Blue Öyster Cult
Blue Öyster Cult (/ˈɔɪ.stər/ OY-stər; sometimes abbreviated BÖC or BOC) is an American hard rock band formed on Long Island in Stony Brook, New York, in 1967. The band has sold 25 million records worldwide, including 7 million in the United States.[1] The band's fusion of hard rock with psychedelia, and penchant for occult, fantastical and tongue-in-cheek lyrics, had a major influence on heavy metal music.[2][3][4] They developed a cult following and, while achieving mainstream hits like "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (1976) and "Burnin' for You" (1981), their commercial success was limited. Both songs, and others such as "Godzilla" (1977), remain classic rock radio staples. The band were early adopters of the music video format, and their videos received heavy rotation on MTV in its early period.
This article is about the band. For their eponymous album, see Blue Öyster Cult (album).
Blue Öyster Cult
- Soft White Underbelly (1967–1969)
- Oaxaca (1970)
- Stalk-Forrest Group (1970)
- Santos Sisters (1970)
- The Blue Öyster Cult (1972–1973)
- Hard rock
- heavy metal
- occult rock
- progressive rock
- psychedelic rock (early)
- acid rock (early)
- 1967–1986
- 1987–present
- Buck Dharma
- Eric Bloom
- Danny Miranda
- Richie Castellano
- Jules Radino
Blue Öyster Cult continued to make studio albums and tour throughout the 1980s, although their popularity had declined such that they were dropped from their longtime label CBS/Columbia Records, following the commercial failure of their eleventh studio album Imaginos (1988). Other than contributing to the soundtrack of the 1992 film Bad Channels and an album of re-recorded material, Cult Classic, in 1994, the band continued as a live act until releasing their first studio album of original material in ten years, Heaven Forbid (1998). The lackluster sales of Curse of the Hidden Mirror (2001) led to another hiatus from studio recording, but they continued performing live within the next decade-and-a-half. Two more studio albums were released in the 2020s, The Symbol Remains (2020) and Ghost Stories (2024), the latter of which is said to be the band's last.[5]
Blue Öyster Cult's longest-lasting and the most commercially successful lineup included Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser (lead guitar, vocals), Eric Bloom (lead vocals, "stun guitar", keyboards, synthesizer), Allen Lanier (keyboards, rhythm guitar), Joe Bouchard (bass, vocals, keyboards), and Albert Bouchard (drums, percussion, vocals, miscellaneous instruments). The band's current lineup still includes Bloom and Roeser, in addition to Danny Miranda (bass, backing vocals), Richie Castellano (keyboards, rhythm guitar, backing vocals), and Jules Radino (drums, percussion).[6] The duo of the band's manager Sandy Pearlman and rock critic Richard Meltzer, who also met at Stony Brook University, played a key role in writing many of the band’s lyrics.[7]
History[edit]
Early years as Soft White Underbelly (1967–1971)[edit]
Blue Öyster Cult was formed in 1967 as Soft White Underbelly (a name the group would occasionally use in the 1970s and 1980s to play small club gigs around the United States and UK)[8] in a communal house at Stony Brook University on Long Island when rock critic Sandy Pearlman overheard a jam session consisting of fellow Stony Brook classmate Donald Roeser and his friends.[9] Pearlman offered to become the band's manager and creative partner, to which the band agreed.[9] The band's original lineup consisted of guitarist Roeser, drummer Albert Bouchard, keyboardist Allen Lanier, singers Jeff Kagel (aka Krishna Das) and Les Braunstein and bassist Andrew Winters.[10]
In October 1967, the band made their debut performance as Steve Noonan's backing band at the Stony Brook University Gymnasium, a gig booked by Pearlman.[11] The band's name came from Winston Churchill's description of Italy as "the soft underbelly of the Axis."[11]
Pearlman was important to the band – he was able to get them gigs and recording contracts with Elektra and Columbia, and he provided them with his poetry for use as lyrics for many of their songs, including "Astronomy." Writer Richard Meltzer, also a Stony Brook University student, provided the band with lyrics from their early days up through their most recent studio album. In 1968, the band moved in together at their first house in the Thomaston area of Great Neck, New York.[12] The band recorded an album's worth of material for Elektra Records in 1968.
Braunstein played his final show as Soft White Underbelly's lead singer in the spring of 1969.[11] His departure led Elektra to shelve the album recorded with him on vocals.
Eric Bloom was hired by the band as their acoustic engineer. He eventually replaced Braunstein as lead singer through a series of unlikely coincidences, one being Lanier deciding to join Bloom on a drive to an upstate gig, where he spent the night with Bloom's old college bandmates and got to hear old tapes of Bloom's talent as lead vocalist.[13] Because of this, Bloom was offered the job of lead singer for Soft White Underbelly.
