Adaptability And Resilience

Lawrence Gowan of Styx

Cris Cohen: With the recording of “Crash of the Crown,” you guys were moving along with it, the pandemic hits, suddenly everyone is in their own homes, in different countries. And yet, you guys found a way to record together virtually, and get around this obstacle.

Lawrence Gowan of Styx: That was the challenge for everyone on planet Earth. How do we navigate our way through this, with a virus that doesn't care what our intentions are?

We had the songs written, all but two of them, and had started the recording process. Suddenly this interruption happens. And like everyone else, we thought, “Well, it's a drag. We'll have to stop for maybe as much as six weeks, maybe even two months, before we can get back to it.” And at the two-month mark, we thought, “Oh, once again, not following our script. This could be indefinite.”

We went back and listened to the songs. And we felt, “These songs relate so well to what we -- and probably a lot of people on the planet -- are going through psychologically, the challenges that we're facing. The lyrics really fit with this situation. We have to find a way to do this.”

I have a great studio in Toronto, with all this analog gear I bought years ago. And I have a great partner there, Russ Mackey, who's a phenomenal engineer and producer. And Tommy and Will were in Nashville; Todd was in Austin, Texas; JY in Chicago; Ricky was also in Austin. We used Zoom and a thing called Audiomovers. We pushed through and made the record starting from around late August of 2020 right into about November. It got so second nature that it really felt exactly as if we were in the studio together.

And that, I think, speaks volumes to the adaptability and flexibility of human beings when faced with a challenge like that. We still were able to do the record and get all the analog juice in there. And again, the resilience of Styx. This speaks to why this band has endured for half a century.