The Grand Delusion - The Unauthorized True Story of Styx

The Grand Delusion – The Unauthorized True Story of Styx – by Sterling Whitaker 

This is by no means a “serious” biography. This is essentially a book written by a fan for the fans. Styx was one of those bands that had a long history of moderate success until they exploded with popularity in 1981 with their album Paradise Theatre. All of the sudden they were on top of the world. They didn’t enjoy the view for long. Their follow up album contained the song “Mr. Roboto”, which like the Apollo 13 mission could be deemed “A Successful Failure”.  In addition to the quirky song alienating a chunk of fans, there was a lot of internal squabbling going on among the band members as well.  So Styx faded into obscurity rather quickly as the 80s wore on.

They took everyone by surprise with a highly successful reunion tour and live album in 1996, but the wounds and egos persisted and the next thing you knew, front man Dennis DeYoung was basically kicked out of his own band. This book was written several years into his exodus, with remaining members Tommy Shaw and James ‘J.Y.’ Young taking the lead and trying to keep the name ‘Styx’ relevant by persistent touring.

Sterling Whitaker is a fan and music journalist who puts together the best thing that the fans of this band have if they want a biography. This book is patchy, and not well written, but that really doesn’t seem to be the point. 90% of this book is interviews with key people in the band’s history. The author basically includes the entire transcript of the interviews as he goes through the band’s history. Other than Tommy Shaw, none of the key members of the band are interviewed, but isn’t that usually the case with “unauthorized biographies”? Even Tommy’s interview was done sometime in the early 90s, but there are plenty of well known and respected people that were close enough to the band’s inner circle to give this book the credit and authenticity it deserves.  Included are interviews with record executives, band managers, road managers, and current ‘filler’ members to give the book the detail it needs.

‘Detail’, though, tends to be this book’s weakness as well as its strength. The interviews within this book should have been edited and presented to the reader with information that is only interesting, or at least relevant, to the readers.  Example: There’s one lengthy interview with Michael Cartelone (the drummer of ‘Damn Yankees’, Tommy Shaw’s other band) where Cartelone talks about drum fills for an entire page of the interview, and Whitaker includes it all. Oy.   There are a lot of instances like this here.  Then, we even have interviews with other fans that probably shouldn’t be included. There was one series of interviews with a guy who, to my knowledge, may have interviewed members of the band himself at one time, but his only claim to fame is that he hosted a Styx Collector website.  He presented his opinions as fact and just rubbed me the wrong way.  I can tolerate James Young sputtering such nonsense as “Cyclorama is the best thing that Styx has ever done”, but when an ordinary fan spews out such sloth, it’s a bit much.  I felt like I was reading the ‘comments’ section on a Facebook page. Then, when the author himself includes such things as his juvenile reviews of each album that are basically a one-line sentence about each song included, it seems rather unprofessional.

Still, though, there really is no better source for the fan than what author Whitaker provides. You feel like you’re going through all the motions that the band experienced from the very beginning all the way through the various ups and downs of their latter days.  You won’t find as much detail about this band anywhere else. So give Sterling Whitaker credit for meticulous research and journalism. I just think he could have benefited by an editor, or at least a professional co-author.