only peaking at #83. During the filming of the video, DeYoung injured his back, causing him to back out of opening a North American concert tour for Huey Lewis & the News.

As of April 21, 2006, according to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) which awards artists and groups gold as well as platinum status primarily on their performance and popularity, Styx ranks number 127 with 17.5 million records sold within the United States. On April 16, 2007, Def Leppard announced a 50-date concert tour, which will include Styx and Foreigner as opening acts on some shows. As of August 27, 2007 Dennis Deyoung's single "100 Years From Now" is Number 1 on Quebec's Top 100.