Nobody knows exactly what will happen when the Pittsburgh Steelers play the Houston Texans at home on Monday (Jan. 12) night in the final game of the NFL’s Wild Card playoff round.
But one thing is for sure: Styx‘s “Renegade” will blast over the PA at Acrisure Stadium, most likely toward or during the fourth quarter, while the Steelers’ defense is on the field.
It’s a team tradition that dates back nearly 25 years and is an intrinsic part of Steelers game day culture, tied to key plays and comebacks. “It gets our crowd up,” Mike Tomlin, the AFC North Division champion’s coach since 2007, explains in a team-produced video about the “Renegade” connection. “I think it brings out the best of us.” Star defensive tackle Cam Heyward agrees that, “It gets us hyped. It lets us know it’s a critical moment. It’s a chance to let the defense light your hair on fire; ‘We got to get a turnover. We got to get a big play.’” Linebacker T.J. Watt adds that, “‘Renegade’ is one of those things. As soon as the screen goes black, everybody knows what the deal is. It’s just a tone-setter. It really is.”
Tommy Shaw, who wrote “Renegade” for Styx’s 1978 album Pieces of Eight, tells Billboard that the association is “incredible. You never know what kind of life you’re going to have with a song. It had already been around for awhile and done its thing…one of the classic Styx songs that we play every night. Then to have (the Steelers) pick it up and use it like this? Amazing. It’s like having another life for it. You never see something like that coming.”
Credit for the connection goes to Mike Marchinsky, Steelers’ senior manager marketing events, who’s been with the team since 1998. Introduced to Styx’s music by his mother, Marchinsky — whose wife is also a Styx fan — was listening to one of the band’s compilations on the way to work during 2001 when “Renegade” came on. “It sparked something,” he notes in the video — especially since the Steelers were looking for new scoreboard content as it moved into a new stadium (then called Heinz Field). He presented the song and idea to the game day staff, which created a video around it; the screen goes dark, then black-and-white highlights stream during the song’s pensive, foreboding opening, exploding into color as Shaw screams and “Renegade” shifts into stomping rock mode. “It’s like what happens during a concert…only with thousands of Steelers fans waving Terrible Towels,” Shaw says.
Retired Steelers star Joey Porter — whose namesake son is currently with the team — notes that initially, “we didn’t even know the song was called ‘Renegade.’ We called it ‘Oh Mama.’ I thought the name of the song was that for almost a decade.”
The team’s Marchinsky notes that, “When you create something like this, you’re either trying to get a reaction out of the fans or you’re trying to get a reaction out of the players. And this one got a reaction out of both.” “Renegade” wasn’t played at every game initially, but it was elevated during a playoff game against the Cleveland Browns on Jan. 5, 2003, when it helped trigger the team, down 24-7 in the second half, to an eventual comeback win; “Renegade” was played twice that day, in fact.
“Then it kinda turned into an anthem, and we started playing it at every game,” Marchinsky says. “It’s awesome to see how it grew from something that was just an every once in awhile to now a game day staple that sometimes has made a great impact on the game.”
Styx, meanwhile, has fully embraced the Steelers via “Renegade.” Charlie Brusco, who manages the band for Red Light Management, tells Billboard that Styx was in the midst of a sound check at the House of Blues in Los Angeles during the 2003 playoff game. “A few of us who were Steelers fans had the game on backstage and we heard the song played in the background.” Shortly after that the Steelers organization contacted Brusco about cementing the relationship, which has included five National Anthem performances and an acoustic performance of “Renegade” before player introductions at a 2009 playoff game against the San Diego Chargers. The band also honored Steelers linebacker Kevin Greene during October 2016 for his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and Steelers Ring of Honor by performing at the game as well as the night before at the city’s Benedum Center. “It’s been a great ride with this 20-plus years relationship,” Brusco says, which extended to playing “Renegade” between periods during the New Year’s Day 2011 NHL Winter Classic game in Pittsburgh.
