Top 102 Quotes & Sayings by Dennis DeYoung
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Dennis DeYoung.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
Nobody can beat those songs on 'Abbey Road.'
To be successful in your life, you have to be convinced in your own mind that you have the ability to accomplish your goals.
I don't see how 'Hunchback' could ever appeal to children. It's a very adult story that deals with repressed sexuality.
Really, the amount of work I do on a project, I will torture myself.
If you say 'Domo arigato' to people, they're apt to go, 'Mr. Roboto.'
Music was everything. But what the digital revolution has done, with streaming services and downloads, is take the value out of music. When things lose value they lose their meaning.
I made 'Desert Moon' and when I made those solo albums, I was trying not to be Styx, because I thought, 'That belongs to us.' So, I made different kinds of solo albums that were not dipping my hand back into the magic Styx jar and pulling out all the tricks - because bands, they have tricks, don't they? That's what makes them different.
I've lived a charmed life.
I was lucky by birth.
We came along at a time when people were really focused on music. We were part of the second generation of bands after all of those great 60's bands when rock was still in its' infancy.
Radio stations provided a service. They weeded out the stuff that no one should ever have to even think about. Now, they made mistakes and they made mistakes with me even but, by and large, they provided a service. They were an editor.
Touring is real demanding. You swing between sadness and euphoria. But for us to cry about it isn't fair.
When the Beatles broke up, I thought to myself, 'Dude, seriously?'
How lucky am I? I'll go to Naperville and people will come up to me and thank me for coming to Naperville. That's how much music means to people.
When I'm onstage the joy is to try to be the best I can be, I'm there because I want it to be perfect.
Over the years, I thought many times about how my life would have changed if I had been drafted and Styx never had happened. Even if I hadn't been wounded or emotionally scarred, it would have changed my whole timetable.
The Beatles are here, and if you could see me my hand is on the ceiling. Styx is here, and my hand is in the basement.
There is one thing in this world that I'm better that than anyone else and that is being me.
I always say, when I play the first few notes and people scream... if you're tired of that, you should try retail. What else are you looking for?
If you're in rock 'n' roll, you're not supposed to admit to liking theatre stuff, but I'm a big theatregoer.
I could forgive anybody.
It's great when it all comes together in a great musical like 'Sweeney Todd,' when Stephen Sondheim writes songs from heaven, the book is good and the staging is good. But it's very rare when that happens.
I love Styx as much as I could love anything in my life. I started playing in the band when I was 14 years old. You become so involved in something when you start in it that young; you're doing it purely out of love of what you're doing and a belief in it.
If you think marriage is gonna be easy, don't do it because when there are children involved, you screw up the rest of society.
I feel like the luckiest guy on the planet.
My voice doesn't sound like anyone else's. I wanted to sound like my favorite singers when I was young because when you're young you don't put much value on uniqueness. But later I realized I had something special to offer.
I don't wanna be a solo artist. I wanna be in Styx.
All I ever thought about was music and being a musician.
I think the music business is as crass and as unrewarding as it has ever been.
Every artist wants to feel like they're still valid in a contemporary way. But you can't be so arrogant not to think that people who have thrown down their hard-earned money don't want to see and hear the things they want.
My brother-in-law, Chuck, whom I have known since we were teenagers, is a disabled veteran who was wounded while fighting with the marines in Vietnam. I've been around to observe how the war affected his life and the problems that veterans have, and I knew for a long time that I wanted to write a song about Vietnam.
I never wanted to be a solo artist.
I gave my life for Styx and I'm really very proud of it and I didn't want to perform that music and screw it up.
We were together; we were a group; we were a team; we wanted people to love Styx.
I like being on a team and that's what a band is like. It's us against them, strength in numbers, and sharing the success and failure.
Anyone in showbiz rock 'n' roll who says they're so tired of playing their hit songs, I want to smack them. I think it's an act. Because, look, you work your tail off to get people to validate you.
If you want your rock stars that are completely 100 percent serious about themselves and you want them to pretend like they're 25, I'm probably not the guy for that. But if you want to come and say, 'Hey, you know that guy right there, he's just being himself. I kind of like him for that,' you know, then that's me.
Yeah, if anyone tries to tell you 60 is the new 40... don't believe them.
The fact is, for the first 10 years I toured as a solo artist, I wasn't playing any of the songs I didn't write or sing.
Heck, I feel guilty getting my senior discounts.
Music is magic.
People go to musicals because they want to hear some really good songs.
Nobody can figure out why it does what it does to human beings. But there is no other art form greater than music.
I wear sunglasses almost all the time except when I'm on stage.
Sometimes your limitations become your strengths. It forces you to create your own niche.
I had worked so hard on three projects 1997 that it knocked the gas out of me. It was a mystery to the medical profession, but you can test positive for Epstein-Barr and not have it. When you get a post-viral syndrome, for some people it causes chronic fatigue or hearing loss. For me it became light sensitivity.
I formulated the theme behind 'The Grand Illusion' album after observing how American culture creates illusions through advertising and entertainment to convince us that our lives our lacking, in order to sell products.
It's always best when everyone in the group is on the same page.
Originally, AXS TV came to me last year and asked me if I'd be interested in doing an acoustic 'Live from the Grammy Museum' performance. But I was bound and determined to do an electric show with this great band to dispel any notion that I wasn't a 'rock guy' in Styx.
Essentially I'm a melody person in a rhythm age, and that's what Broadway is really about, the songs.
I really believed it was important to explain to our young audience that expectations based on people who are trying to sell them things are unattainable.
Look, nobody is a bigger fan of Tommy Shaw than me. The day I met him in 1975 I knew he was going to be a great guitar player, performer and songwriter. I was his biggest fan, and I'm Styx's number one fan.
I've tried to figure out ways to be less pleased other than the search for perfection. Talk about a thing that'll make you have a miserable life. On that quest, on that journey, down that path, there's a lot of feelings of, 'Why am I doing all this?'
After being replaced in Styx, everyone around me encouraged me to try and stop them legally. I just couldn't. It would have been like suing myself and I held out hope they'd ask me back. They toured under the STYX name for a year and a half before I initiated legal action. I didn't sue for money or use of the name. I simply wanted back in the band.
When I'm not on the road I'm in the studio every day.
If there's a goal, you can't stop me. I'll put my head down. I'll have tunnel vision and I'll go until I get it.
Styx was always a theatrical band. In fact, we played City Center in 1983 with a rock opera, 'Kilroy Was Here.'
I was damn lucky to choose this profession. I had no idea when I started out that I was really an illusionist and a magician.
I lived at the greatest time in the history of mankind to be a musician.
It's a good job when you get to have fans come up to you and thank you for writing your songs.
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