Various Artists: Too Much Time on Our Hands - A Styx Tribute Album
(Salt Lady Records)

www.saltlady.com

The heyday of Styx is past. Still, the band has a strong following. Recently, a Styx tribute was released. In this piece, some of the bands explain what Styx means to them, how they remodeled the song they covered and why they covered or didn’t cover certain songs.

Heart Beats Red (Tasha)
«The Grand Finale»

When Jonathan Rundman (the man behind the tribute album) asked our band to be a part of his Styx tribute compilation, we were all very flattered. Jonathan suggested that we cover the song «miss America», so Sarah and I went to the record store and bought a copy of «the grand illusion». After listening to the record a couple of times we actually decided to do «the grand finale» for a couple of reasons: 1) our band loves short songs and «the grand finale» is about as short as they come 2) I really loved the drum rolls and wanted to hear mike play them 3) «The Grand Finale» just seemed to have a lot of energy. We recorded the song in mike's basement on his four track. We brought the record player into the basement with us and listened to the song a couple times and then just went for it (I think I had to practice the guitar solo a couple of times first!). We played the keyboard part on a broken organ that only made about three sounds...luckily the ones we wanted!! I think we did the whole thing in about 3 hours. Mike sang at the end of the song, which was the first time for him, and it took a lot of begging. We all still laugh every time we listen to him on the CD. We all were pretty sure that our song would be the roughest sounding one on the compilation, but we didn't want to change anything. Hopefully people listening to our song will be able to tell we had a lot of fun recording it.

Jim Roll & The Famous Authors
«Babe»

I grew up in Chicago land and Styx were on my radar in the 70's and early 80's . . . though I must admit I was much more of a Stones and Dylan and The Who guy. So when Jonathan asked me to participate in the tribute I felt that it would be a «fun» project that was ultimately out of character for me musically. In retrospect I feel I might have gone overboard on the Fun aspect and perhaps been a bit neglected with the Music and Tribute aspect (I do not think that «Babe» is a terribly complicated or emotionally poignant song - so we made it complicated - and emotional at least in the sense that anyone who loves the song «Babe» passionately hates our version of it). Styx is an important band in that sense that they were integral to the «stadium pop» movement and were the soundtrack to a sizeable segment of our population's adolescent romantic angst. We should have done «Mr. Roboto».

Beki Hemingway
«Don't Let It End»

Well, someone's got to do something from «Kilroy Was Here», don't they?
Memories...This one came out right around the time my grandfather had his larynx removed and got the electronic voice box instead. He used to loan it to us so we could do the Japanese bit properly on «Mr. Roboto». Oh how he'd yell at us with his face and arms when the song went on longer than he expected...every time! He's the only one who could ever have a tone of voice without a voice. "But you didn't cover «Mr. Roboto» Beki," you may be saying to yourself. You're right, but that is a better story. «Don't Let It End» - I'm just a sucker for a power ballad. :)

Tom Freud
«Blue Collar Man»

«Blue Collar Man» was one that I remember growing up in NYC. That turnaround guitar riff is very catchy and the plight of the working man late nights etc. is always good fodder for song. I had a great drum loop already in my little 8 track cassette machine, So I added upright bass , Guitars to give it this swing thing, cause I don't wanna duplicate, just emulate. Back stage at Largo one night in LA , I was visiting with Jon Brion and he heard what I was doing and said «Oh, I have to be on that» So lucky me, that remarkable B3 playing is Jon at 3 in the morning, Amen.

Jerry Chapman & His Evil Herbivores
«Man in the Wilderness»

What fun it was to put my own spin on «Man in the Wilderness». Most people tell how clever it was to slow it down a bit and lower the melody. Cleverness had nothing to do with it; I just can't sing as high as Tommy Shaw. One of the reasons I chose the tune is because I was in the middle of recording my own album full of death-related songs, and the Styx tune was a perfect fit. I also noticed that no matter what the arrangement, the moment you add an arp string ensemble to it, it becomes recognizably «Styx».

Alva Star (John Hermanson)
«Lady»

I really dig the sensitive side of Styx. My 2 choices for songs to cover on
the record were «Babe» and «Lady». I wanted to produce «Lady» in a way that would show its intimate sensual side. The rocked out march feel of the Styx production is really interesting and special but seems counter to the original song in some ways. I wanted to strip it down to a more simple approach.

