Bassist Chuck Panozzo's new book tells stories of ...
Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:56 pmOriginal Story URL:
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=624847
Styx's murky waters
Bassist Chuck Panozzo's new book tells stories of band tension, loss of musician brother, life with AIDS and coming out
By DAVE TIANEN
dtianen@journalsentinel.com
Posted: June 26, 2007
His band is named after a mythical river that runs through Hades, and Chuck Panozzo has seen more than his share of hell.
Styx bassist and founding member Panozzo has survived AIDS, stage II prostate cancer and the loss of his brother and band mate, John, to alcoholism.
He also has survived and triumphed as a gay man in the strenuously macho and sometimes homophobic world of rock 'n' roll. He tells his story in a new book, "The Grand Illusion: Love, Lies and My Life With Styx" (Amacom, $24.95), written with Michele Skettino.
Since he still is in treatment for AIDS, Panozzo has to conserve his energy, but these days he's feeling well enough to tackle simultaneous book and band tours. He will be at Summerfest on Friday when Styx plays the amphitheater with Def Leppard and Foreigner.
Panozzo grew up in Chicago's Italian neighborhoods, and Styx began as a teenage collaboration among the two Panozzo brothers and former lead singer Dennis DeYoung.
Looking back, Panozzo realizes he was different from other guys but kept his sexual orientation secret from his parents and his band mates for decades. Only his brother and sisters were told the truth, but the greatest deceptions were self-inflicted.
"They were basically lies I told myself," he says by phone. "I knew I was gay, but I couldn't come out and say it."
Panozzo's self-deception nearly killed him. He had known he was HIV-positive since 1990, but in '98 he became seriously ill. He started passing out, his weight dropped to 130 pounds and cancerous lesions called Kaposi's sarcoma started breaking out on his body. It was only the intervention of a friend that influenced him to see a doctor.
"I had been so ashamed to get help for my problem," he writes in the book. ". . . But finally, I had to ask myself the question, 'Do you want to live or do you want to die?' "
After the doctor diagnosed him with AIDS, Panozzo finally told his band mates about his sexual orientation and his health condition.
"We're no longer 20-year-old kids. They could see something was wrong. I dropped 30 pounds in a period of a few months. . . . I made the decision that I was extremely sick, and if I didn't do something I wouldn't be anywhere."
Creative differences
It took a long time, but with the help of a 23-pill-a-day regimen of treatment, Panozzo eventually regained his health.
Getting his AIDS under control was not the end of Panozzo's health crises, however. In 2004, a routine health checkup revealed that Panozzo had stage II prostate cancer. He was 56 years old, the same age his father had been when he died of cancer. He had two tumors on his prostate and because of his AIDS, radiation therapy was not an option. Surgery was the recommendation, but with it came risks.
Ultimately he flew to the Dominican Republic for an experimental ultrasound treatment.
"I felt fine. The treatment was on Friday. I was home on Sunday," he says.
Better yet, the cancer was gone.
Panozzo was not the only member of Styx to have serious health issues. His brother John died in 1996 after a long battle with alcoholism. In the late '90s, frontman Dennis DeYoung developed a form of chronic fatigue syndrome that made him extremely sensitive to light. Although he recovered, his band mates had made the decision to move on without him.
There had been internal squabbles within Styx for many years, anyway, with DeYoung wanting to take the band in a more pop, theatrical direction and his band mates opting for a more rock 'n' roll approach.
In his book, Panozzo makes it clear that he had creative differences with DeYoung. He remembers with special chagrin when DeYoung had them dress up like robots for the "Mr. Robot" tour. He hasn't seen DeYoung in years and disputes the notion that the band isn't Styx without him.
"What makes Dennis non-replaceable?" he asks. "Styx started out in my basement. When John died, I could have said, 'It's not Styx without John Panozzo.' Don't get me wrong. I wasn't happy with the way this happened."
'Who's gay here?'
Some may find irony in knowing it was the straight Styx frontman who kept nudging the band toward Broadway theatricality, while the gay bassist wanted a more rock stance.
That irony was reflected in the gay community as well. Panozzo recounts how in his early days of frequenting gay bars, his status as a rock star carried surprisingly little weight or even recognition. Panozzo was a rocker in a gay community that loved disco and dance music.
He writes that "not one gay man I knew cared much about rock 'n' roll."
"There was this era where I felt sort of disenfranchised," he recalls. "They just didn't get it. I took a different route."
If his music made him something of an outsider within the gay community, Panozzo said that he was never entirely at ease socially within Styx and kept largely to himself. With the passage of time, that awkwardness has abated somewhat.
Of course, if the man who loves arranging flowers has sometimes felt out of sync within the macho culture of rock music, that culture has its own quirks.
