STYX Will Wait For Pandemic To Subside Before Releasing New Album

STYX's James "JY" Young spoke to Steve King of the Q105.7 radio station about how he and his bandmates are dealing with the coronavirus pandemic which is sweeping the globe. He said (hear audio below): "We have Zoom calls about every two to four weeks, and we are recording a new album, to be released, but we wanna wait until we can actually start touring again to actually put it out there. Now the most optimistic thing, I think, is the end of this year, and if Dr. Fauci [Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases] is right, it's the end of next year, so that would put us out in 2022, which would be the 50th-anniversary year of us signing our first recording contract, which is February 22, 1972. But if it's in '22 that this record comes out, it'll be 2-22-22, so maybe that's what we've gotta wait for."

STYX's upcoming album will be the follow-up to "The Mission", which was released in June 2017. That disc marked STYX's first new LP in 14 years. It was recorded at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, co-produced and co-written with Will Evankovich, a longtime collaborator of guitarist/vocalist Tommy Shaw's in the SHAW/BLADES band and who also plays with THE GUESS WHO.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, four straight STYX albums sold at least two million copies — "The Grand Illusion" (1977),"Pieces Of Eight" (1978),"Cornerstone" (1979) and "Paradise Theatre" (1981). The band eventually replaced original singer/keyboardist/songwriter Dennis DeYoung in 1999 with Lawrence Gowan.