There are a lot of people using technology that are playing to a click with backing vocals already stuck in there on some computerized thing that runs along in time to the show so they have these amazing vocals that are only partly the guys on stage producing them at the time.
We always got a strong response but I think in this day in age there is less of a marijuana fog at concerts and more of people just more naturally exuberant - it seems to me.
Seeing our VH-1 Behind the Music shows just how dysfunctional some of the moments of the band were but this new line-up has put the fun back in dysfunction.
But there are rock and roll fans all over this continent and all over the globe, really, and we're just set at marking the planet with Styx music until the day we die.
People like to let loose at rock concerts and it gives them an excuse to do it in a way that is not destructive to others and not really destructive to the band.
I'll play until they have to scrape me off the stage.
Whereas with us - what you hear is what's happening right then and there on the stage - so we don't need no stinking technology.
And in an era where radio stations that are inclined to play Styx music are your classic rock stations and the stations that play current music look at us as dinosaurs - the only way we could reach people with our new music, generally, is to perform live.
Ten years ago, in 94, we thought maybe nobody would ever care about Styx again.
And for REO - they get to play for some Styx fans and then we get to play in front of some REO fans. It helps spread the new music to the following of other bands.
And I said - Styx - as a musical group it is our place to reflect the light that is shining on us back onto this place and say - this is where so much great stuff started.
So, maybe you don't see blues so much in Styx's music but it is definitely part of Tommy's early music.
