Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: James Young, known mostly by fans as Jay, was not
Speaker 2: a founding member of Styx, but it was there from
Speaker 2: the very early days and one of those guys whose
Speaker 2: guitar styles are distinct and whose virtuosity is underrated. Jay,
Speaker 2: it is a pleasure to have you on Coast to Coast,
Speaker 2: my pleasure. Okay, I'm going to tell you a story
Speaker 2: about you. Okay, So I don't know how you did it.
Speaker 3: This doesn't this is aproprobe nothing.
Speaker 2: But I had been on WGN for a while and
Speaker 2: I was not the whole band, but it was you
Speaker 2: and somebody else had come on. And then I got
Speaker 2: fired from WGN. About seven months later, I'm in the
Speaker 2: hallways at WGST in atlant at it where you were
Speaker 2: making an appearance with I think the whole band at
Speaker 2: that point on ninety six Rock, and you said hi.
Speaker 3: To me in the hallway. I'm like, how did you
Speaker 3: do that?
Speaker 2: You're like a name savant, I can't remember the people
Speaker 2: I met this morning, and you're like, hey, it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: that was that was? You should really you should run
Speaker 2: for governor because that is a that is a gift
Speaker 2: that you can remember anybody like that. So it's a
Speaker 2: pleasure to talk to you again after all these years. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I am, and this is I was just talking to
Speaker 2: somebody about how special I think that is, especially with
Speaker 2: regard to bands like Sticks, because I think all over
Speaker 2: the country, I mean, we all know disjog Is in
Speaker 2: morning hosts and I mean a million people in the business.
Speaker 2: But I got to know Sticks when you were back
Speaker 2: on Wooden Nickel. I remember Sticks when people were still stapling,
Speaker 2: you know, posters of you up on walls and telephone polls.
Speaker 3: That's how long I feel like I've known this band.
Speaker 4: Well, every large enterprise starts in some small idea, and
Speaker 4: we just kept working at it and believed in ourselves,
Speaker 4: and we were fortunate to get signed to a record label.
Speaker 4: It was pretty good to start with, and then we
Speaker 4: were fortunate enough to be able to get out of
Speaker 4: that contract. The things started exploding. We found good people
Speaker 4: to represent us, and we didn't get not too much,
Speaker 4: got shaved off the money that we were supposed to get.
Speaker 4: We weren't paying attention or whatever, and it's I don't know,
Speaker 4: it's it's such a spectacular journey to start out. I
Speaker 4: pick up guitar at age fourteen. Everyone and my family
Speaker 4: was starting on piano at age five. But I just
Speaker 4: bo didly a gun slingers, the first Nyal little p
Speaker 4: I bought. And now I'm friends with his daughter. I've
Speaker 4: met a couple of times, but he's I've heard he's
Speaker 4: kind of a cranky old guy. And I think you
Speaker 4: passed away recently. But but you know, that's what got
Speaker 4: me going on guitar. And then Jimmy Hendrix the most
Speaker 4: for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but you know it's five times live.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the thing though, And so I was
Speaker 2: talking about this. There was a recently there was a
Speaker 2: reunion of Chicago disc jockeys from that era and they
Speaker 2: had a you know, they get together and they talk about,
Speaker 2: uh the and they're gonna do it again next Labor
Speaker 2: Day where they just talk about that particular like late
Speaker 2: sixties or mid sixties or mid seventies kind of period
Speaker 2: of Chicago radio, and that that was that was sort
Speaker 2: of you, I say, looked into but you were there
Speaker 2: at that energy point where before every got nationalized and
Speaker 2: while there was still a local flavor and you were
Speaker 2: amongst many of the local bands in Chicago that people
Speaker 2: I think were invested in because you had or participated
Speaker 2: in an aspect of that Chicago sound.
Speaker 3: You say Chicago, a lot of people think of the.
Speaker 2: Band Chicago, right, But I mean we all know Ario Speedwagon,
Speaker 2: Aliota Haynes, Jeremiah, You, anybody who grew up in that
Speaker 2: era at that time. That's why it Yeah, and that's you,
Speaker 2: And that's sort of like that's why Styx was just like,
Speaker 2: oh that was it was just it was cool to
Speaker 2: have been listening to you on those first Stix albums
Speaker 2: before they got rediscovered by the rest of the country
Speaker 2: and kind of exploded all over again. Yeah, uh, what's
Speaker 2: your favorite memory? So like, at the same time you're
Speaker 2: picking up guitar, Dennis d Young is picking up the
Speaker 2: accordion or something wasn't he wasn't originally an accordion book.
