Dennis DeYoung maintains that above all else — Styx was just a bonafide all-American rock band. During a recent chart with Ultimate Classic Rock and explained that Styx dipping its toes into so many styles may have caused fans some confusion.
DeYoung feels that the sound of Styx was designed to be without a genre, saying, “I just think it's clearly an expression of the people writing songs not being confined or constrained by an ideology. Can it confuse an audience? For eight albums, we did that thing — I always call it a 'fake prog band.' We were an American rock band who used classical influences, but Styx was always at heart an American rock band. Most of the prog bands didn't have a Marshall stack. That's not what they were doing. But that's who we were.”
DeYoung went on to say, “When you make a transition with a fan base, it can be fraught with peril. But we had four (multiplatinum) albums in a row going from The Grand Illusion and Pieces Of Eight to Cornerstone and Paradise Theatre. If you play 'Renegade,' 'Babe,' and 'Mr. Roboto' for somebody, I don't think they'd think it was the same band.”