Many years ago, when he was younger and had hair cascading to his shoulders and a mustache that appeared more than vaguely sinister, Dennis DeYoung sat in a San Diego hotel suite and said, “There are tougher ways to live.”
No kidding.
There was always a white limo waiting at the curb downstairs, at DeYoung’s disposal. There was a table in the room heavy with fine food. There was a stadium a few miles away packed with thousands eagerly awaiting the chance to loudly voice their adoration for DeYoung.
Such was the lifestyle of a 1970s and ’80s rock star, which is what DeYoung was, as the lead singer, keyboardist and principal lyricist for Styx, the Chicago-based band that sold something in the ritzy neighborhood of 27 million albums.
“Being a rock star is the best job in the world,” DeYoung said, picking apart a chicken and pepper sandwich at a Near North Side Italian restaurant several days ago. “And the reasons are simple: It takes the least talent, makes the most money and has the most enthusiastic fans.”
DeYoung, 46, seemed almost wistful talking about his days on the road with Styx, perhaps because of the realities of the road he’s currently on.
Since March he has been playing Pontius Pilate in the touring “Jesus Christ Superstar,” which was here for a week in March. It returns Wednesday for an eight-show engagement at the Chicago Theatre, in large part because of DeYoung’s popularity in his hometown, where he has always lived.
“It has been different,” DeYoung says. “Hey, but not that different. I was reading a story in USA Today about the summer’s most successful tours.
“The (Grateful) Dead were on top, of course, followed by McCartney, Sting, Neil Diamond, Guns N’ Roses. Do you know what was at No. 7?”
His lunch companion did not, nor did the waitress.
“We were!” DeYoung said. ” `Jesus Christ Superstar.’ Can you believe that?”
But the differences between leading a rock band and being a lesser figure in a stage play are immense. In talking to DeYoung about those lifestyles, one senses that he has a new appreciation for his rock ‘n’ roll days.
“Imagine there’s a tree of entertainment,” DeYoung says. “At the top are the rock stars, then movie stars, TV stars, then moving lower are the circus performers. And finally theater actors.”
He laughs at this observation.
“I have tremendous respect for people who choose theater as a career,” he said. “The discipline that it takes to perform the same part, day in and day out, eight shows a week . . . whew.
“As a musician my aim was to communicate what I’ve written to an audience. The theater is so different. It’s an observed reality. You must behave as if there isn’t an audience. Olivier said that on stage, `you must pretend you are someone else.’ ” (Self-effacingly, the native South Sider then declared, “Hey look at me, a kid from Roseland quoting Olivier.”)
DeYoung has always shown an interest in theater. The latter Styx albums, “Paradise Theater” and “Kilroy Was Here,” were ambitious music-theater concoctions. “Kilroy” was especially so; set in a near future where rock ‘n’ roll is outlawed, it attacked censorship and demanded acting from the band members.
It was during a hilarious impromptu lobby performance during the Goodman Theatre’s production of “Galileo” in 1986-DeYoung transforming the play’s star-gazing subject into a contemporary South Sider-that DeYoung was noticed by the theater’s artistic director, Robert Falls, who some months later asked DeYoung to audition for a role in “Ghost on Fire.”
“That was a straight dramatic role and I think at the time I might have been over my head,” DeYoung said. “But the audition was a great experience.”
A shaky start
The Pilate part came about when his sister-in-law married Forbes Candish, the line producer of “Superstar.”
“He offered and I wasn’t busy,” DeYoung said. “That simple.”
But things did not begin auspiciously. The day before the show was to open in Baltimore, DeYoung had done his first two scenes in a final dress rehearsal-“flawlessly, I might add,” he says, laughing-and was standing on a platform when a huge roll of scenery fell, hitting him on the head and knocking him eight feet.
His knee and back seriously injured, he was out of the show for six weeks, back in his south suburban home in a wheelchair. He joined the show two weeks before its first Chicago visit.
“Then, zoom-27 cities,” he said.
Still, such a number pales when set aside those of a rock ‘n’ roll tour. Styx was on the road for all of 1981: “115 cities in the United States and Canada and 11 countries in Europe,” DeYoung said.
I was on the road with Styx for a four-city swing through the Southwest in 1979. Expecting to sample the wild and debauched lifestyle that characterized many bands of the time-groupies galore, drugs aplenty and hotel rooms turned to war zones-I instead found a rather tame trip that included a visit to a Go Kart track and a lot of water and juice.
Among the most curiously sedate aspects of the journey was the presence of DeYoung’s wife, Suzanne, and his two young children, Carrie Anne and Matthew.
“It’s my family. I want them with me. And the road made an adult of my daughter long before her contemporaries,” DeYoung said. “On the road a child gets to see the real world, gets to interact with adults.”
Carrie’s in college now. But Matthew, who’s about to enter high school, has been with DeYoung and his wife for the entire “Superstar” tour. During the days on the road, Dennis spends his free time writing music and, during the NBA playoffs, watched the Bulls.
A Broadway album
After the Chicago Theatre, the show heads to Cleveland and then a four-week jaunt through Canada. It is scheduled to continue into next year, but DeYoung’s done as of early September.
“It was never my intention to stay in the role forever. It’s been a great experience. I have a much better grasp of what it takes to be in the theater, to put together a show,” DeYoung said. “But something else came along.”
That something else is a record deal. Atlantic Records has signed him to do a solo album.
“It’s an album of Broadway tunes,” DeYoung said. “There will be a lot of contemporary songs and a few old ones. Do you like `Summertime’ from `Porgy and Bess’? I might do that.”
The talk turned to small halls or intimate rooms that DeYoung might tour after the album’s completion.
“OK, OK,” he said, responding to a two-part question. “The best thing about this tour? The reviews. Styx was never what you’d call a critic’s darling. We got slammed more than any band I know. But in this show, even though I’d only get a couple of lines, maybe a small paragraph, every word was kind or even gushing.
“The worst thing? That’s that Pilate doesn’t get the chance-he’s not a rock star, you know-to turn to the audience, wink and say to the crowd, `Hey, Chicago. How ya doin’? We love you.’ “
