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