Speaker 4: He started out on accordion. And we were all we
Speaker 4: were all my family was all started on piano and
Speaker 4: we were encouraged to play a band instrument. And I
Speaker 4: had two older sisters. One played the obo and the
Speaker 4: glockenspiel and the other one played for love. So I
Speaker 4: took the clarinets, because I kind of like Pete Fountain
Speaker 4: and some of that New Orleans Janity was doing. And
Speaker 4: my other brother who was quite talented. And then the
Speaker 4: band with me at that time not not sticks, but
Speaker 4: at the end they had before sticks, he playing the trombone.
Speaker 2: So well, you know, so here you were, I mean
Speaker 2: Illinois Tech, great university.
Speaker 3: I mean it's a final little school.
Speaker 2: And then and but so you're like the sort of
Speaker 2: the of the of the founding members of the group.
Speaker 3: You're the kind of the last to join.
Speaker 2: The rest of the guys all grew up within blocks
Speaker 2: of each other, didn't.
Speaker 4: They the Pinazzo twins, and then as the younglod right
Speaker 4: across the street from each other. And they met John
Speaker 4: Serluski at Chicago's Teachers College, where they all went to
Speaker 4: get their teaching degrees. Became an art teacher in Fanger
Speaker 4: High School. Dennis taught music in the junior high setting.
Speaker 4: But we played, we kept when I got there. We
Speaker 4: would they would play a lot of proms in this
Speaker 4: and the other thing. Because a booking agent was able
Speaker 4: to get that kind of work. And there was some
Speaker 4: Friday night dance dance club that was downtown called I
Speaker 4: can't even remember what it was, but because I never
Speaker 4: played one, I got there after that era. But they
Speaker 4: they you know, they they did good money going and
Speaker 4: uh it was it was a fellow that was married
Speaker 4: to Dennis's female cousin that kind of booked the band.
Speaker 4: At that point in time. It was quote unquit with
Speaker 4: the manager. Yeah, but but ultimately it was pretty clear
Speaker 4: that he, you know, he really wasn't gonna be able
Speaker 4: to get us any further. And uh after the first
Speaker 4: couple of albums came out and then uh so we
Speaker 4: said goodbye to him and uh and got a manager,
Speaker 4: British guy who had worked with a lot of the
Speaker 4: British bands, tour manager Derek Sutton. Then he came to
Speaker 4: Celp for it it's to manage that actually be a
Speaker 4: band manager. And he worked with Robin Trauer and others.
Speaker 4: So Derek and and we are able to get a
Speaker 4: record contract with A and M Records. Herb Albert and
Speaker 4: Jerry Moss. I mean that's that's a real record label.
Speaker 4: Where As an artist, Herb Alberts it's half owner of.
Speaker 3: The company, right and could plays oh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I could play, and but but had a sense
Speaker 4: of music that most record companies Secutive maybe don't have
Speaker 4: because they're not that musical themselves. So we were. We
Speaker 4: were blessed there because it's really like an artist's paradise there,
Speaker 4: just everyone go hang out. It used to be the
Speaker 4: Charlie Chaplin film lot where their headquarters were. It was
Speaker 4: no stealing glass giant tower. It was a two story
Speaker 4: thing where they Charlie Chaplin made silent films. So it
Speaker 4: was just kind of a cool showbiz, movie business, la
Speaker 4: centric vibe that that the place had. And just going there,
Speaker 4: you bump into you know, Lonnie Hall from her you
Speaker 4: want to Branch and whatever, just right, A and M
Speaker 4: people and Peter Crampton came out of that that school
Speaker 4: as well, sure and uh alive with a huge album
Speaker 4: and yeah, our Grand Illusion kind of followed after that
Speaker 4: and sold just by as many as he did.
Speaker 2: I saw I saw Frampton, Uh, I believe it. I
Speaker 2: can't remember whether it was the World Series of Rock
Speaker 2: Tour or the Monsters of Rock Tour one of those.
Speaker 2: And that was the old Comiskey I think it was,
Speaker 2: or or or Maywood Park or something. I can't remember,
Speaker 2: but uh, yeah, well you played my high school.
Speaker 4: I don't doubt it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of bands would deny it.
Speaker 3: They would be like, I don't believe we have college
Speaker 3: with my brother. So yeah, So here's the deal.
Speaker 2: You we're talking with Jay Young of of of James
Speaker 2: Young of JY and your your sound with people associate too.
