Joe Bouchard (Blue Öyster Cult) Interview

In his 50+ year career, Joe Bouchard has just about done it all. From sold out stadiums and multiplatinum albums, to chart topping hits and collaborations with his heroes, the legendary Blue Öyster Cult bassist/singer/songwriter has cemented his name into the annals of rock history. One accolade he never could’ve imagined adding to that list was writing and recording an album in the midst of a global pandemic. Yet here we are, reveling in the glory of his latest pop gone hard rock opus, American Rocker. We had the pleasure of sitting down with Bouchard to discuss this latest effort, as well as his legendary career with BÖC.

Greetings Joe and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?

Joe Bouchard: I’m doing fantastic. It’s my record release day!

Yes! Today is the big day and that’s why we’re here.

JB: Yes, it’s on all the services. It’s available. I’ve been waiting weeks and weeks and all of a sudden, yeah! I get a lot of great messages and comments from people. They finally get to hear all 11 tracks and they’re very happy.

Speaking for myself, I was waiting patiently for the midnight release.

JB: I just talked to somebody else who did the same thing and stayed up late *laughs*.

Yes, I waited after what was a long work week, and I was definitely pleased!

JB: Thank you! That’s great.

It was just a couple years ago that I was reviewing your last album, Strange Legends, and now you’re back with American Rocker. When did songs start coming together for this one?

JB: This is my pandemic record. The other one I put out during the pandemic, but it had started before that. This one was completely written during the pandemic. I had a lot of time on my hands finally *laughs*. No gigs on the calendar and no place to run off to, so I decided I was gonna write a new album. There was a demand. My brother (Albert) had done his second double album in that time. I didn’t know if it would take a long time. It actually fell together pretty quick. This is the most songs I’ve ever written for one album. I wrote all the music for all the songs, and lyrics for most of the songs except for two.

One lyric was by John Shirley and the other was by Helen Wheels, who sadly passed away in 2000. We did a lot of work in the 70s and 80s. “Nosferatu” was a great track. I loved the lyric she did on that. There’s a bunch of others: “Light Years of Love”, “Celestial the Queen”. She wrote a song with my brother called “Tattoo Vampire”, a very, very good song. I just felt like I had the time. Also, this is one of those things where if I got boxed in as I’m writing the song, where you get to a point where it’s like, “Oh! I’m stuck here. What am I gonna do?” I can take a day or two off and say, “Wait a minute? How do I get out of this box? How do I find the door to the exit sign *laughs*?”

I didn’t really plan on any kind of theme for this, but the theme sort of ended up as being reflective in my elder years. Not that I’m that old yet, but it’s something that we should be celebrating, those good days of the 70s and the 80s. That’s where a lot of those songs fell into. I wanted to keep the tempos. I didn’t want to have anything that dragged, although there is a dark one called “Hounds of Hell”. You gotta have one really dark song *laughs*. That just started with a guitar cord. I hit an E minor sixth, so you hit the E minor and add the low “brrruuunngg”. I go, “The hounds of hell are on my trail.” *laughs* It’s all about overcoming obstacles, perfect for the pandemic. Are we ever gonna get to the end of this thing? It’s about overcoming the obstacles, but making it feel good.

Musically and lyrically, this album feels like a love letter to those glory days of the 70s and 80s with BÖC. In what ways did the events of that decade impact your creative direction from that point forward?

JB: Oh I don’t know. I never though It was gonna do this much solo work. I always was a band guy. I’ve played in a lot of bands since Blue Öyster Cult. At one time I was in 7 bands at the same time. It was crazy. Now I cut it back to 3 *laughs* so it’s not so bad. I don’t know. Just finding the time to do this thing…I wrote a lot of lyrics too. I spent a lot of time writing lyrics. I had a mentor in Ian Hunter. I’ve known Ian since the 70s. We opened shows for Mott the Hoople. When I found out Metallica was covering a song that I co-wrote, “Astronomy”, I said, “I gotta write more songs.”

