Dennis DeYoung Sues Styx, Styx Says 'Huh?'

10/11/2000 6:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(10/11/00, 6 p.m. ET) - Former Styx lead singer and keyboardist Dennis DeYoung has filed suit in federal court against his onetime bandmates, who claim to be in the dark about the whole thing.

DeYoung says that in 1990, he and the band's best-known lineup--singer-guitarists Tommy Shaw and James Young, bassist Chuck Panozzo, and drummer John Panozzo--renewed an agreement they had stipulating that anything concerning the group or its trademark had to be unanimously agreed upon, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.

DeYoung, who opted out of a 1999 Styx tour to deal with health issues, now says he's not invited to make band decisions. The suit names Young, Shaw, and Chuck Panozzo as defendants (John Panozzo died in 1996). DeYoung is asking for unspecified monetary damages, including a share of the profits from the current tour, as well as the recovery of his costs and attorney fees.

However, the members of Styx are dumbfounded by the news because they don't know anything about it. Band manager Charlie Drusco told LAUNCH that the group is currently on tour in Canada, after which they head to Europe for more shows, and that no one connected with Styx had been served with any papers. He added that if true, this is the first anyone in the organization has heard from DeYoung in about 18 months. Drusco said he called every lawyer he knew connected with Styx and/ or DeYoung, and none of them had any information on a lawsuit. He also said that he's checked with several attorneys, all of whom confirmed that the band is "on solid ground with the use of the name" Styx.About a year ago, DeYoung told LAUNCH he was frustrated with Shaw and Young for not talking to him about his continued participation in Styx. "I have been trying to get them to sit down and talk with me on a conference call or have a meeting to work this out," he said, "and they've refused to talk to me, so it's been crushing to me because I've been ill. The two of them have. . .I don't know what they're doing. It's just been horrifying."

Earlier this year, Shaw told LAUNCH that he was disappointed about DeYoung's airing of the group's dirty laundry in public. "I've always been of the mentality where you keep private goings-on of a band--you keep those private because the fans don't need to know about all that stuff," he said. "They come to see us to forget about their problems, not to hear about ours. So I think you just look at the net effect of all of it and wish everybody well. And we wish Dennis well, and we wish him happiness and success."

-- Gary Graff, Detroit, and Bruce Simon, New York

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