Lawrence Gowan is best known as the popular singer from the 80's named Gowan.  He was born in Glasgow, Scotland but grew up in Toronto, Ontario.  Gowan had been in the music scene from the early 1970's, and became quite popular in Canada after the release of his "Criminal Mind" video in 1985.  After this hit, he had two others, "Strange Animal," and "Guerilla Soldier."

In 1976, Gowan formed a band called Rhinegold.   A lot of their songs were influenced by The Beatles, Genesis, and Supertramp.  However, in the late 70's Rhinegold started to die out as other popular bands took over such as Rush and Triumph.  The band broke up and Gowan went solo, and used just the name "Gowan."  He first recorded some albums for CBS.  In 1985 the song "Strange Animal" came out that did extremely well.  Gowan started touring with The Kinks and other Canadian rock groups, and in 1986 he opened for the group Tears For Fears in the United States.  In 1987, he came out with another album called "Great Dirty World," which also did quite well.

Gowan continued to do well in Canada, but was not as popular in the U.S.  CBS decided to unload Gowan and then Gowan spent a couple of years re-developing his career.  In the 1990's Gowan started playing solo, compiled a greatest hits collection, and also came out with a French disc.  He also did a UN tour where he performed in Egypt and Israel.  In 1999, he joined the group Styx and became the lead singer.  He has toured North America, Japan, and Europe for the last four years.  The Styx also got to perform twice at the Superbowl.