I ran into Ian at the magazine store *laughs*. He was getting the international newspapers because he lives in Connecticut, not very far from where I used to live. I said, “Oh, Ian!” You’d know him with the frizzy hair, and he always wears the dark glasses. He goes, “Oh, it’s Joe! Good to see you! Here’s my number.” I started saying it’s time to get serious. I never really had lessons in how to write songs, but I’d go pick up Ian and every Monday night we’d have a writing session down at Neal Smith’s house. Neal was the drummer from Alice Cooper. Dennis (Dunaway), his brother in law, was part of our little writing band. We had a band where we’d write songs for an album or whatever.

I said, “Ian, wanna come down to Neal’s house? Let’s go! I’ll pick you up on Monday. Got an open night?” “Yeah, I’ll do it.” So I went to pick him up and said, “Where’s your guitar?” He said, “I’m not bringing a guitar. I don’t jam. I’m just gonna observe.” He was crazy like that. He doesn’t like to have anything on a calendar or anything. He likes to randomly do his thing, so we got down there and we’d be playing a song. But there was a 40 minute drive in the car, so I’d think to myself, “This is my songwriting teacher, and who better than Ian Hunter?!”

We ended up co-writing 4 songs. They didn’t really shake up the world, but it was a start. Then I started getting more serious about writing. My brother was putting out independent albums so I said, “Hey, if he can do it, I can do it!” *laughs* A little brotherly competition! I put out my first solo album in 2007. This (American Rocker) is the seventh album. *holds up CD* It’s a nice little package, and the theme really was solidified when my girlfriend/life partner said, “I know this artist named Alan Ayers.” He does book covers, but he also did a cover for The Rolling Stones, Bridges to Babylon. I said, “Alan, can you draw me as what I looked like in 1976?” He says, “Oh, sure!” So that’s Alan’s painting there. Then I started thinking, “Yeah, ’76. That was a good year…the year of the Reaper!” It was the year we graduated from being an opening act to being the headliner. How good is that?

It doesn’t get much better. It’s interesting you mention that Ian Hunter connection. I was always curious about that considering he co-wrote “Goin’ Through the Motions”.

JB: Yes, “Goin’ Through the Motions”. We really worked hard on that and I love it. It didn’t become the hit that we’d hoped, but you never know about hits? Do you know what a hit is today? Do you listen to the Top 10 *laughs*? Don’t get me started, and get off my lawn while you’re at it *laughs*!

Well you guys definitely had your fair share of hits, especially with “Reaper”, which compared to other hits of the time, and even today, stands on its own. Do you think it the mystery and singularity of it was its appeal?

JB: Yeah, the mystery. I play that song in all different iterations. I play it as a ballad with acoustic guitars. I play it without cowbell *laughs*. It doesn’t matter! It’s still magic! Every time it’s magic. I feel bad for all these artists that say, “Oh, I can’t play this hit song. I’m so sick of that song.” Man, they don’t have a “Reaper”, and I knew it was gonna be a hit. When I first heard it, I knew it was gonna be a hit. When we recorded it, I knew it was gonna be a hit. When I heard it mixed, I was positive it was gonna be a hit, but I never thought it would be the iconic song that it is today.

It’s crazy. Over 300 million Spotify streams. There’s a lot to be said about the streaming world for artists, but it’s alright. It’s OK for Blue Öyster Cult. It does very well by them, and I think that song has kept the catalog moving. Then people find out, “Oh, there’s that song too? I didn’t know they did that!” or “This is whole different thing. It’s something I can really sink my teeth into if I’m listening on headphones.” We’ve been lucky in that respect, so I was celebrating that on this new album, the golden age *laughs*.

While an old school rock n’ roll album at heart, American Rocker really showcases all the dimensions of your songwriting, and there are many. There’s poppy tracks like “My Way is the Highway”.

JB: It’s the most poppy I’ve ever done. I’ve never done a song like that. It felt so good. Then I started playing it for different people and they said, “Yeah, that’s the song! Put that out.” Of course, when Albert did the cowbell on it, there was no question. This was it *laughs*! I get that feeling, you know? I wanted it to be happy too. It’s been a tough couple years for musicians who do live performances. It was tough. It’s clearing up now. I’ll be out on a couple tours this summer which should be fun.

