STYX's TOMMY SHAW: Why I Moved From Los Angeles To Nashville

May 27, 2021

In a new interview with QFM96's "Torg & Elliott" radio show, STYX guitarist/vocalist Tommy Shaw was asked why he and his wife moved to Nashville in 2013 after two decades of living in Los Angeles and touring around the world. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I grew up in Alabama, and Nashville was the first place that I came to when I decided to go out of town and see what I could do elsewhere. My wife, she was born in Illinois, but her family moved down here to Nashville when she was really young. And so she grew up in Clarksville. I had come down here — I forget how many years ago — to do a bluegrass record and spent three weeks here and really fell in love with it.

Prior to moving to Tennessee, Tommy and Jeanne Shaw "lived in Beachwood Canyon where the Hollywood sign is, and when we first moved there, there were no smartphones, and so people coming up trying to find the Hollywood sign, you'd maybe see five of 'em a day because it was winding," Tommy said. "By the time we left, there were 6,500 people a day coming up there — it was tourist vans and confrontations just trying to get out of your driveway. So that's how we wound up [in Nashville]."

Asked if there are a lot of other rockers moving to Nashville, Tommy said: "[There's] a lot of everybody here. It's just a great, central place to be. Especially if you're touring, you're in a central area. The bus company that we use is in Nashville, so a lot of times, if we're just starting out, the bus will pull up in front of my house, I'll hop on and I can avoid an airplane ride."

According to Nashville Lifestyles, Tommy and Jeanne Shaw's home in Oak Hill once belonged to disco legend Donna Summer.

Jeanne oversees STYX merchandise and helps with Rock To The Rescue, a nonprofit founded by STYX and REO SPEEDWAGON and run by Tommy's daughter Hannah.

STYX's new album, "Crash Of The Crown", will be released on June 18 via the band's label, Alpha Dog 2T/UMe. The LP was written pre-pandemic and recorded during the trying times of the coronavirus crisis.

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