Q: Glen, what are your overall thoughts, first of all, about the new albumfi Is there anything you would like to bring upfi

BURTNIK: My first and foremost thought right now is this is the first interview I’ve done about this record so I won’t have anything that clever to say! You formulate these things as you go along. After you have a number of interviews you give better answers. It’s pretty cool in that it’s a true collaboration unlike the last few Styx albums, I think. This one really is the five, actually six with Chuck (Panozzo), of us really collaborating, truly collaborating, and that’s pretty cool. I think in the past Styx has always been a band with a number of different lead singers and what it kind of grew into was guys would just kind of go home and make their own records and then put them all together. But now, I think this record is a lot more of a group effort, which is really how the group did it when they did “The Grand Illusion.” So in that mode, this way to do it is more true to a band concept.

Q: Are you itching to play some of these songs livefi

BURTNIK: Absolutely. And that might be a trick. That might be tricky because in certain places that we play, people will be more open to hearing unfamiliar music and new music, but in a lot of places Styx is loved and revered for the classic hits that still get played on the radio. So there’s only so much time in a set and there’s only so many songs that you can play. You know, we go through this all the time, “Are we playing too many hits, are we not playing enough of themfi” So it might be tricky trying to fit in as much of the new album as we’d like to, or fit in as much of the old standard classic hits, so it’s a little tricky, but yeah, I am totally jazzed about playing all the new stuff.

Q: I think it kind of depends on the fan and how many times they’ve seen you. If they haven’t seen you for a long time, they probably want all the hits, and if they’ve seen you they probably would get into the real album tracks and the new material.

BURTNIK: I think so. It’s a risky proposition for a band like Styx to do new stuff because, I mean, we know what works so well, we’ve been doing it for years. You get a certain reaction out of the crowd, you know what works through trial and error. Over the years, you can figure out what makes the show most effective. To ask the audience to sit there and listen to something they’ve never heard before is a bit risky, I guess, but hopefully we’ll be taking those risks.

Q: Your take on “Love is the Ritual” and going out into the audience to sing it, how do you trade that off for one of your new songsfi

BURTNIK: I kind of see that my role in Styx now has become, you know, I get the Little Richard moment. I go a little nutty, I go screaming and stuff, which is great, I really love that. I get to lose my mind for three minutes and 40 seconds a night and I kind of enjoy being the edgy guy that way, which, it’s ironic because in other areas of my life, as a songwriter and stuff, I’ve always been better as a ballad writer. But in this thing, I’m more the Little Richard, which is great, I love Little Richard and that type of abandon. So while we were making the record, the two songs I sing on the record, one of them is kind of a ballad.

Q: “Killing the Thing that you Lovefi”

BURTNIK: Yeah. And “Kiss Your A– Goodbye” is a lot more raucous. So I kind of assumed while we were recording the album, while we were recording that track, I said, “Well, here’s a song I’m going to be singing for the next year.” I could just tell. I’m assuming that it’s going to go that way, that that’s going to replace “Love is the Ritual” as the Glen freak-out moment, but it’s cool. I’m really proud of that song, and, quite frankly, I’ve sung “Edge of the Century” and “Love is the Ritual” so many times now that I need a break.

Q: There are so many varied styles and different sounds on this record from song to song, and the one you mentioned almost has a kind of punk feel, which I’ve never heard on a Styx record.

BURTNIK: I know it’s stretching a little, but I kind of feel I’ve always brought — even on the “Edge of the Century” album, which was the first album I did with Styx, “Love is the Ritual” wasn’t really your standard kind of Styx song — so I always feel I tend to bring something a little more to the band and hopefully it fits in. You know, I’ve got three kids around my house, well my youngest, my 11-year-old daughter, listens to a lot of young punk bands. So I’ve been hearing a lot of that stuff through the walls and through osmosis and I’ve really come to like a lot of these bands like Sum 41, Blink 182, a lot of those bands, so that probably has somewhat influenced me and maybe that led to “Kiss Your A– Goodbye.”

Q: Are there any good stories from the recording sessionsfi

BURTNIK: Did Tommy talk about Brian Wilson at allfi

Q: Yeah, he said he sang backup on “Fooling Yourself.”

BURTNIK: I did a vocal arrangement of “Fooling Yourself” and it’s very different, it’s an a cappella vocal thing and it’s almost like a barbershop quartet, Four Freshmen, Beach Boys kind of thing. And Todd (Sucherman), who worked with Brian Wilson, said, “Let me call Brian Wilson and see if he’s interested in singing on that.” So, I’m a major Beach Boys fan, we all are, Tommy’s a big Beach Boys fan as well, but I’ve read every book there is on Brian Wilson, their lives and stuff like that, and to go into the studio and actually work with Brian on this piece … it’s a song that Tommy wrote and I did this vocal arrangement for, and essentially, it kind of got into that I was producing Brian Wilson. At one point in the session, I told him, “Listen, Brian, I’ve got to tell you, I learned how to arrange vocals from you, you know, studying your music.” That was probably, for me, the high point of recording the album. It’s a very quirky moment, it’s very un-Styx in a way, but it’s just another take on a Styx classic. But that was pretty much my favorite moment in the studio.

Q: Something that seems to stand out on this album, and I think this is something that you’ve brought to the band, is the backing vocals seem fuller, more enhanced. I don’t know if it’s just the extra voice or your voice in particular that’s made it stand out more. Do you agree with thatfi

BURTNIK: Well, it’s good to hear, I hadn’t even thought of that. It used to be a band of three really strong singers and now it is a band of four really strong singers, so I guess maybe that does show. We really have more singers than we have notes half the time, you know, ’cause most chords are three notes. Or if there’s a lead singer, then there’s three guys singing behind him, so it does give us more options and more opportunities to make bigger vocals. That’s cool to hear. Styx has always been a very vocal band. And like I said, I was always a big Beach Boys fan. I went through this whole era of studying the High Lows and Take 6 and all of these great vocal groups that I love so much, so I think I might have gotten some opportunity to interject some of that, but again, everybody is really a vocalist as well.

Q: How would you compare this to past Styx albumsfi

BURTNIK: The jury’s out on that. It’s a new team, so I think it’s an interesting step. I think inasmuch as “Edge of the Century” was a slightly different type of album for Styx, but still maintained an integrity to the original band, I think this is, we’re really adding a new element, which is Lawrence, since I’ve been there before, and a new voice, ’cause Lawrence’s singing hasn’t really ever appeared on any studio album before. But we were also aware of who Styx is and who we’ve been in the past and what the strength of the band is, and I think there’s enough of a connection with the past. For instance, “One With Everything” is a song that’s completely … look, Styx really started as a progressive rock band and somehow over the years it kind of turned away from the progressive rock roots and we all were kind of playing and said, “Let’s do one, let’s do a song where we just stretch out and we get a little ambitious in a prog-rock kind of way.” So there were moments where we did kind of look at the past somewhat. So I don’t think it’s so far a reach that we exceed the natural evolution of the band. It’s a real lively group, it’s really energetic on stage and I think we’re trying to capture that on this album, and I feel pretty good about it. I could tell you that compared to the “Edge of the Century” album, it’s a lot more energetic and a lot more rockin’.

(At this point, Packer and James “JY” Young enter the room.)

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page C1.