In a new chat with Ultimate Classic Rock’s Matt Wardlaw, Tommy Shaw hinted at Styx’s new album.
“I guess we just stumbled upon a way of doing it. Just writing, you don’t have to write the whole thing at one time,” the musician said. “Like [Styx producer] Will [Evankovich] and I, we’ve been writing songs together for you know for 10, 15 years.”
Shaw continued his words, “And when we get one that we like, Will’s a lot more organized than I am, but he’ll put it on a hard drive. And so we had amassed a whole bunch of songs.”
“Suddenly, we got hot writing new stuff. And then we went back and looked at some other things and said these things all it all goes together. Now we’re working on [the album] and finishing it. And it’s exciting,” the rocker explained.
Styx’s latest album ‘Crash of the Crown’ arrived on June 18, 2021. It could have been a double LP, but the band chose to keep it shorter. They still released some extra songs from the sessions on Record Store Day.
“We never like to go beyond the limits of two sides of a 12 inch vinyl disc,” Shaw told UCR in 2021. “Our challenge is to make somebody sit there and not go walk away before you get through side one. Not only that, we want them to go, ‘Okay, I want to hear what’s on side two.'”
The band kept writing songs even after the album sessions ended. Tommy enjoyed his continued collaboration with Will Evankovich. The guitarist added, “In fact, we’ve got stuff that we don’t know what to do with. Enough for a solo album — but I’m not ready to do that right now.”
Styx will tour with Kevin Cronin from REO Speedwagon in the summer 2025. Former Eagles guitarist Don Felder will join them as a special guest.
