Did You Know: “Renegade” by Styx Was Written in Michigan
This Tuesday night at the Kalamazoo Wings Event Center, Styx will undoubtedly play Renegade, one of their most popular tracks. However, many in attendance singing along to the famous track may not realize that the track was written just an hour southwest of Kalamazoo.
Now, your author is a huge Pittsburgh Steelers fan, so the song Renegade is very close to my heart. The Steelers traditionally play Renegade in the fourth quarter to hype up their defense when the team needs a big stop. It works in Pittsburgh's favor nearly every time as Acrishure Stadium explodes with cheers and Steelers Nation twirls their Terrible Towels in unison.
In an effort to show my girlfriend how much cooler my Steelers are compared to her Indianapolis Colts ahead of last week's game between the two, I showed her a video of the history of the NFL franchise using the song and learned something brand new about the song.
Tommy Shaw, the lead vocalist of Styx, has recounted a number of times that Renegade was written here in Michigan.
"I wrote it on piano, believe it or not..." Shaw said in an interview with AXStv below. "I was sitting in my room in Niles, Michigan and had this upright piano in there and I just started playing these triad chords, very dark - the harmonies you hear at the beginning of the song...
It became a rock song when I took it to the band."
Shaw, who is from Montgomery, Alabama (just one more strange tie to your author) lived on a farm in Niles back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, during the height of the band's popularity. It stands to reason that some other tracks may have gotten their start in Southwest Michigan.
There are still tickets available to the Styx concert at Wings Event Center.
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