from the Athens Daily News & Athens Banner-Herald
Friday, April 29, 1994
on the town/music section, page 6

Styx's James Young is on first solo tour

by Fred Adams, Weekend writer
As one of the driving forces behind the immensely successful '70s progressive rock band Styx, James "JY" Young has toured the world racking up over 20 million album sales.
With Styx currently on an extended hiatus, JY has released his second solo album, "Out On A Day Pass," and is currently on the road for his first solo tour.
JY began his musical career as a teen-ager on the south side of Chicago in the late '60s. His first band, the Catalina's, won the "Best Teens In America" contest with its set of British invasion tunes and subsequently toured Eroupe [sic].
Newly inspired after seeing Jimi Hendrix perform five times, JY formed the band Monterey Hand while attending the Illinois Institute of Technology. It was at that time that his friend Dave Yoshinari created a unique distortion box that enabled JY to develop his distinct sound.
Monterey Hand broke up in the fall of 1970, about the time that a fellow local band named TW4 was looking for a new guitar player. TW4, which included Dennis DeYoung on vocals and the Panozzo twins, Chuck and John, on bass and drums, was predominately a pop band. However, they had always admired JY's playing and could not resist the opportunity to play with him. When John Curukewski was added as a second guitarist, Styx was born.
JY and DeYoung gave Styx two songwriters and vocalists that combined to form an intriguing blend of hard rock and pop that resulted in a gold record in 1975. Tommy Shaw then came aboard, adding further to Styx's intelligent lyricism and strong harmonic balance, leading to a string of four consecutive platinum albums.
As the tide of the music world shifted in the early '80s, DeYoung's pop leanings became more evident than ever on 1983's "Killroy [sic] Was Here," an album that alienated many of the group's long-time fans.
"That, in some ways, was the beginning of the end of the band," JY recalls. "Once your fans begin to think that you changed, you lose your core. Then you are going from single to single. I think 'Mr. Robot,'[sic] which we did after four three million sellers in a row, was our effort to try something different. We felt we should do it, so we did. Queen went through a similar period with dance music."
After the "Killroy [sic] Was Here" tour, the members of Styx went their separate ways, with JY, DeYoung, and Shaw each recording a solo album. While JY's album, "City Slicker," received much critical acclaim, he did not want to make a commitment to a group of touring musicians at the time.
JY began working on "Out On A Day Pass" in the late '80s. However, he put the project on hold when Styx got back together in 1990 to record "The Edge of The Century." Following a North American tour in 1991, JY returned to the studio to finish the solo album, an effort that he is very proud of.
"The hardest thing for me," he says, "is to make a hard rock album that has some substance to it lyrically and is not just the same old 'let's go party' kind of thing. That is really the biggest challenge for me, to write lyrics that are relevant in a way that is not overtly political, but isn't your typically 'hey baby, let's party all night,' and I think I did a good job on this album.
"My stuff tends to be kind of darker in tone, which can have a depressing effect on you if you dwell upon it to [sic] deeply. I look to other guys in the band, and even outside writers, to help balance things. I think one of the things that make Styx so special is that there was a certain sense of hope in the records, along with a sense of power and insight. I like to have some sort of balance between darkness and lightness on my records. Something about my nature likes the dark side. I think as human beings, we are all conflicted and drawn to the dark side to some degree. No one wants to do what mom and dad tells them to do. So, I think it is a struggle we all go through."
JY recently put together the James Young Group and has embarked on his first solo tour. His shows have been featuring songs from both of his solo albums, along with some Styx material written, or co-written, by JY, including "Snowblind," "Miss America," "Lorelei" and "Heavy Metal Poisoning." The group has begun work on its first album, which it hopes to release around the first of next year.