On the opposite side of that spectrum is a singer/songwriter epic like “Deadly Kisses”. Growing up, which bands most influenced you as a musician and songwriter?

JB: To this day, The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson with his epics. I went to see Pet Sounds 3 times live. I went to see Smile live. They were epic things! I sat in the front row, right by his feet *laughs*. I thought, “Wow! I get to hear this live!” Now he’s quite old and even in the earliest days of the Beach Boys, he was very awkward in front of people. That’s certainly number 1, but we were also Beatles and Stones fans. Even before that, we did a lot of songs from The Ventures and instrumentals. I do a lot of instrumentals on my solo albums. Just about every album had one, like “Haunted Dance Floor”. I don’t know where that one came from, but boy, there was nobody else recording in the space I did that, so it must have been me. It’s one of those things like, “Where did that come from?”

Then I did a fake bluegrass thing and I did a song about roller girls because my sister became a referee for a roller derby team. She’s 60 years old! She’s out there with 20 year old young girls that are just ready to knock heads *laughs*. So I had this track that was kind of Jeff Beck-ish, not that I’m anywhere near Jeff Beck, but it had that vibe. I said, “This is gonna be the roller girl song.” So I would do instrumentals and that reflected back to my days when we’d get the new Ventures album, Walk Don’t Run (1960). We’d learn the whole album, “Honky Tonk” and “Perfidia”. That was our thing. Of course, when The Beatles came out, then we had to learn how to sing. The Beach Boys stuff is incredibly hard to sing, but we loved it and enjoyed it.

In the late 60s, it became, “Well, I like this Jimi Hendrix record. I’d do anything to get that sound and come up with those songs.” What can I say? That was the golden age of artists and guitar heroes pushing the envelope, writing wise, what the audience would expect. Nowadays, it’s not so much the case. Who’s the guitar hero today? It’s more DJ hero: somebody who can mix and push the boundaries in that area. The guitar, there’s a lot of good players, Joe Bonamassa. But the era of the Eddie Van Halens and Buck Dharmas? Where’s tomorrow’s Buck Dharma? I don’t know.

Every time I catch BÖC live, I say to my friends, “That man is one of the greatest guitarists on the planet that nobody talks about for who knows what reason.”

JB: I don’t know. I heard it even years before I was in the band. My brother would bring acetates, these plastic records that could only be played 10 times. I remember putting on one of those acetates of The Soft White Underbelly and listening thinking, “Wow, this is kind of good…but listen to that guitar! That’s insane!” I agree with you.

There’s a line on “In the Golden Age” referencing the “laser shows and fireworks” that made BÖC one of the premiere live acts of their era. I want to talk specifically about the band’s legendary laser show. When was it decided that the band would invest in such an undertaking? Do you remember the first time you performed live with the lasers?

JB: I remember the first time I saw them. We went to a loft in New York City. The laser inventor, this crazy guy, David Avante, had a couple of art exhibits where they used lasers. Sandy Pearlman, our manager, was like, “This is unbelievable.” He had studied the idea of lasers, because he liked the science and all that stuff. The first time we saw them, we said, “Yeah, we gotta have these.” We didn’t know what it was gonna cost us. It was very expensive, and they had to be water cooled. I don’t know how they do it nowadays, but they were water cooled, so when the people would flush the toilets, *laughs* the water pressure would drop and the lasers would shut off! They were only a couple of watts.

We had a whole system, with the laser bracelet and putting the audience inside the laser generated cone, and flipping it around *laughs*. It was really pretty intense. I was always scared of them *laughs*. I can admit that now, but I’d be like, “Oh, it’s coming right over my head? Time to duck!” Eric and Donald (Buck) were pretty fearless and had mirrors on their guitars to do things with lasers. As it was, everything was fine. There was never a problem, but the government told us we had to change the lasers. Then they weren’t as exciting and thrilling, so we said, “OK, let’s drop it and move onto something else.” For 2 years there, they were the cat’s pajamas.

And it resulted in that classic scene in The Stoned Age where Joe gets zapped by the laser!

JB: Yep *laughs*!

