By Jeb Wright
Transcribed by Eric Sandberg

Jeb: That was certainly an extremely important song to Blue Öyster Cult. If that song wasn't on the album I don't know if BÖC would be as big as they are. That was the song.

JB: Oh yeah. And it still gets played two or three times more on streaming services than our next biggest song "Burnin' For You." It gets, easily, a million plays a month. And it goes up 20-30% every year. The trajectory on a song like that is just mind-boggling.

Jeb: There's everything to love about that song, but I think what puts it on another level is the instrumental section.

JB: I agree. Columbia actually wanted to take that out of the song and there is a single edit that just has the three verses and the chorus. It does not work.

They had the AM stations to worry about in 1976. There were FM stations around but they had not taken over yet. If a song is that good, they will sit there and listen to it for five and a half minutes. It's the whole package.

But yeah, we all had our own tape recorders at home. We all had extra time off and were working on things at home. We did bring stuff in that was worked on as a group but it was good because we could really focus the songs. 

We had never really been serious about developing and focusing the songs toward what we wanted to do.

Jeb: The song I think is the dark horse of that album that no one ever talks about is "Sinful Love".

JB: Oh yeah. We do that one in the acoustic show. It's really fun. And Albert, since it's an acoustic show, likes to get out front and sing his songs. He was always the guy in the back of the band so it's a good thing for him because he gets to be the front man on half of the numbers.

"Sinful Love", "Career Of Evil", "Revenge Of Vera Gemini"...all good stuff.

Jeb: Alan's song "Tenderloin" is great.

JB: "Tenderloin" is tremendous. "Morning Final". We're doing that one in the acoustic set. It's a good retrospective of the bulk of what we did with the band. We also throw in some of our new solo songs. "Renaissance Man," "Bad Decisions," Albert has a song called "Galileo Galilei" that's really good. It's like "Astronomy."

Jeb: We fans like to debate whether Agents of Fortune or Spectres is better because we're nerds and don't have anything better to do. As someone on the inside, do you have a favorite?

JB: I like Agents...but, if I were going to have to play one album straight through on stage I would choose Spectres. There are some real gems on there that don't get played enough. "Nosferatu," "Fireworks," they don't get played enough. As far as a listening experience, I prefer the mixing and the overall feel of Agents...

Jeb: Tell me about the opening of "The Golden Age Of Leather". Who came up with that?

JB: That was Donald. He wrote that song with a good friend of his from college (B. Abbott). I don't remember hearing a full demo of that one but, in the studio, Donald said "We're going to do an acapella beginning." Then it had a solo moving into a rave-up section. It was definitely developed over the course of several rehearsals.

Unlike "Godzilla" which was a full demo. We trimmed it up a bit, cut out some of the fat but we basically recorded it as it was on the demo. "Golden Age of Leather" required a lot of complicated rehearsals to get that one down.

Jeb: Then you had "Death Valley Nights" another R. Meltzer song. The guy's kind of nutty but he could write some lyrics.

JB: That's a great lyric. We're also doing that in the acoustic show. In fact I was out doing acoustic shows on my own ten years ago and I had to have "Death Valley Nights" in my set.

Jeb: In the box set albums collection they have a picture of the billboard that says "Welcome To Long Island: Home Of The Blue Öyster Cult." Do you remember the first time you saw that?

JB: Oh yeah. That was on the Long Island Expressway just as you came out of the mid-town tunnel. That was fantastic. I saw that several times. I probably drove around twice just to see that thing. They would do that sort of thing in Los Angeles, buy billboards. That was back when the record companies were happy to spend money.

Jeb: By the time of Some Enchanted Evening, one of the best live albums I've ever heard, you now had the big rock show with lasers and stun guitars. It all happened in just six years. How did it affect you as young men?

LB: It was good. We never had to have a day job. We had a lot of energy. It was fun working on that album because our equipment was better…the sound... The truck we had was big enough that we could sit with the engineer and make suggestions about tweaks to the recording for the next show. We would tweak amp and mic positions and really nail it.

