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Guaranteed Human. The Michael Berry Show. Our guest is Dennis DeYoung. You know him as the lead singer of Stix, the soundtrack of my life. And for many of you, the soundtrack of yours. Dennis, how are you, my man? I'm good. It was also the soundtrack of my life, doggone. I'm guessing you made a little more money off of it than I did. You know what? You'd be guessing correctly. But dogg on it, don't tell Uncle Sam. He's chasing me down the street as we speak. You know, I was looking you up. Dennis DeYoung, lead singer of Sticks, coming to Stafford Center, right here in our own community. On October 11th, I'll be there, and I suggest you should too. In fact, I'll even give you the phone number to get your tickets. 281, 208, 6900. It's at the Stafford Center. There's not a bad seat in the place. I was looking you up, and you started a lot earlier than I realized. They showed you starting in 1961. That's a lot earlier than I expected.

Yeah, actually, I was, I think, as I look, you know, I had to really investigate this a couple of years ago myself, but it was 1962, and I was 14 and the Panazzo brothers were 12.

We lived across the street from each other, and we just formed the band as kids,

and we had no aspirations of being in a rock and roll band in 1962.

You know, we were just guys.

I played accordion.

Chuck played the guitar, and John played drums, and we were just, you know, hacking around, having fun.

We started out playing weddings for, you know, friends of our relatives.

And then, you know, when we saw the Beatles in 64, I remember seeing them on Ed Sullivan

and thinking of myself, hey, that's a good job.

And so I just did an interview in Dallas because I'm playing there as well the night before,

or night after, night after, in Houston.

And I just thought about this.

I saw The Beatles in 64, and then two weeks later, two weeks later, I went to a dance and met my wife,

and we've been married 42 years.

Wow.

That was quite a big two weeks for me where I decided who I was going to be with for the rest of my life and what career path I was choosing. So when it said 62, it sounds like sticks was then, but that was just three little kids. No, no, but if you'd asked a young Dennis DeYoung at 14 years old, if you had, if you had asked what you were going to be when you grew up, what'd you think it was going to be then?

When I was 14, I don't know if I still had aspirations to be the center fielder for the White Sox or not.

I may have, but it might have been dawning on me that maybe I didn't have the skill set. But, you know, I probably would have, that was my first dream. Well, I'll tell you, you wouldn't still be playing center field for the White Sox if you'd done that, and yet you can still tour the world and sing your music and share it with folks. You're all gone right, and I went to the White Sox game two days ago, and I thought to myself, okay, I'm still a rock star. Anyway, the thing is, I've said this a million times. But had I known I was going to last this long, I think my sphincters would have been a lot more relaxed when I was 25, if you know what I mean.

I'm able to say, hey, it's going to be okay. But, you know, when you're young and you're full of it, you're trying to make your way in the world, and you don't know if it's going to last. You have no idea. In fact, somebody said to me two days ago, what about all that, this stuff and that stuff, and those clothes you had? I just gave this stuff away over the years because I never thought I was going to last this long.

Are you surprised when you go out and tour and realize, we've been talking about you coming to town October 11th,

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