Your brother Albert plays with you on this latest album, but last year saw you reuniting with him as part of his epic ReImaginos series. How was that experience and what’s it like to revisit the Imaginos mythos?

JB: I’m having fun with that! Albert started this. He’s got a young drummer, he plays guitar, we got another lead guitar player, and I get to play keyboards. We did the entire Imaginos album for the first time back in January up in Massachusetts. That was really fun. I wish we had more dates. The second one came out, so we do some of those songs now in our acoustic act. I’m helping him work on the third double album, so there will be three double albums for Imaginos. This was Sandy’s dream before he passed away. He was like, “Albert, you gotta do this.”

It’s moving a long really well. He wants to get the third double album done before June. What is it now? It’s June *laughs*! As soon as I hang up, I’m working on a song for him. It won’t be out until 2023, but we gotta get the whole package together. There’s gonna be a comic book that goes with it. The whole story’s gonna be fleshed out and you’ll get to the climax of the Imaginos story. It’s a big project, but I’m having fun with it.

This year marks two major anniversaries for you, the first being 50 years of BÖC’s self titled debut album. By this point in the band’s career, these songs had been honed and crafted for quite some time. Taking that into consideration, was the album’s release a feeling of relief, excitement, or both?

JB: It was excitement, and I actually liked when it was released on CD. I never thought the pressing really did it justice. There was especially a lot of inner groove distortion, probably because the album was too long, but what would you cut? You wouldn’t cut anything off that album! I had the greatest feeling when I was recording that. Every day I just wanted to jump up and down and do a backflip. It was like, “Wow! We’re going into the studio! We’re gonna actually record a real album.” I just felt great about it. The most excitement and fun that I can remember was on that album.

The second album (Tyranny and Mutation) was good, but it was rushed because we were in the middle of touring. Third album we got a little nicer studio from Columbia, and we had those big pianos. The piano you hear on “Astronomy” was this Bösendorfer. It had those extra deep strings on it. It had extra keys that went down below the A, low C or something? That was done in this fabulous studio called studio C, for Columbia. It was where the American Symphony recorded. Stravinsky recorded there. Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue (1959) there. I think Dave Brubeck recorded “Take Five” there. All these amazing recordings, and a lot of opera, came out of there.

So they had all these orchestral instruments around. they had 7 pianos, so you could pick and choose which piano you wanted to use. Unfortunately, it’s turned into condos now. They tore it down. It’s condos for hedge fund managers, but just to be in that room was amazing. Then we did a live album (On Your Feet or On Your Knees) and then we worked at the Record Plant, where Jimi Hendrix worked, where John Lennon worked, where Aerosmith was working. We had to share the studio with them. Everybody in New York wanted to record at the Record Plant. There were great people there. That was another lucky thing. We got into the Record Plant and made Agents of Fortune and Spectres in there. Good times.

Aerosmith, who just a few years earlier was opening up for you guys.

JB: Yeah, we did a lot of shows with Aerosmith. We did the World Series of Rock in Cleveland. There were all these heavyweight bands, but in bias, they knocked it out of the park. That was the best I ever saw them. Rod Stewart and the Faces were there. I forget all the other bands, but we did good. We did really good, but they were spectacular.

You also make an interesting point about that era of the 70s being record, tour, record, tour. I was actually just talking with Michael Schenker about this regarding UFO. Did it ever get to a point where the band would have to write on the road to make things work?

JB: Yeah, Don (Buck) wrote “Godzilla” in a hotel room in Dallas, but I did most of my writing at home. I’ve got boxes and boxes of cassettes, and my plan is one day to go through it all, digitize them, figure out what I was doing and thinking! But I didn’t feel that productive on the road. A lot of people would say that too. You gotta be really dedicated. you don’t get that much time off. You need all the sleep you can get. It’s a night job. If you don’t like working at night, don’t be a musician *laughs*.

This year also marks the 45th anniversary of the band’s fifth album, Spectres, which carries on the more pop influenced sound explored on Agents of Fortune. It also features what I strongly believe to be the greatest BÖC song of all time, “Nosferatu”. What is the story behind this song?