Speaker 3: I think your participation of the band was always that
Speaker 3: rock edge on.
Speaker 2: The guitar, but you do great vocals, and you are
Speaker 2: responsible for many of the stick songs, especially on the
Speaker 2: early albums, which later on, I mean, I think they're classics.
Speaker 3: I think that there isn't.
Speaker 2: I'm going to play a bumper at the bottom of
Speaker 2: the hour, Jy of the one stick song. I have
Speaker 2: to start my morning with every couple of weeks anyway,
Speaker 2: because it goes to my head constantly. And it wasn't
Speaker 2: just your rip and guitar. It was your It was
Speaker 2: the vocal, and it was it's and you. Those early
Speaker 2: years are you recorded in Chicago mostly, didn't you?
Speaker 4: Well, we were recorded first Goal Records. We're in a
Speaker 4: downtown Chicago studio that did jingles but had really great
Speaker 4: technology there. And then Gary li whe Though, who had
Speaker 4: his own home studio. He was the lead singer the
Speaker 4: American Breed and retired from that band and started having
Speaker 4: a recording you know, studio in his home and we
Speaker 4: go to Gary's to record and thenissrtly like the way
Speaker 4: Gary recorded vocals. So it's great to have somebody that was,
Speaker 4: you know, a great singer in his own right, Jurry
Speaker 4: and who'd come along and so we we bought yeah
Speaker 4: a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But but that's actually a really interesting point because American
Speaker 2: Breed was a Chicago bend right. They did bend Me,
Speaker 2: Shape Me and then right and then some of the
Speaker 2: guys went out to La and they formed Rufus, didn't they.
Speaker 4: I think Rufus. I think there's some of the people
Speaker 4: right form Rufus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so but again this is where I'm just
Speaker 2: going to go back to this retro radio thing they
Speaker 2: did recently about which is just was very jock focused.
Speaker 3: But there was this connection.
Speaker 2: You guys are getting played on AM and FM in
Speaker 2: Chicago at different stations like WLS and you, but you
Speaker 2: weren't getting necessarily you weren't getting national play yet.
Speaker 4: No no, no, no, no no, I mean we really
Speaker 4: didn't get that. Lady was on stix To, which is
Speaker 4: our second record, which was recorded in seventy three. Person
Speaker 4: was Court in seventy two, and we sort of, you know,
Speaker 4: it didn't really get pushed that far. It got onto
Speaker 4: the charts, but it didn't really get high up. And somehow,
Speaker 4: some way, it seemed like some of our the showby
Speaker 4: the attorney said, you know, they really didn't work that record.
Speaker 4: They should have, and they didn't. They didn't push it
Speaker 4: hard enough, they didn't get behind it, and so they
Speaker 4: we had kind of a re release of it a
Speaker 4: year later, and then actually it got to number one
Speaker 4: in every city. It just didn't get to number one
Speaker 4: at the same time. So the national charts, we were
Speaker 4: in the top five a number of times with The
Speaker 4: Lady as a single, but it never got to number
Speaker 4: one on the chart. But top ten, we'll take top ten.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and that's the thing. Top ten in a
Speaker 2: city like Chicago. Other bands were top ten in Miami
Speaker 2: or top ten and there was still a kind of regionalism.
Speaker 3: What's that.
Speaker 4: But Lady it was top ten nationally, right, so you
Speaker 4: got there.
Speaker 2: But what I'm saying is at the beginning there used
Speaker 2: to be much more. And this is I'm not trying
Speaker 2: to sound like the old guy in the lawn. But
Speaker 2: as I've grown to know how the music business works,
Speaker 2: there were so many of these smaller labels like Wooden
Speaker 2: Nickel that had really good regional success, but it took
Speaker 2: a larger label to come in and either purchase the
Speaker 2: tracks for you know, purchase the masters whatever it was
Speaker 2: that they were going to buy, and then they and
Speaker 2: then they propelled them forward. But that was the thing
Speaker 2: about I mean, I still have my Wooden Nickel Stix albums.
Speaker 4: Okay, I were.
