I wasn't a guy who grew up wanting to be in 'Funny Girl,' if you know what I mean. I wanted to be in the Beatles.

If you have talent and you work really hard, it increases your odds but it doesn't ensure anything. But every now and then, the universe must tilt in your direction.

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.

Sometimes your limitations become your strengths. It forces you to create your own niche.

As an artist you always want to challenge yourself, but as you get older you want to bring the audience with you while expanding creatively.

A unique style comes from not being able to do things in a conventional manner. If David Byrne could have sung like Paul McCartney, he would have.

Every artist thinks his most recent work is his best. If you didn't feel like that, you wouldn't do anything.

I can do anything onstage. Here's the misconception: You could record an album called 'The Best of Styx.' And all you would have to do is pay the individual songwriters a mechanical royalty.

When I went out and started making solo records, I was determined not to, I guess, put my name on an album that sounded like Styx. I wanted to carve my own niche, so quite frankly I went in a different direction.

What people fail to realize is that any album we did, really, 90 percent of it reflected the songs people brought in. If someone had brought in two great rock songs for 'Cornerstone'... they would have been on that record.

This is no condemnation of Chuck Berry, who I greatly admire. But Chuck Berry's music will not translate as well to orchestration because of its very three-chord rock 'n' roll nature. It is the music of the artists that are more pretentious, pompous or closer to the kind of big dramatic stylings that orchestras are good with.

I just believed in 1979 that prog rock was finished. I just saw the handwriting on the wall. And I believed that if we continued in that direction, our career would be finished. So I kind of led the band to making 'Cornerstone,' which is an album from my point of view which was not trying to be necessarily softer, but more natural.

Our music did not sound like the Beatles in any way, shape or form. I could never find it in myself to use those Beatles tricks in Styx records because they were sacred to me. But what they did always influenced my thinking.

It was a song I wrote for my wife as a present, never intending for it to be a Styx song. 'Babe' was a demo. The demo became the hit record, including all the background vocals, which were done by me.

I still see myself as the kid who plays accordion and tries to keep people happy for 45 minutes. And there's nothing wrong with that.

When I play the first few notes of a song and people start screaming, I think: 'That's why I did this. That's why I wrote this song. That's a good job.' And it is a job.

Is there anything in life more exhilarating than having 15,000 people absolutely ecstatic to be seeing your human form?

When we started, there were no other distractions like the Internet and video games, so music was central to young people's lives.

I want to see the '70s guys, if they're gonna do something, stay valid in the '90s. Then they belong. If they're trapped in the '70s, then it's nostalgia. You're not getting me in those platform shoes again.

I don't see how 'Hunchback' could ever appeal to children. It's a very adult story that deals with repressed sexuality.

If you try to do a genuine rock musical, rock people will think you're flaccid and Broadway audiences will think you're too loud.

I'm very proud of it. 'Hunchback' contains some of my favorite music I've ever written in my life.

If you are going to take me a to a musical, you'd better give me three songs that I'm gonna like. Nobody goes to the opera for the recitative. They go for the aria.

Many musicals you can take and throw in the garbage can because no one took the time to write a song you can care about.