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By Kira L. Billik Philadelphia - Like Paul McCartney, Dennis DeYoung also thinks that - just maybe - people haven't "had enough of silly love songs." The lead singer of Styx, which is back now after an eight-year absence, also believes that love, and songs about it, might be able to cure the ills of society when all else fails. "Everybody says that love songs are not important, (and) what you need are these songs about social issues," DeYoung said in a telephone interview. "My thought is if you can get love between two people right, if you can just get that right, all your problems, they'll go away." Styx preaches his gospel of love and hope on its latest album, "Edge of the Century," a collection of their signature ballads and guitar-based rockers. The 1983 album "Kilroy Was Here" looked like the end of the Chicago band, whose biggest successes came with such songs as "Babe," "Come Sail Away," "Lady" and "Renegade." DeYoung and guitarists Tommy Shaw and James Young left to pursue solo careers, and without them, Styx - along with bassist Chuck Panozzo and his brother, drummer John Panozzo - quietly faded away. The revamped Styx is minus Shaw, who is now with the hard rock band Damn Yankees, and has added Glen Burtnick on guitar. The group re-formed for a variety of reasons, DeYoung said. "The band really never did break up - we never said, 'Hey, we're never going to make another record,'" he said. "But what we did do was every January, we'd call each other and decide what was going to happen." Shaw called DeYoung in 1987 saying he wanted to return to Styx, but DeYoung had to refuse until one of his solo projects was completed. During that time, rocker Ted Nugent offered Shaw a job in "Damn Yankees," and DeYoung and the remaining three members of Styx decided to restart the band. "We all felt so good about being back together again," DeYoung said. "It was like doing it for the original reason, which was a bunch of guys in the neighborhood who wanted to set the world on fire." DeYoung has always been proud of the simple sentimentality of Styx's music, particularly its ballads, despite a negative response from some critics. He thinks his sentimental love songs are not impractical, but rather a necessary deviation from music he says suffers from a severe overdose of "cool." "The truth is, cheap sentimentality is better than none at all. I'm afraid I stand for that. It's unpopular to stand for that, but… there's so much emphasis in our culture on being cool, meaning - what is cool but detached, unaffected? What kind of a culture are we ending up with where people can show and feel no emotion?" DeYoung said his point of view does make him seem "out of sync and unfashionable." But he doesn't care. He has had fans tell him their own stories of how Styx's music has gotten them through tough times, and that's what matters to him. "That's the thing I'm most proud of," he said, "because I know we've always stood for something. It may have been misinterpreted, it may have been misconstrued, it have have been misunderstood, but I know that the audience related to what we had to say." The addition of Burtnik injects Styx with a youthful vitality. DeYoung has grandeur in mind - albeit tongue-in-cheek - when it comes to the band's upcoming tour, which is scheduled to begin in the spring. "It'll be glorious, it'll be everything, it'll be all things to all people. The critics will say, 'We're so glad they're back, we've missed these guys - we have'nt had anybody we could tear into in a while.'" |