Even more than that, we had the truck follow us around on tour so we didn't feel any pressure. We could get some really great performances…magical performances. "Astronomy" live, "Reaper" live, were really good. That one was just a matter of us maturing a little bit and understanding the process.

On Your Feet... was just a snapshot of our tour at the time where Some Enchanted Evening was a real project.

Jeb: Your next studio album was a bit controversial. Mirrors. Personally, I love it. "Dr. Music," "In Thee," "Mirrors" and, "I Am The Storm." Just those four, that's a hell of an album!

JB: I thought it was great when we were recording it. It's hard to say...it was a little bit under mixed. It could have had more edge and it would have been a better album.

I just opened up the box set and listened to it and the remastering on that album sounds much better. It actually changed it.

There were some personality problems on that record. We were out of our comfort zone working with another producer.

I liked working with Tom Werman. He certainly made some great Cheap Trick records. He went on to do Motley Crue and have great success.

We went to California. It wasn't very comfortable. We should have done the record in New York. That might have made a big difference. It's easy to say "What if...?" but it was pretty uncomfortable moving the whole band out to California for a whole month.

It seemed like it took three days just to set up the drum kit. I went up to the studio on day one and said "OK, I'm ready to play!" and they said "We're trying to find the best place to set up the drums. Why don't you come back tomorrow?" I went to my apartment and came back the next day and they were still moving the drum set around. "We still don't have it. Why don't you go home?"

The next day I get there and they're still moving the drums around! Oh boy. I was like "Let's just get down to business. Let's stop fooling around."

They were renting drums from a company and they got the bass drum that was used by the Eagles. We don't need the Eagles bass drum…we're Blue Öyster Cult!

Once we finally started recording I thought it was good. We got some great performances. Like I said, it could have been mixed a little better. A little more old fashioned BÖC energy wouldn't have hurt either. That said...you liked it. You can always second guess things until...you know.

Jeb: Were you in the studio when Ellen Foley recorded her background vocals?

JB: Yeah. Actually, we did that back in New York.

Jeb: She's one of my favorite singers.

JB: Yeah, Ellen and Genya Raven were both there. I think that's when Mickey Raphael came in to do the harmonica.

Here's a little tidbit. I wanted to get Magic Dick to play the harmonica. I couldn't get him but we got Mickey and he's fantastic. He's played with Willie Nelson for thirty-five years.

Jeb: Was Cultösaurus Erectus a determined push to get back to that BÖC sound after Mirrors?

JB: I think so, yeah. And also, we were excited because we had Martin Birch producing.

Martin Birch did Machine Head. He did "Highway Star" and "Smoke On The Water." He was a perfect match and he was a really nice guy. No pressure. He was kind of the opposite of Tom Werman who wanted things a certain way.

Martin just said "Do it until you get it and I'll tell you when you've got it." And that's it. Psychologically, he could get a great performance out of you. I loved working with Martin.

He was a little worn out because he had just come from making Heaven & Hell with Black Sabbath and Dio. He apologized that he probably wasn't on the top of his game with Cultösaurus...but for the next one, Fire of Unknown Origin, he was well rested. He did Mob Rules after Fire of Unknown Origin. He was like "I didn't do that well on Mob Rules...[laughter].

He's totally retired now but he was a bit of a genius, especially as an engineer/producer. He seemed to be really well connected with everything that was going on. He just laid back and let you play until he said "That's it! You've got it! Let's record it!" We liked working that way.

Jeb: You can't say Fire of Unknown Origin is underrated because it's one of your biggest albums…but I think it's underrated.

JB: Exactly. It was a very good record.

Jeb: But it was the last one with Albert.

JB: Yeah. He had some personal things going on. It was tough being out on tour. You never really got any time off in a rock band, it's what you do.

Jeb: Was it odd after all those years playing with your brother to not be playing with him?

JB: It definitely changes the personality. On those early albums, all the records with Albert, the personality was definitely a combination of the five of us. If you change one aspect of it it's just not the five. It's the four plus somebody else. We made good records, I think.

The five had magic. Albert was also a very important part of the creative team. Some bands have one person, who creates, or maybe two people who collaborate, but with Blue Öyster Cult it was all five plus five or six other lyricists. Everyone was contributing and pulling us in a direction.

