Interview: Styx keyboardist Lawrence Gowan discusses the power of 'Renegade' and more ahead of Pittsburgh concert

In the 25 years since Lawrence Gowan took over on keyboards for Styx in 1999, the progressive rock band has played 20 shows in and around Pittsburgh. And that total doesn’t even include the various appearances for the national anthem at Steelers games or a quick set at the 2011 Winter Classic.

Wednesday night will be No. 21 when Styx and Foreigner bring their Renegades and Juke Box Heroes tour to the Pavilion at Star Lake, with John Waite opening the show.

“I love coming back to the city,” Gowan said in a call Wednesday from Bristow, Virginia. “I remember the first time I was ever there, long before I joined Styx. I opened for Tears for Fears at the (Syria Mosque), that was in ‘85. I kind of developed a great love for the city then.”

The affection seems to go both ways, with the Pittsburgh Steelers turning Styx’s “Renegade” into a rally anthem and Pittsburgh Pirates closer David Bednar using it for his walkout music.

“Even a few of these shows already this year, the Terrible Towels I see come out even though we’re not even in Pittsburgh,” Gowan said. “So you always know there’s a Pittsburgher right there who knows about the fourth quarter of the Steelers game and has decided to make it known in enemy territory that they’re part of a very exclusive club. … Our manager, Charlie Brusco was originally from Pittsburgh. He operates out of Atlanta now and has for many years, but he is a Pittsburgh guy through and through, and he’s always so enamored with the idea that his team, his city, uses ‘Renegade’ to the extent they do and that it’s so embraced by people there for reasons that go well beyond the rock idiom.”

As for why Pittsburgh has embraced “Renegade,” Gowan had some ideas.

”There’s that feeling of lament and seriousness in the opening of that song. There’s a serious vibe and a yearning lament. But then it’s the moment of explosion where it suddenly kicks out like a bucking bronco or something — I guess I shouldn’t use the word Bronco,” he said with a laugh. “It suddenly explodes and there’s this rapturous feeling of resistance, and it suddenly kicks in on resolve, more than resistance, it’s resolve.

“It kicks in when the song, when the tempo suddenly juts forward and surges. And I think that just, whoever decided to put that on in the fourth quarter, they really matched the moment of anxiety that exists in sports, particularly when you think the lead is very tenuous, and suddenly your resolve has to be called upon to hang on to this moment. That’s a rather verbose way of describing it, but that’s the way it feels while when I’ve been at the games and seeing them suddenly go into that song. It just seems like the right setting, it’s almost like a movie soundtrack where it’s just the exact right tone has been struck in a particular moment. And the song just happens to fit the bill right there every time.”

Other cities seem to love “Renegade” just as much as Pittsburgh, according to Gowan, but with “less waving of yellow towels.” And the band’s normal set closer has proven to be his favorite song to perform.

“The reason is, first of all, I don’t have the responsibility of singing lead on it. So I can actually take a moment to observe the audience. It’s always the end of the night. So I get a chance to see the arc of emotion that the audience is exuding at that time,” he said. “My observation is wherever we play around the world, it’s astounding to me how different audiences are at first. An audience in Britain or an audience in Japan or in Mexico, even Canada, they’re very different at the beginning of a show, very unique to that region.

“And it’s amazing how alike they are by the end of the show, and that just happens to be ‘Renegade’ so I get to observe that and see how music is one of these astounding, uniting forces that I don’t know of anything else that can cast the same kind of magic spell over people and make everyone suddenly fall into line in full agreement and happiness.”

Gowan also discussed touring with Foreigner, his 20+ years with Styx, having his brother Terry join on bass, and whether Styx belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

On touring with Foreigner:

We toured with them extensively, actually, in the UK about 10 years ago and a full tour of America, I think it was seven or eight years ago. So we were overdue for us to be linking up again. So this is a fantastic tour. The run of shows so far have exceeded expectations, like unbelievably. These amphitheaters have been full to capacity and brimming over. Last night we played in New Jersey, and the same thing again. It’s like at the very top of the hill, you can see people disappearing over the top and standing up there against the sky. It’s pretty amazing to see the size of the crowds and just how enthusiastic they are for this. It’s four hours of nonstop rock with, we have a special guest, John Waite, who opens the show at seven. And then, depending on the night, either Foreigner will go on next, and then Styx closes. We flip it every night who closes. The resilience, the excitement of the audience is unparalleled quite honestly. The enthusiasm is tremendous to see.

On his early admiration for Pittsburgh:

One of the things I love was that WDVE was one of the sole stations in the United States there and then in Cleveland that played a song that I had out that had gone to No. 1 in Canada. It was called “A Criminal Mind.” They were one of the ones that kind of championed it just as an import record back in ’85. So we even recorded, Styx did a version of that song on the DVD that we did I think in 2002 or 2003, and it was recorded there at the same amphitheater we were playing in Burgettstown.

On being fortunate to still be playing music after 20+ years with Styx:

If you get to play music for your life, and I’ve been able to do that since I was 19 years of age as far as being a professional musician … you have to be extremely grateful to the universe to allow this, to the fates in a lot of ways, to allow this to proceed. That doesn’t mean I haven’t put all the work in that’s required. I’ve done that, but it’s never really been work. It’s been the desire to have this be the outcome, and it was just to be playing music and seeing people react to it the way they do as often as I can every year. So, yes, I’m eternally grateful to whatever the roll of the consequences of making this choice as a young person. I’ve been very, very pleased with how it’s played out.

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On having his brother, Terry, join the band as their bassist:

Terry was with me at the professional level from 1985, and he played in all my solo shows. He would have done that show with Tears for Fears (in Pittsburgh) in 1985. So he was with me on a good number of my records, actually, five of the six albums. So he’s got a great resume. He’s got records alongside Alex Lifeson of Rush and Tony Levin of Peter Gabriel and Jerry Marotta, Jon Anderson of Yes, Jann Arden and Robert Fripp (of King Crimson) actually played it a little bit on. He’s steeped in all kinds of (music). A couple of times he was musical director for big events that Leonard Cohen did in Toronto. So he’s got lots and lots of stuff on his resume that qualified him for this position. But I think most of all, it’s that in my solo shows from 2010 to 2020, Todd Sucherman, our drummer from Styx, of course, joined us for those shows across Canada and Terry was the bassist. So they had already played well over 100 shows together as a rhythm section. So it became a natural consequence of needing a bass player, he was really the only name that came right to the top of the list. And I gotta say, he really set the bill beyond expectation as well, because he’s been embraced by the audience and the band loves having him in.

(Original bassist) Chuck Panozzo, he made a great comment early on after the first couple of shows. He went, I love that there’s brothers in the band again, because we started as a brothers band, he and his brother John. So there’s a little bit of precedent there that seems to tickle Chuck’s amusement.

On whether Styx belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

Clearly. For a band to last for 53 years at this point and be doing the biggest tour of their existence, to have had their most recent album, “Crash of the Crown,” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Rock album chart a couple of years ago. And just the mere fact that the songs that they came up with in the ’70s and early ’80s, have withstood by far the test of time. The fact that we always celebrate anyone who’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it always seems well-deserved. We love when someone who’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame gets to open a show for Styx. That happens quite often, and the irony of that is not lost on us, but it’s one of those things where it’s an exclusive club. I really don’t know what bar you’d have to clear beyond what the band has long established that would qualify, but I would love to see it for the guys who were originally in the band in the 1970s.