Speaker 3: Gonna let them go, all right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But so you took a kind of an unusual
Speaker 2: path today to number one as a and I say
Speaker 2: number one meaning the band was one of the obviously
Speaker 2: one of the most popular bands of the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: What's your fondest memory of those early years when you
Speaker 2: guys were you were hoofing it. You were you know,
Speaker 2: you were a baby band and you were trying to
Speaker 2: break it.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean we you know, we had we rode
Speaker 4: in a motor home and and our three crew guys
Speaker 4: are in a big old box truck that you know,
Speaker 4: I carry the gear, and then all the piacisms and
Speaker 4: everything we dealt with the production for the show was
Speaker 4: far different than it is today. It was, it was,
Speaker 4: it was evolving, but anywhere they were willing to pay us,
Speaker 4: we kind of went there, right. And then all of
Speaker 4: a sudden somebody like Little Rock Arkansas A Lady actually
Speaker 4: became number one in Little Rock Arkansaw the first first
Speaker 4: go round and KAA y, which is fifty thousand white
Speaker 4: thing like WLS in Chicago. I could drive around in
Speaker 4: my car and hear KAA y every night. There's a
Speaker 4: guy named Clyde Clifford who had kind of a psychedelic
Speaker 4: show going on down there. And so we became popular
Speaker 4: and Little Rock played Little Rock. It was the first
Speaker 4: real city we played outside of Illinois, and would get
Speaker 4: into Wisconsin quite a bit, and then of course in
Speaker 4: Indiana and Michigan. But it took a while to spread
Speaker 4: the whole thing. We just had to keep at it
Speaker 4: and we did.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And at the same time, your roles within the band
Speaker 2: of Sticks, I mean, you were all excellent musicians, but you.
Speaker 3: Could hear the growth as a songwriter.
Speaker 2: And I think it's been said fairly maybe that you
Speaker 2: were the George Harrison of Stix right that if Tommy
Speaker 2: Shawan right.
Speaker 4: That's a fair example.
Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Take that, that's cool and Styx had you know, we
Speaker 2: talk about the you know, progressive rock has kind of
Speaker 2: come back as a term, but that prog rock of
Speaker 2: the early seventies that was its own thing.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean there's a lot of British bands that
Speaker 4: really got into the prague before we did, and we
Speaker 4: were just trying to take it, you know, embrace that
Speaker 4: in a way that we could still do our music.
Speaker 4: And I mean, hopefully the pinnacle of the seventies for
Speaker 4: us was the Grand Illusion album.
Speaker 3: Right right.
Speaker 4: Album was released on seven seven seventy seven, very seven
Speaker 4: million copies, and it was our seventh album.
Speaker 3: Right, It was a great album. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be playing someone from that for a bumper,
Speaker 2: But that's still not the stick.
Speaker 3: Song that I start my morning with. You'll hear me say,
Speaker 3: if you're here.
Speaker 2: In my house, because I'm getting ready, I teach Kansas
Speaker 2: State and I will turn to Alexa. I say, Alexa,
Speaker 2: play and you pop up all the time. I'll play
Speaker 2: you that one I in just a minute as a bumper.
Speaker 2: But yeah, could you guess, I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 2: could you guess what you would?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, like early seventies for people, people that knew
Speaker 2: you well at the very early years.
Speaker 4: Well, best Thing was our first single to chart at all.
Speaker 4: But Lady Lady was you know, Lady was the right.
Speaker 4: The third record, Versus of Nothing, emerged nationally, and the
Speaker 4: fourth fourth rad was Man of Miracles, which, yeah.
Speaker 3: That was kind of a dip, wasn't it.
Speaker 2: That was kind of that wasn't your That was an
Speaker 2: off speed album for you all?
Speaker 4: Well, it was, it was, I don't know we did that.
Speaker 4: It was rather low check comparatively to what followed, right,
Speaker 4: And yeah, the first record with different a m that
Speaker 4: really made up that that was really the next.
Speaker 2: That's a great out, great up all right. So I'm
Speaker 2: just setting that up. I just as I've thrown that
Speaker 2: out there. And you know, it's just funny because if
Speaker 2: I had to picture you, honestly, I mean, you're a
Speaker 2: handsome man, j Y, you are, but if I had
Speaker 2: to picture you, it's with that mall poodle do and
Speaker 2: and they uh and I'm you know, honestly, that sort
Speaker 2: of space man shirt you had with the fake with
Speaker 2: the shoulder pads on it, the kind of the Rick
Speaker 2: James thing you had going on, that's.
Speaker 3: How I picture you.
Speaker 4: Well, we got it those jumps, Yes we did.
Speaker 2: Do you still have that those I wouldn't call them costumes.
Speaker 2: Would you still have that regalia from the from the
Speaker 2: early years or even the mid years?
Speaker 4: Uh, they're They're probably hidden in my ex somewhere.
Speaker 3: Okay, Smithsonian dude, I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast a m. Every weeknight
Speaker 1: at one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to
Speaker 1: coastam dot com for more