Without Albert there, Rick was just the drummer. Rick is a very good drummer but Donald just showed him what to play because Donald is a very good drummer too. We missed Albert's input on the arrangements. What do you do? You can't just hire an arranger to come in and tell you what you should do.

It never occurred to me at the time that maybe I should step up and become a better arranger. Donald did his demos and they were good. I don't think Alan brought anything to the table after Albert left. So there is an example of a creative team that is just not the same.

Jeb: Why didn't you play on "Shooting Shark"?

JB: I don't know. I think I played it pretty well in the studio, but Donald was very clear about wanting to write a hit song that was six or seven minutes long. He was into timing singles and he would find these singles that were really long, like Mister Mister. Their singles were very long but why did they seem so short? They seemed short because they had this percolating rhythm section. So you could have this six minute song and it feels like four.

I think I played the part pretty well but he took it to California because they were mixing the album there and he decided he really wanted to do a slap bass part. I didn't know how to play slap bass. So Randy Jackson came in and slapped the hell out of the bass. I had no idea. That was not part of my language. It was Greek to me.

Jeb: The Randy Jackson?

JB: Yes, the same guy who played with Journey and was on American Idol. He is the nicest guy in the world and a fantastic bass player. So if you see the video for "Shooting Shark" I'm in the video, and I have no idea what I'm doing [laughter].

I love the mix. It really worked great and I said to Sandy, "If ‘Shooting Shark’ is a hit, we're going to have to play it on tour. Do you think you could set me up for a lesson with Randy Jackson?"

I met with Randy in the studio in San Francisco and for two hours he taught me how to play "Shooting Shark." It was incredible. It changed my life. I had the studio engineer dub me off a cassette with just the bass part and I brought that with me. He listened to it and then he said "Here's how you do it." He showed me all the tricks and taught me exercises for being able to do that stuff.

Sweet guy! Two hours he spent with me. I said "Lemme pay ya!" He said "No, it's on me." You can actually go to my Soundcloud account and listen to Randy Jackson's isolated bass part.

But yeah, that kind of stuff happens. On "Deadlines" from Cultösaurus Erectus Donald had a bass part where you had to bend a string and I just wasn't getting it. Don was showing me on the bass and Martin said "Donald, you just play it." It's a really great bass part but I just couldn't get the feel of what he wanted on it. That happens sometimes. Sometimes even Bill Wyman gets replaced so I don't feel bad about it.

Jeb: We've touched on every other I album and I like many others was not a big Club Ninja fan except for "Dancin' In the Ruins" which, oddly enough, wasn't written by anyone in the band.

JB: It was a great song. We did a video for that one. It didn't hit. Maybe if it had hit it would have changed things. I thought it was kind of cheesy actually. It pulled the whole thing from the creative team. It was good and Donald plays and sings the hell out of it.

The video I thought was clever because it had all these skateboarders which was the big thing then. We spent some heavy dollars on making that video but it was never played much on MTV. You don't know. You make those decisions at the time. I liked "Perfect Water" on that album.

Jeb: That is the other standout track. Of course the trivia question for that album would be that Howard Stern makes an appearance on the record on "When the War Comes," which is your song.

JB: I loved listening to Howard Stern in the morning. He was very entertaining. He had just been fired from NBC and I asked Sandy, "Do you think we could get him to do a voiceover?" Sandy said he'd try. Eric's wife happens to be related to Howard Stern so we gave him a call.

He had just been fired from his job so he wasn't doing anything. I was actually sick the day he came into the studio. I missed the session but he was really nice and honored to be a part of a Blue Öyster Cult record.

That was a very expensive record to make by the way. There are two completely different mixes, the European mix which doesn't have Howard and the American mix that does. I just thought it would be great if he could do what he did on the radio. He had just been fired so he might have some fire and brimstone in his voice and he did. He brought it to the table.

Jeb: In many ways this was the last original Blue Öyster Cult album. Of course Albert was gone but then we have Imaginos.

JB: A lot of people like it.

Jeb: A lot of people love it. I don't dislike it. I mean, I want to like it. It's a neat idea. But, when I go back to listen to the band I hardly ever choose that one.