However, a bad review of a 1969 Fillmore East show caused Pearlman to change the name of the band – first to Oaxaca, then to the Stalk-Forrest Group. Pearlman also gave stage names to each of the band members (Jesse Python for Eric Bloom, Andy Panda for Andy Winters, Prince Omega for Albert Bouchard, La Verne for Allen Lanier) but only Buck Dharma kept his.[14] The band recorded yet another album's worth of material for Elektra, but only one single ("What Is Quicksand?" b/w "Arthur Comics") was released (and only in a promo edition of 300 copies) on Elektra Records (this album was eventually released, with additional outtakes, by Rhino Handmade Records as St. Cecilia: The Elektra Recordings in 2001). The album featured Bloom as their main lead singer, but Roeser also sang lead on a few songs, a pattern of sharing lead vocals that has continued throughout the band's career. With Bloom, Soft White Underbelly/Stalk-Forrest Group became one of Stony Brook University's "house bands," popular on campus.[15]
After a few more temporary band names, including the Santos Sisters, the band settled on Blue Öyster Cult in 1971 (see below for its origin).
New York City producer/composer and jingle writer David Lucas saw the band perform and took them into his Warehouse Recording Studio and produced four demos, with which Pearlman was able to get the renamed band another audition with Columbia Records. Clive Davis liked what he heard, and signed the band to the label. The first album was subsequently produced and recorded by Lucas on eight-track at Lucas' studio.[16] Winters would leave the band and be replaced by Bouchard's brother, Joe Bouchard.
Musical style[edit]
Blue Öyster Cult is usually described as a hard rock band, albeit one with their own tongue-in-cheek style.[34] Their music has also been described as heavy metal,[35] psychedelic rock, occult rock,[36] acid rock,[37] and progressive rock.[34] They have also been recognized for helping pioneer genres such as stoner metal.[38] The band has also experimented with additional genres on specific albums, such as on Mirrors.
They have acknowledged the influence of artists such as Alice Cooper,[34] Grateful Dead, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, MC5,[34] The Blues Project,[39] Jimi Hendrix,[40] and Black Sabbath.[34]
Lyrics[edit]
The band have frequently collaborated with outside lyricists, although all of the original members wrote lyrics at some point, most notably Donald Roeser. The principal lyricists in the early days were manager Sandy Pearlman and fellow rock critic Richard Meltzer. Key members of the New York punk scene Patti Smith, Helen "Wheels" Robbins and Jim Carroll - all friends of the band - contributed from the mid-1970s. Later in the decade frontman Eric Bloom, a science fiction fan, recruited English author Michael Moorcock to write for the band, and later did the same with Eric Van Lustbader and John Shirley.[41][42]
In order to add to their mystique the band would often use out-of-context fragments of Pearlman's unpublished sci-fi poetry cycle The Soft Doctrines of Imaginos as lyrics, rendering their meaning obscure.[34] Additionally, they kept a folder of Pearlman's and Meltzer's word associations to insert into their songs.[43]
Legacy and influence[edit]
Blue Öyster Cult have been influential to the realm of hard rock and heavy metal, leading them to being referred to as "the thinking man's heavy metal band" due to their often cryptic lyrics, literate songwriting, and links to famous authors.[54][55][56] They have influenced many acts including Iron Maiden,[57] Metallica,[58][59] Fates Warning,[60] Iced Earth,[61] Cirith Ungol,[62] Alice in Chains,[63] Twisted Sister,[64] Ratt,[65][66] Steel Panther,[67] Green River (and later Mudhoney),[68] Body Count,[69] Possessed,[70] Candlemass,[71] Saint Vitus,[72] Trouble,[73] Opeth,[74] White Zombie,[75] Kvelertak,[76][77] HIM,[78] Turbonegro,[79] Radio Birdman,[80][81] The Cult,[82] The Minutemen,[83] Firehose,[84] Hoodoo Gurus,[85] Widespread Panic,[86] Queens of the Stone Age,[87] Umphrey's McGee,[88] Stabbing Westward,[89] Royal Trux,[90] and Moe.[91]
The band's influence has extended beyond the musical sphere. The lyrics of "Astronomy" have been named by author Shawn St. Jean as inspirational to the later chapters of his fantasy novel Clotho's Loom,[92] wherein Sandy Pearlman's "Four Winds Bar" provides the setting for a portion of the action. Titles and lines from the band's songs provided structure and narrative for the third book in Robert Galbraith's (a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling), series of Cormoran Strike novels, Career of Evil.[93][94]
Their hit single "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" was featured in the famous Saturday Night Live sketch "More Cowbell". The original recording was produced at The Record Plant in New York by David Lucas, who sang background vocals with Roeser, and introduced the now-famous cowbell part, which may have been played by himself,[95] Albert Bouchard,[96] or Eric Bloom.[97]
"(Don't Fear) The Reaper" was also used in writer/director John Carpenter's horror film classic, Halloween (1978),[98] the opening sequence of the miniseries adaptation of The Stand (1994) by Stephen King, and covered by The Mutton Birds for Peter Jackson's horror-comedy film The Frighteners (1996).[99] "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" was also used throughout the comedy film The Stoned Age (1994) and plays a role in its storyline. In the film Gone Girl (2014), the song plays on the radio during a car driving scene with actor Ben Affleck. The song was also used as the opening theme and main story element in the 1996 FMV computer game Ripper, by Take Two Interactive, and was also featured in the 2006 game Prey and the 2021 game Returnal. The lyrics for "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" are featured in the introduction of Stephen King's book The Stand. The song was also used in Orange Is the New Black's season 2 finale.
Adrian Borland's guitar style was influenced by listening to BOC records. https://www.toppermost.co.uk/adrian-borland/
Current members