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I’ve never been a big fan of bands, especially hard rock bands and polka bands. At sixty- three I know I’m supposed to enjoy polka bands but after ten minutes of polka music I’m ready for the aspirin. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect what others might enjoy, after all we all have different tastes of what we consider good entertainment. Personally Glenn Miller is more my type of music.

My co-host, on the Viewers Voice TV Show, Laurie Muffler, also does another cable show called “Rockin’ the Cable Show” (Channel 14, Fridays at 6:00 p.m.). The series spotlights a different band every month. Recently she asked me to help her with one of her shoots for her show and I accepted not knowing what to expect. We ended up going over and doing a show at radio station WQBW-FM, 97.3 The Brew. We were possibly doing an interview with Dennis DeYoung, a former Styx performer and his wife Suzanne. We already had permission to tape the radio show DeYoung was doing with John Bradley and Laura Lee, but an interview would put the icing on the cake.

When we arrived at the studio I was introduced to John Bradley, who is the producer of the morning show on The Brew, he then took us back to the studio where the show with DeYoung was going to take place. We were introduced to Laura Lee who was already on the air and waiting for the DeYoung’s to make their appearance.

I know there are many Styx fans out there and when DeYoung had a fall out with the band and went out on his own he took many of those fans with him. Many say he was the brains behind Styx’s and is now doing very well on his own.

One of the reasons I was interested in interviewing DeYoung, he had just made an appearance in the movie “The Perfect Man” with Hillary Duff and Heather Locklear. The movie is great family entertainment without, as Dennis said, being sappy. Mike O’Malley, who also stars in the movie, plays a die hard Styx fan. DeYoung plays a singer in a Styx tribute band named “Kilroy.” His son Matthew is on drums. The movie has incorporated Dennis DeYoung songs into the plot.

While we where waiting to do our interview I spotted Parker Drew who does an afternoon show on AM 920. I went over to talk to him to see if he still remembered me. Parker was one of my first guests on the Viewers Voice TV Show back in 1992 when he was associated with WISN-TV, Channel 12’s Lottery Show. He said he just recently found the tape from that show and watched it. It was fun talking to him again, especially since his radio show is my favorite; they play all the oldies.    

Shortly after talking to Parker we were informed that Dennis and his wife were in the building and agreed to do an interview with Laurie and me. We were introduced and I found the couple to be very nice and easy to talk too. We then found a conference room to set up our cameras and Laurie did her interview first for “Rockin’ the Cable Show.”

When it came to my turn to do the interview for Viewers Voice I found myself fast becoming a fan of DeYoung’s. Dennis and his wife, Suzanne were a delight to interview.

Following is part of that interview.

Sharon: Dennis, you’re in a movie now, kind of geared for kids, called “The Perfect Man.” I want to ask your wife Suzanne, is he the perfect man?

Suzanne: Oh my God. I think he should answer that question.

Dennis: There are no perfect men. I think when you use the noun men there can be no perfect adjective ever in front of that.

Suzanne: But honey are you?

Dennis: Absolutely not, absolutely not. I think I’m what you’d call the imperfect man. Yea, but I have a nice smile.

Sharon: In the movie “The Perfect Man” what kind of role did you play? Can you give us a little background on the part?

Dennis: Yes, there’s a sub-plot about this character trying to whooo Heather Locklear by being this huge Styx’s fan, he takes her to a Styx’s concert and it turns out that it’s just a club where there’s this eighties kind of hair band tribute band, it’s not really Styx’s.  It’s these guys in a club you know pretending to be Styx’s and I play the lead singer in the band. So I play a character who is theoretically imitating me. Did you follow that?

Suzanne: Our son is the drummer.

Dennis: Our son is the drummer in the band and the rest of the band is my band. I have four songs in the film; “Mr. Roboto,” “Babe,” “Lady” and “The Best of Times” and all four of those songs also appear on the CD soundtrack, which is pretty exciting.

Suzanne: And if you look really hard during “Babe” behind Michael O’Malley you can see a quarter of me.

Sharon: Oh, really?

Suzanne: Well just like my eye.

Dennis: But it’s her good eye, her band eye was out of frame, thank God.

Sharon: Do you like doing movies?

Dennis: I’ve never been in a film ever in my life, you know it was fun. I’ve made a lot of videos but this is the first time I’ve ever been actually in a big movie and yea my goodness, of course, of course.

Sharon: You made a comment earlier about reality shows that they’re not your favorites and that’s kind of one of our pet peeves with Viewers Voice because there’s so many of them and we feel they’re killing off some of our good dramas. What kind of TV do you like to watch?

Dennis: I love Raymond. “Everybody Loves Raymond” was probably my favorite show on TV. I like “Law and Order” the original one, I still like that. What else do I watch; I like baseball on TV and sporting events essentially. I end up watching TV at a particular time at night which is usually from what 10 o’clock on. I’ll look at Letterman or Leno or I’ll watch CNN or whatever to see who got blown up today.

But you know reality TV is a misnomer, that’s not real. Listen, ladies and gentlemen I’m going to give you a test. Anytime you’re at home with your video camera, with your family, put the camera on somebody and you tell me if they act real when you do that. Nobody acts real when you put a camera on them.

Sharon:  That’s like “Survivor” all these people are sucked into this show; but hey listen they’ve got food service behind them and all these cameras and all these conveniences, you tell me that they’re out there really surviving.

Dennis: No it’s not real, but the fact of the matter is it doesn’t interest me; those kinds of shows just don’t interest me. It’s not some sort of moral issue with me I just have no interest in people pretending to be real when they’re not.

Suzanne: Some of them have moral issues with me and I don’t watch them.

Dennis: You know what reality TV is, when a video camera catches a cop chase or somebody falling off of a platform or an airplane exploding. That’s reality TV, when you see those things, but those other staged things they’re just not.

I’m ending this interview on those thoughts because Dennis, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The complete interview with Dennis and Suzanne DeYoung is still running on the Viewers Voice TV Show on channel 14 in West Allis on Monday nights at 6:00 p.m. Also on the show is a partial taping of the radio show the DeYoung’s did on 97.3, The Brew. Copies of the show are available at the West Allis Community Center, call 414-541-3817.

Until my next column on the Milwaukee Brewers Picnic at Miller Park, let your voice be heard.