JB: I don't like the mixing. It's not really my kind of mix. Sandy took over the mixing of the album and it lacks balance. It sucked all the sweetness out of the songs. That being said, there are some tremendous songs on the album.

Jeb: There are so many rumors, legends and debates about this album. Some people think it's a Sandy Pearlman album and some think it's the best thing you ever did.

JB: I don't think it was meant for mass consumption. It's an eccentric album.

Jeb: Did they really record it off and on for ten years?

JB: Something like that. Albert started working on it when he left the band in 1981 and the album didn't come out until seven years later. Then, of course they patched in Eric and Donald doing the vocals with a couple of other characters singing. It would have been a much better album if it was all done by all the original guys.

The only thing I did on it was a piano part. The album took seven years to make and I worked on it for four days. They gave me a big credit on the album because they wanted to give the impression that the band was back together.

I had nothing to do with the bass parts. I think my piano part was erased and the only thing that was left was a background vocal on one of the songs. I had very little to do with it and for all I know, everything was erased because they were mixing that album for years. It was another expensive album that didn't sell.

Jeb: You get the idea when you look at the "additional" musicians: Joe Satriani, Kenny Aaronson, Robbie Krieger...

JB: They erased Robbie Krieger. He was supposed to be on the album and he got a credit, but he's not there. I talked to the engineer who erased it. Can you imagine that? It seems like a Sandy/Albert vanity project. Columbia refused to put it out under Albert's name. They needed one more album to complete the contract so in go Donald and Eric to overdub vocals. That's what happened.

Jeb: After thirty years since that album do you ever look back and say I should have tried to be a part of it, or were you just done?

JB: I was done. It was wonderful, and I appreciate the several times I've gotten to sit in, but if I had done that then I would have missed out on a lot of things. The five solo albums, I had a lot of fun playing with The X Brothers and I still have a lot of fun playing with Blue Coupe. I've got other artistic projects...I got to go to Iraq and play for the troops. That was amazing.

If I had still been with Blue Öyster Cult none of that would have happened. You can long for the good old days but I think it’s better just to look ahead and not worry about what could have been.

Jeb: What was the best part of being a rock star and what was the worst part?

JB: The worst part was the traveling. Any musician will tell you that. In the early days it was "Oh, this is so exciting. We get to ride on a plane and get picked up by a limo!" But that gets old really quick.

The best part for me was being part of the creative team, especially when we were focused and really cooking. The other amazing thing was playing the freakin' stadiums!

I ran into Cheap Trick a little while ago and they said "When we went out with you guys we had the whole summer and every other day was a stadium! It was amazing!" I'm glad that they remembered. Robin Zander said "Ahh they were such good times!"

Jeb: I don't want to get away without mentioning a famous 'sit-in' you had on Extraterrestrial Live. You got to play a Doors song with Robbie Krieger! I'm a huge Doors fan. Take me back to that moment. What was that like?

JB: Very exciting. We recorded one for the album but we played with him three times. We got to play with Ray Manzerek too! We played with him in Santa Monica. He came out and jammed with us and he was having a great time.

I had heard that he was not very friendly but I had a great conversation with him. I told him that the only job I had before becoming a musician was being a milkman. He said "Holy crap, I was a milkman too!" He was a milkman by the lake, right outside of Chicago. I was a milkman on the shore of the Saint Lawrence River. I had a summer job delivering milk. That was the only job I'd had up to that time. He was too!

Jeb: One final question: is there going to be a Bouchard Brothers live album?

JB: Hard to say. It would be easy to do. I've been making some tapes and videoing some stuff and I think the core of it is there. Of course Albert's got eighteen balls up in the air. He's doing Science Fiction records, he's doing records with his friends in New York, he just put out a Christmas album, and he’s working on his second album with Michael Moorcock. He's already got a new song from Buck Dharma that is going to appear on this Science Fiction album.

Stay tuned.

https://www.joebouchard.com/
https://www.facebook.com/joe.bouchard.946
https://www.bluecoupeband.com/
https://www.facebook.com/blue.coupe.rocks/