"I'll see the guys stuffing themselves into skin-tight pants, putting on eyeliner and bleaching their hair," he says. "I'll kid them, 'So, exactly who's gay here?' "
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=624847
Styx's murky waters
Bassist Chuck Panozzo's new book tells stories of band tension, loss of musician brother, life with AIDS and coming out
By DAVE TIANEN
dtianen@journalsentinel.com
Posted: June 26, 2007
His band is named after a mythical river that runs through Hades, and Chuck Panozzo has seen more than his share of hell.
Styx bassist and founding member Panozzo has survived AIDS, stage II prostate cancer and the loss of his brother and band mate, John, to alcoholism.
He also has survived and triumphed as a gay man in the strenuously macho and sometimes homophobic world of rock 'n' roll. He tells his story in a new book, "The Grand Illusion: Love, Lies and My Life With Styx" (Amacom, $24.95), written with Michele Skettino.
Since he still is in treatment for AIDS, Panozzo has to conserve his energy, but these days he's feeling well enough to tackle simultaneous book and band tours. He will be at Summerfest on Friday when Styx plays the amphitheater with Def Leppard and Foreigner.
Panozzo grew up in Chicago's Italian neighborhoods, and Styx began as a teenage collaboration among the two Panozzo brothers and former lead singer Dennis DeYoung.
Looking back, Panozzo realizes he was different from other guys but kept his sexual orientation secret from his parents and his band mates for decades. Only his brother and sisters were told the truth, but the greatest deceptions were self-inflicted.
"They were basically lies I told myself," he says by phone. "I knew I was gay, but I couldn't come out and say it."
Panozzo's self-deception nearly killed him. He had known he was HIV-positive since 1990, but in '98 he became seriously ill. He started passing out, his weight dropped to 130 pounds and cancerous lesions called Kaposi's sarcoma started breaking out on his body. It was only the intervention of a friend that influenced him to see a doctor.
"I had been so ashamed to get help for my problem," he writes in the book. ". . . But finally, I had to ask myself the question, 'Do you want to live or do you want to die?' "
After the doctor diagnosed him with AIDS, Panozzo finally told his band mates about his sexual orientation and his health condition.
"We're no longer 20-year-old kids. They could see something was wrong. I dropped 30 pounds in a period of a few months. . . . I made the decision that I was extremely sick, and if I didn't do something I wouldn't be anywhere."
Creative differences
It took a long time, but with the help of a 23-pill-a-day regimen of treatment, Panozzo eventually regained his health.
Getting his AIDS under control was not the end of Panozzo's health crises, however. In 2004, a routine health checkup revealed that Panozzo had stage II prostate cancer. He was 56 years old, the same age his father had been when he died of cancer. He had two tumors on his prostate and because of his AIDS, radiation therapy was not an option. Surgery was the recommendation, but with it came risks.
Ultimately he flew to the Dominican Republic for an experimental ultrasound treatment.
"I felt fine. The treatment was on Friday. I was home on Sunday," he says.
Better yet, the cancer was gone.
Panozzo was not the only member of Styx to have serious health issues. His brother John died in 1996 after a long battle with alcoholism. In the late '90s, frontman Dennis DeYoung developed a form of chronic fatigue syndrome that made him extremely sensitive to light. Although he recovered, his band mates had made the decision to move on without him.
There had been internal squabbles within Styx for many years, anyway, with DeYoung wanting to take the band in a more pop, theatrical direction and his band mates opting for a more rock 'n' roll approach.
In his book, Panozzo makes it clear that he had creative differences with DeYoung. He remembers with special chagrin when DeYoung had them dress up like robots for the "Mr. Robot" tour. He hasn't seen DeYoung in years and disputes the notion that the band isn't Styx without him.
"What makes Dennis non-replaceable?" he asks. "Styx started out in my basement. When John died, I could have said, 'It's not Styx without John Panozzo.' Don't get me wrong. I wasn't happy with the way this happened."
'Who's gay here?'
Some may find irony in knowing it was the straight Styx frontman who kept nudging the band toward Broadway theatricality, while the gay bassist wanted a more rock stance.
That irony was reflected in the gay community as well. Panozzo recounts how in his early days of frequenting gay bars, his status as a rock star carried surprisingly little weight or even recognition. Panozzo was a rocker in a gay community that loved disco and dance music.
He writes that "not one gay man I knew cared much about rock 'n' roll."
"There was this era where I felt sort of disenfranchised," he recalls. "They just didn't get it. I took a different route."
If his music made him something of an outsider within the gay community, Panozzo said that he was never entirely at ease socially within Styx and kept largely to himself. With the passage of time, that awkwardness has abated somewhat.
Of course, if the man who loves arranging flowers has sometimes felt out of sync within the macho culture of rock music, that culture has its own quirks.
"I'll see the guys stuffing themselves into skin-tight pants, putting on eyeliner and bleaching their hair," he says. "I'll kid them, 'So, exactly who's gay here?' "
