People like to let loose at rock concerts and it gives them an excuse to do it in a way that is not destructive to others and not really destructive to the band.

So, We're really L.A. based with a secondary base in Chicago.

Seeing our VH-1 Behind the Music shows just how dysfunctional some of the moments of the band were but this new line-up has put the fun back in dysfunction.

There are a lot of people using technology that are playing to a click with backing vocals already stuck in there on some computerized thing that runs along in time to the show so they have these amazing vocals that are only partly the guys on stage producing them at the time.

So, maybe you don't see blues so much in Styx's music but it is definitely part of Tommy's early music.

And in an era where radio stations that are inclined to play Styx music are your classic rock stations and the stations that play current music look at us as dinosaurs - the only way we could reach people with our new music, generally, is to perform live.

Ten years ago, in 94, we thought maybe nobody would ever care about Styx again.

People tell us they have been inspired by our music to do great things.

The studio that we mix in is still in Chicago.

But, there was a time when we all had a great thing going but one person just became very uncomfortable with it and he had to try to change it around to suit him more and then it suited no one else but him.

It is something we have always excelled at and prided ourselves at - the excellences of our stage performance.

Being in a rock band is about touring. It's about writing songs and it's about making records but it's also about taking a wonderful smile onto that stage and making the people feel good about themselves.

Yes, indeed, in fact I would tell you that we go out of our way to be true to the original feeling and sort of sonic and musical pallet that we painted with back then.

But there are rock and roll fans all over this continent and all over the globe, really, and we're just set at marking the planet with Styx music until the day we die.

We always got a strong response but I think in this day in age there is less of a marijuana fog at concerts and more of people just more naturally exuberant - it seems to me.

I'll play until they have to scrape me off the stage.

In my own mind, we are a much happier and much more functional family and a much more well balanced group of individual s both off and on the stage - in the current incarnation.

People like to let loose at rock concerts and it gives them an excuse to do it in a way that is not destructive to others and not really destructive to the band.

And for REO - they get to play for some Styx fans and then we get to play in front of some REO fans. It helps spread the new music to the following of other bands.

The band we have now on stage is the band I always wanted to be in.

Sometimes that mantle is hard to adjust to wearing but we are at a stage that we are comfortable with it and we recognize how we are perceived and how the real core individual that each one of us has apart from the facade that the public believes that we are.

Whereas with us - what you hear is what's happening right then and there on the stage - so we don't need no stinking technology.

Being in the studio is okay but sitting in a room by yourself composing is a discipline that takes a certain type of mind set and Tommy has a great gift for that as did the previous guy.

I don't quite have the energy for extra curricular activities. I have to pace myself a little bit more.

You know the puritan ethic that started out four centuries ago in this country, needless to say - at least for the moment - a thing of the past - from what I can tell.

I don't know, I think the crowds are even more responsive now because the audiences are skewing younger.

So, it's a matter of that I want to take our music around the globe.

We're gonna release a studio album probably a year from now and we've got these recordings that we did with Coco Taylor and Johnny Johnson, who was Chuck Berry's piano player.

And I said - Styx - as a musical group it is our place to reflect the light that is shining on us back onto this place and say - this is where so much great stuff started.

There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.

Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.

Many are needed to plant and water what has been planted now that the faith has spread so far and there are so many people... No matter who plants or waters, God gives no harvest unless what is planted is the faith of Peter and unless he agrees to his teachings.

DJs and people in the street know what they like.

People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile.

Some people are directors and I think they should stay behind the camera.

We dominated Survivor - there is no way we would not dominate that, too. I can see it already, us making deals with people. That's the best part, and with the Race, it would be even more fun because I've got a lot of tricks up my sleeve.

I'm getting a wider circle of fans now. More women, more middle class people.

We must support initiatives that provide clear, concrete measures and milestones that our troops need for defeating the insurgency, building up Iraqi security forces, and handing over Iraq to the Iraqi people.

Yeah, that's what kind of, we get the idea a little bit yeah, because other people from different countries also try as hard as they can to get a medal or a gold medal in the Olympic Games. And you know, if they can work hard, we can work hard as well.

Well concerning the world records that I did, I think it helps a lot to me, yeah. I think it's a very individual thing because I heard some people say, like, oh I don't like it at all. But I definitely, for me it really made a big difference.

My goal is, of course, for this show to do well, and I would love it if people liked it.

I hate wasting people's time.

Religions get lost as people do.

I also do not like the idea of soft money, these issue ads - people don't know where the money is coming from, millions and millions of dollars outside of the control of a candidate - there's no accountability.

The people of England are the most enthusiastic in the world.

The avantgarde are people who don't exactly know where they want to go, but are the first to get there.

My theory is if you have a religion, it's a good one. Because some people don't have any at all.

It's sometimes shocking to find out what people really believe in.

That's Tommy, this great producer who comes in contact with people and must have a mental library of personnel who are great for this and great for that, and he brought this whole group of musicians to the project that I'd never worked with before.