Jonathan Rundman
«Come Sail Away»

Initially when I began working on this Styx Tribute album I had hoped to
record the song «Snowblind». I had developed a really cool minor-bluegrass arrangement for the song, and I wanted to be sure that Styx's songwriter James Young was more represented on the Tribute CD. But then the band that had expressed interest in recording «Come Sail Away» needed to drop out ofthe project, so that song became available. Since almost all the other bands had already turned in their songs, I was the only one left to record «Come Sail Away»....and there's no way I could put out a Styx Tribute without including that song.

Since I was a kid I've heard «Come Sail Away» so many times that I can no longer hear it with any accuracy. It had become «too» familiar. So I knew that the only way I could salvage the song was to alter it's attitude. That sparked my decision to eliminate the song's signature piano part and to replace it with a more roots-rock arrangement. I also couldn't bring myself to sing that repetitive chorus over and over and over, so I stretched out the chorus lyric so I didn't have to repeat it so often. The most fun part of the recording process was recreating the spacey instrumental bridge using banjo and chord organ, rather than the classic Styx synth sounds. After the recording was complete I was pleased that I was once again able to hear and appreciate the song's lyrics and melody lines, apart from the
omnipresence of the original Styx version on the FM Classic Rock Radio stations.

Bruce & Jonathan Rundman & The Rostenkoskis (Bruce Rundman)
«Queen of Spades»

I have always liked «Queen of Spades». When I was a kid, I was a little disturbed by the
part of the original song where Dennis DeYoung goes crazy and
screams....«ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, you lose». I was always partial to the
beginning where the guitar picking is more laid back. I guess we decided to do the whole song the way we did to give the song a little different flavor. It would have been difficult to reproduce the electric guitar craziness that happens in the original, so we opted for the groove. I did a track of
finger picking for the song, and one where I used a guitar pick. It took a
while to get things right. I have many Styx favorites including, «Sing For The Day», off of «Pieces of Eight», and «She Cares» off of «Paradise Theater». If the tribute album would have been a year later in coming into existence, I would have done something of their current album «Cyclorama» album because I believe it is the best Styx album to date. I hope this gives you something to work with.

Billy Dankert & The Real Austinaries
«Lights»

Sorry it's taken so long for me to send you such a lame description of our Styx cover motivations, etc. for the Salt Lady/J. Rundman Styx tribute CD. We covered «Lights» more or less by accident. I only knew the hits from my childhood and I didn't really feel comfortable trying to cover any of those rocking songs, like «The Grand Illusion» or «Lorelei», even if we didn't stick close to the original, which we had no intention of doing in any case. Our drummer Brien, who's a bit more immersed in Styx than I, suggested «Lights» one night at practice. I got a hold of a copy and thought: «Yeah, we could make this our own in some way». I learned the chords, came up with my own take on it, and showed this to the band at our next practice. On hearing the direction I was going with the song, Brien said: «Oh...no, I guess I didn't mean «Lights», but [some other, much lamer Styx song whose name I can't recall anymore]." Of course, after going to the trouble of learning «Lights», I had grown fond of the song in spite of some too-precious lyrics, and I was loathe to learn another Styx song from beginning to end, so «Lights» became our contribution.

Lost and Found (George Baum)
«The Grand Illusion»

In high school, we both used to listen to the «The Grand Illusion» album every single day after school, right between «Point of No Return» and «Breakfast In America». When Michael and I thought about which Styx song to record, we really only felt comfortable doing «Grand Illusion». As far as we could tell, it was the only Styx song that was remotely close to the kind of songwe would have written (and we helped it along by changing one line toward the end). As for how to record the song, it seemed obvious to us: strip the thing down to it's bare essence of verses and choruses and see if it still can fly. We decided to de-Styx the Styx song. Seems to us that it still works without all the frosting and gravy on top of it - which is perhaps heretical to actual Styx fans.

Jeff Krebs
«Boat on the River»

I had always liked Styx growing up, especially Tommy Shaw's tunes. When "Renegade" was already taken for this project, I was thinking back on Shaw tunes that I liked, and "Boat on the River" was the one that stuck. It worked well with the tenor banjo, and the gorgeous melody was great fun to sing. Wish I had written it--kudos to Tommy... PS, What
the hell is "tranquility base"?

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