STYX Will Hold New Album Until Band Can Go Back On Tour

In a new interview with Radio Forrest, STYX's James "JY" Young was asked when fans can expect to see the band's new studio album. The upcoming effort 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.

Young said (hear audio below): "I think we're gonna hold this record until we can go back on tour. That's the current plan. Because we like to have everything kind of get launched at once. It's easier to make people aware of it if it's not released in a vacuum. But if you can get a tour going, and tickets are selling, and then the record's out, it's easier to build a critical mass for awareness."

Last month, Young told the Q105.7 radio station that STYX's next LP may not arrive for at least another year. "If Dr. Fauci [Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases] is right, [we won't be able to tour until] the end of [2021], 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," he said. "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."

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.