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| After battling HIV, gay rocker Chuck Panozzo of Styx speaks out as the band heads to Atlanta. |
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HOME > SOVO SCENE > FEATURE
By: ANDY ZEFFER
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The words "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" are a modern day mantra for some. Almost everybody has fantasized about being a rock star.
Adolescent boys imagine thousands of screaming fans in packed arenas with backstage groupies throwing themselves at musicians. With infamous jet-set lifestyles, rockers live exceptional lives in addition to creating timeless songs that live long after their stars fade.
For Chuck Panozzo, the glamour of rock stardom isn’t a fantasy. For 30 years as one of the founders of the music group Styx, it’s a reality.
But what sets him apart from his contemporaries is that in the macho world of rock, Panozzo is a gay man who is also out about his HIV status.
Styx hits stretched from the 1970s to the ‘90s, and include the songs "Lady," "Babe," "Mr. Roboto," "Show me the Way" and "Come Sail Away."
Panozzo still plays bass for the group, the first musical act to ever have four consecutive triple platinum albums, that remains one of the most popular musical acts in history.
Styx still plays scores of dates per year, often as a double bill with other classic acts like Journey, REO Speedwagon or Kansas. The band plays Peachtree City, south of Atlanta, on May 5 and May 6.
And they still attract sell-out crowds that are now multi-generational.
"We have lasting appeal because we play melodies that people can hum, and we have lyrics that are meaningful," Panozzo says. "Nobody is fabricating our songs through us, nobody is making us through ‘American Idol.’ … It doesn’t shock me that other acts aren’t around after a few years. If you can’t really play your instrument, or the only time you can really sing is in the studio, how can you possibly perform live?"
PANOZZO SMILES AT THE MENTION of the film "Almost Famous," an ode to the free-wheeling rock lifestyle of the ‘70s. At the end of the film, the fictional rock band breaks out into a series of confessions as they experience plane trouble. One of the members tells everyone he is gay, causing the other characters to pause for a moment before going back to their impending doom.
"It made me so winsome about the experience," Panozzo says with a smile. "That is one of the best pseudo-documentaries of what being on the road was like. It was really representative of a whole era of music."
Panozzo says the tales of groupies and backstage debauchery are not myths. Even today, he still gets sexual advances from women. There were many times when he wished he were bisexual, he says.
In the early years of Styx, Panozzo says, the other members of the band knew he was gay and quietly accepted it. Because there was so much sex on the road, and because many of the band members were married, most of the sexual exploits of the band members were kept quiet.
So on the occasion that Panozzo brought a guy back to his hotel room, that was done discreetly and quietly as well, he says.
"They accepted what I did," Panozzo says. "It was isolating at times. It was lonely at times. But there were occasions when you would get that break and actually make sexual contact with another human being."
Though his band mates knew of Panozzo’s orientation, it never came up in conversation, he says. Not even with his twin brother, John, who was the band’s drummer until his death in 1996, due to complications from a long battle with alcohol.
Panozzo describes it as being similar to the "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" policy of the armed forces.
IN 1996, STYX REUNITED AFTER a seven-year break up.
By then, Panozzo’s fellow band members had heard he had come out publicly. Worried that he would be "one of those guys who act up," he says, they asked if he would make a fuss about it. Panozzo reassured them he was just there to play music.
But a brush with death in 1998 changed his vow of silence.
Panozzo was diagnosed with HIV in 1991. In 1998, he developed full-blown AIDS. He made a commitment that if he pulled through it, he would not be quiet from fear of rejection. It was the right time to move beyond that, and become more vocal and politically active, he says.
"It’s like being a recovering alcoholic," Panozzo says. "You go through the worst part of your illness and start ...
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