Over at WDVE-FM, the city’s major rock radio outlet and now the Steelers’ flagship station, program director John Moschitta notes that “Renegade” “has never really lost its place on the playlist since it was released…(but) the song definitely gained a renewed sense of fandom once the Steelers started playing it at the games and in the context it is used. We definitely up the rotation on the song closer to that weekends Steelers game.”
Morning co-host Randy Baumann adds that, “‘Renegade’ has become both a battle cry and a song of celebration when the Steelers are winning,” so much so that “hearing it out of the context of Steelers season has almost become akin to seeing a teacher outside of school; it doesn’t quite seem like it’s allowed to be there when the Steelers aren’t playing. And you would certainly never want to play the song after a bad effort by the Steel Curtain. People would tune out before the scream.”
The third single released from the Billboard 200 top 10 album Pieces of Eight, “Renegade” peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1979 and has appeared in the film Billy Madison and in TV’s Freaks and Geeks. Major League Baseball pitchers David Bednar and Josh Hader used it as game entrance music as well. “It’s a song that pretty much wrote itself,” Shaw recalls. “I had a piano in my home in Niles (Michigan); I was actually trying to figure out this song called ‘The Raven’ from Alan Parsons’ Tales of Mystery and Imagination album, just to play along with it…and then I started messing around with it. I started moving (the notes) around like chess pieces…. I played it for the band, and then we transposed it and it turned out to be an easy thing to play on guitar. From that point on we just started carving on it as a song. The Styx vocal style worked out really well on it. And then somebody said, ‘Let’s rock it up when we get to that part that goes “the jig is up.”‘ And within minutes it became the song you know.”
Shaw is quick to clarify that the lyrics of “Renegade,” about an outlaw about to be hanged for his crimes, are purely fiction. “I’ve never been arrested,” he says with a laugh. “There’s never been a bounty on my head like the guy in the song or any of that. It just felt good to sing those kinds of vowels and that sort of thing. That’s what I heard when it got to that part. My subconscious mind picked it up and ran with it, and it kinda wrote itself.”
Styx will be playing the Pieces of Eight album in its entirety during its residency at the Venetian Resort Las Vegas from Jan. 23-31. This summer the group teams up with Chicago for the 25-date Windy Cities Tour that kicks off July 13 in West Palm Beach, Fla., and runs through Sept. 6 in Los Angeles. The full itinerary includes:
Mon 7/13 West Palm Beach, FL iThink Financial Amphitheatre
Wed 7/15 Tampa, FL MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre
Fri 7/17 Alpharetta, GA Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
Sat 7/18 Charlotte, NC PNC Music Pavilion
Mon 7/20 Bristow, VA Jiffy Lube Live
Tue 7/21 Camden, NJ Freedom Mortgage Pavilion
Thu 7/23 Wantagh, NY Northwell at Jones Beach Theater
Sat 7/25 Gilford, NH BankNH Pavilion
Sun 7/26 Mansfield, MA Xfinity Center
Tue 7/28 Toronto, ONT. RBC Amphitheatre
Thu 7/30 Grand Rapids, MI Acrisure Amphitheatre
Sat 8/1 Rosemont, IL Allstate Arena
Sun 8/2 Noblesville, IN Ruoff Music Center
Wed 8/5 Cuyahoga Falls, OH Blossom Music Center
Thu 8/6 Cincinnati, OH Riverbend Music Center
Wed 8/19 Austin, TX Moody Center
Thu 8/20 Houston, TX The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion Sponsored by Huntsman
Mon 8/24 St. Louis, MO Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
Tue 8/25 Kansas City, MO MORTON Amphitheater
Fri 8/28 Denver, CO Ball Arena
Sun 8/30 Salt Lake City, UT Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre
Tue 9/1 Phoenix, AZ Mortgage Matchup Center
Wed 9/2 Palm Desert, CA Acrisure Arena
Fri 9/4 Concord, CA Toyota Pavilion at Concord
Sun 9/6 Los Angeles, CA Kia Forum