JB: Why thank you. I had some other songs planned for that album. We were doing a tour with Todd Rundgren. It was all across Canada, but half of the tour got cancelled, so we headed home. I don’t know what the reason was, but it got cancelled. I was home and thought, “Well, while I’m here, let me write this song.” I got the lyrics from Helen and I don’t know. I don’t think I spent a lot of time on it, but it had a lot of parts and it was very structured. I wrote that on my piano that I had on the garage, this white piano. It was brown when I bought it, but I had it painted all white in honor of Little Richard and that white piano he had *laughs*. I learned how to tune it too. I made a rough demo and the guys seemed to like it.

Then we’re recording at the record plant and it’s like, “Wow, these sounds are great.” They had a mellotron, it was actually a Chamberlin, and I got to play that on it. Then we had these great harmonies going. I don’t know if we planned as much as what came out. In the end, it came out much better than I thought it was going to. It was like, “Yeah, this is good!” It had some emotional moments, but it had some darkness. It was trying to fit all of that into this epic.

You’re right though. When a band goes into the studio and says, “We’re going to record an epic.”, it never turns out that way. An epic needs to create itself.

JB: Exactly. Donald’s guitar solo at the end is the epic icing on the cake. I don’t think I planned that in the demo. He just did it. We had this place here and we said, “OK, let’s do a solo there.” And he rips out this great, epic solo. Then we come back and there’s a pause. And then it comes back with the big double chorus! Thank you for mentioning that.

Absolutely. That is a song I’ve heard a million times, and every time it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

JB *laughs* Why thanks! It’s tough because I have to follow “I Love the Night”, which is fantastic. So you’ve got the 1-2 punch there *laughs*.

Totally! Another epic I want to ask you about is “Vengeance (The Pact)” off Fire of Unknown Origin, which was intended for the Heavy Metal soundtrack. The lyrics, which chronicle Taarna’s quest, speak for itself. How did the music come together?

JB: That’s a good question. It’s on one of those cassettes in the garage *laughs*. I’ll find it one of these days! It’s one of those things where I did a little demo at home *hums lead melody*. I like melodies. Part of it is a classical composer would find a melody that sticks in your head. And then there were the moving chords. I don’t know really how it all came together, but it did *laughs*. That’s one where Albert came in and said, “Let’s take these lyrics…”, which are basically taken right from the movie, “…on that spot. Maybe they’ll use it. Maybe they won’t, but at least we’ve come up with a thing that really makes that work.” I don’t know if I had other lyrics for it. I think it might’ve been just…I’ll have to look it up.

I’m not sure if you’ve seen it, but somebody on YouTube made a video where they took the songs and put it to the scenes in Heavy Metal.

JB: Yes, I’ve seen that.

I love that!

JB: Yeah, it’s cool!

This week, BÖC announced a series of 50th anniversary shows in New York City with your brother Albert.

JB: I’ve heard that! They never called me.

Really?

JB: I never heard from the management at all. I don’t know what’s happening there. I know as much as you know. I can’t really say at this point. I’m waiting *laughs*.

So you would be open to playing those shows?

JB: As people have said to me, “That’s a big part of your history.”, but I can’t say what they’re going to do. It’s up to them. I’ve helped them out on a few shows, but they do have their own agenda going, so it’s fine. And Richie Castellano sings “Screams” and does a fine job with it. So I don’t know, but thanks for asking.

As someone who got his 3 night pass this week, I had to.

JB: That’s quite the commitment!

When those tickets went on sale, I’ve never made a faster decision in my life.

JB: Well they’ve done very, very well. I just haven’t heard from them at all.

Interesting. In closing, what is the rest of 2022 looking like for you?

JB: I’m doing a short tour up to Canada with Blue Coupe. Then in August, we’ll be playing in Scotland and England and France with The Bouchard Brothers. It’s an acoustic songs and stories show, so I’m looking forward to that. After that, I don’t know. I’m probably gonna help Albert finish his third Imaginos double album, and maybe go and dig through my archives of tapes, and start working on a book.

The new Joe Bouchard album, American Rocker, is available now on Deko Entertainment. For more information on Bouchard, visit www.joebouchard.com.