how styx broke up & why they hate mr roboto: a thread

this is an informational thread dont cancel me if I get the years wrong because I’m getting all of this info directly from my single brain cell. anyway now I am going to tell you why styx hate each other

so for the first five years of styx before tommy shaw joined & they subsequently became famous, styx were mostly experimental/prog/art rock. after tommy joined, he and dennis deyoung often clashed on their musical vision for the band as tommy pulled them more towards rock and +

dennis attempted to add more theatrical elements. the first documented occurrence of tensions happened when tommy threatened to quit the band if “first time” became a single off the cornerstone album because that song didn’t match the rock style tommy was trying to encourage.

there continued to be tensions as james “jy” young took tommy’s side in many arguments, and when dennis spearheaded their Paradise Theatre concept album he was actually quietly fired and then rehired during production. after the release of Paradise, the band spent several years +

touring and creating their most daring concept yet: kilroy was here. dennis had the idea and the album was meant to have a story, characters, and a short film. the short film was meant to be played before concerts and then the band would act out parts of the story onstage at +

concerts. while creative, this idea did not sit well with some of the other band members who were not dennis. when they started the kilroy tour, dennis wanted to tour to small venues so the performance was more intimate. however, this caused the tour to be a financial flop.

ultimately, the success of mr roboto as a single (which wasn’t even meant to be a single, it was meant to be a transition from the short film to the stage performance) greatly angered tommy since the song didn’t match their intended style at all. tommy was also struggling with +

drug addiction during this time, and there’s a chance he was abusing it because of his anger with the band. he hated the kilroy tour and concept so much that he smashed his guitar onstage during a concert and quit the band in 1984. (luckily he got clean from his addiction!!)

tommy’s departure caused the band to fall apart, and from then on they kept reuniting and breaking up. they had another small hit in 1991 (without tommy), and as drummer john panozzo passed away in 1996 they got back together again for a few more albums. however, around 2000 +

dennis was having some health problems and the band decided to leave him and go on tour without him, effectively breaking up the band for good. not long after that, dennis sued the band for rights to the name “styx” because the others were performing under that name without him +

and he wanted to use it as well. he lost the lawsuit so now he performs as “dennis deyoung and the music of styx” even though he wrote most of their hits. the current lineup of styx refused to play mr roboto from then until 2018 when they finally cracked. they keep being really +

passive aggressive to dennis in interviews while dennis keeps asking for a reunion tour on his facebook page. ultimately they just act like dennis was the worst thing that ever happened to them, which I refuse to believe.

anyway I hope you enjoyed this thread about white men being petty. if you made it this far then thank you for reading. I didn’t even proofread this.

and as always if u have questions or want to get into styx hit me up

// end of thread