North American syndicated rock radio show and website, InTheStudio: The Stories Behind History’s Greatest Rock Bands, celebrates the 35th anniversary of Styx raising the curtain on the Eighties with their best-seller ever, Paradise Theatre.

From July of 1977 to the end of that decade, you would be hard pressed to find an American rock band more popular than the Chicago quintet Styx. In that two and a half year period, Styx had three Top 10 albums selling a total of eight million copies. Then in January 1981 Styx would release Paradise Theatre, an album echoing the sentiments of millions of Americans struggling with high employment, skyrocketing interest rates, urban decay and crime. Paradise Theatre would go on to be Styx’s biggest-selling album producing the hits “Rockin’ The Paradise”, “The Best Of Times”, “Too Much Time On My Hands” and “Snowblind”.

InTheStudio producer and host Redbeard has assembled a show featuring classic interviews with current Styx members James ‘JY’ Young, Tommy Shaw, Lawrence Gowan, and former member and co-founder Dennis DeYoung, who admitted that Styx’s first #1 single, ”Babe” the year before, proved to be a double-edged sword.

“There was this concern within the band that this ballad ‘Babe” was a mistake… We entered into Paradise Theatre with this kind of cloud hanging over us.” - Dennis DeYoung

“A lot of the biggest songs we play in concert, they were never attempted as pop singles, yet they’re the fabric of the fans who still come to see us.” - Tommy Shaw

“(“Snowblind”) is a negative song about drug addiction. It wasn’t always perceived that way, because the lyrics were not overtly intended to say,’ This is bad’...The tone of the song was intended to convey the message that substance abuse is a negative thing.” - James ‘JY’ Young

“The toughest thing for me, coming into Styx... is being part of that three voice Hydra. The power of those voices together is one of the most distinctive things about Styx.” - Lawrence Gowan

Paradise Theatre / InTheStudio interview is available at this location.