James 'JY' Young is the lead guitarist for the American rock band Styx, having served as the only continuous original member of the band during the group's fifty-year run. Young joined host Ian Punnett (Twitter) on Friday's show to discuss the band's history and music. The members of the founding line-up of Styx include twin brothers Chuck and John Panozzo, Dennis DeYoung who lived across the street from them, John Curulewski who they met at college, and Young who was last to come aboard. "We just kept working at it and believed in ourselves, and were fortunate to get signed to record deal... it's a spectacular journey," Young said.
The band rode in a motor home to get to gigs with three crew following in a box truck that carried the gear. "Anyone who was willing to pay us we kind of went there," Young recalled. The first "real city" Styx played outside of Illinois was Little Rock, Arkansas. It took some time to gain popularity as a touring act and on the charts, he revealed. According to Young, the song "Lady," which appears on the album Styx II, "got onto the charts but it didn't really get high up" because the band's original record company did not get behind it. The song was re-released a year later and attained "number one in every city," Young noted. He also spoke about the band's embrace of progressive rock which hit its pinnacle with their album The Grand Illusion. Young estimated sales for The Grand Illusion at 7 million units.
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Open Lines followed in the latter half of the program. Jim in Normal, Illinois, spoke about his interest in studies related to the historical Jesus. "One thing we have to be honest about is that [Jesus] was into apocalyptic thinking, and he was expecting the end to come soon," he explained, noting all of the early Christians expected the "Son of Man" to return in their lifetimes. "It didn't happen and we need to be honest about that," he said. Jim also pointed out that Paul is likely the author of only seven of the 13 letters attributed to him.
A caller named Mike phoned in to report that he had grown up on the same block in Chicago as James Young. "I used to play football in his backyard with his younger brother," Mike said, adding Young had the greatest family. "His band would play for our block parties," Mike revealed. Marcy from San Diego told Ian about a Michael Moore film she watched in which he interviewed a Native American leader in Arizona who predicted what she thinks was 9-11. According to March, the man warned "any of the tribe that have any relatives or know anybody in New York City to move out... because of massive fires and ashes falling and explosions, and everybody was going to die."