Joe Bouchard played bass for the band from 1970 until 1986 and contributed some of the most important songs in the band's repertoire. Songs like "Astronomy", "Hot Rails to Hell" and "Nosferatu" . Following his tenure with BOC, Joe played with a variety of bands including The X Brothers and Bouchard, Dunaway, Smith (with ex- Alice Cooper members Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith).

Joe has been busy of late with a number of projects including the excellent Blue Coupe band and a terrific solo record Jukebox in My Head. I had the pleasure of speaking with Joe recently about all of these activities (see the end of this interview for links to those) but in this, the final installment of this three-part interview, Joe looks back at the band that started it all off for him, Blue Oyster Cult.

antiMusic: You were a part of one of the biggest bands in rock. Although you, like most bands, never had mega Lady Gaga type success all in a rush, you were together a few years and gradually built up to major league status. Looking back, I mean it's always nice to have the royalties from 3 or 4 10-million selling records but do you think your steady rise to fame was the reason for the band's longevity (the band that existed up until '86 that is)?

Joe: Yeah, I mean, I'm amazed. The first three albums had made a real big in-road in a lot of people's minds. They were done, not with any intention of real commerciality or big happening. We were trying to be a little bit different from what was out there in the market at that time. We weren't trying to fit in with what was current. So they stand out --- those three albums. And of course, to the hard-core fan who are still around now, that's what they really want. They just love that. Every body loves "The Reaper" and "Godzilla" but there's something about those first three records with "Cities on Flame�", "Hot Rails to Hell", and "Astronomy". Very solid work. Hopefully they'll stay around a little bit longer. We're all still kind of amazed by it.

antiMusic: All of your material with BOC had a sinister quality to it. And it seemed that way with the entire band. I guess you could say that "Going Through the Motions" was one of the only more upbeat-type songs. Did everybody write specifically for the vibe that the band had and did you have to sort of muddy up the occasional shiny happy song that wasn't perhaps quite as disturbing as required?

Joe: I felt that for myself personally, I was probably the easiest to convince�our producers wanted us to be heavier like Black Sabbath and I was probably the easiest to convince that it was okay. The other guys who had been recording for a couple of years more than I had, they had some problems with that. The sinister quality? I don't know. I always thought it was kind of fun. (amused voice). We knew that we definitely didn't want to be the same as most commercial stuff out there. That stuff was kind of embarrassing. And when I first joined the band, I was amazed that they would have this kind of hard-nose, anti-commercial sort of attitude and that was fine. I kind of fit in, pretty well. And then when it came to doing some of the more bizarre stuff, I just jumped on it. (laughs) It was a great time. I can never imagine being more excited than I was when we were recording our first album in New York City.

antiMusic: What was it like when you got a copy of the first record and you saw the credits?

Joe: I was kind of disappointed in the sound of the record because I remember it being a lot better in the studio. But that was probably some of the problems with mastering and going from the master in the studio to a vinyl disc. I was much happier with the first album when it came out on CD. It wasn't the best mastering and mixing but it reminded me more of what we actually experienced in the studio. A lot of people say, vinyl is better. Well vinyl is different. A great vinyl record sounds better than a CD any time. But I don't think our first vinyl record was that good � sound-wise. But people are just usually looking for a song. They love "�Last Days of May" . They love "Stairway to the Stars" . They love all of that first album. They love "Screams" (laughs).

antiMusic: If Eric was hired as the lead singer, how did it happen that the other members started singing a lot of their own songs and wasn't that kind of a Pandora's Box opening up the possibility of hurt feelings if it was decided that Eric should sing the song?

Joe: Sort of but then again, we kind of based ourselves on The Beatles. You know, they had different singers and they got along fine. I mean, they hated each other but they got along (laughs). Occasionally, we'd get a producer who would come in and ask "Why do you have so many singers? You're just diluting the final product." Well, that was just the way we wanted to do it. There were two ways to look at it. You have your Mick Jagger and Mick did just about everything except for a couple of songs Keith sang and one that Bill Wyman sang. And that gave them a focus, if you were advertising a band or working on the image of a band. You had a focus with one singer. That made it easier for people who were in the marketing of the band. Now if you have different singers, than that can muddy up the situation I guess but I don't know. I was just happy to sing my songs. Sometimes I felt weird about having somebody else sing my songs.

antiMusic: I was just going to ask why you didn't sing "Astronomy"?

Joe: I did. I auditioned. They turned me down. (laughs) Well, you know The Byrds auditioned for "Mr. Tambourine Man". David Crosby wanted to sing it. And the producer said, "No, Roger (McGuinn) is going to sing it". So we had auditions for "Astronomy". Sandy (Pearlman, manager) loved the song and Albert came up with a really nice arrangement of the song. So we would just have live auditions in the studio and whoever sang it the best would take it. And I thought I nailed it. (laughs) I thought I really nailed it good. And then Eric sang it and it was pretty good. And then Albert sang it and I didn't think it was that good. So the producer, Sandy said "no, Albert's singing it". So I said, "OK". They didn't pick me. But at least they had a sort of fair process. They had a somewhat fair process. But then actually, Sandy changed his mind and said, "No, Eric's singing it". So it actually went through three singers.

antiMusic: I'm sure you had a lot of great touring experiences. The Blue and the Black tour. Opening for Alice Cooper. What are some of the highlights of playing with other people for you?

Joe: The first breakthrough tour where we really came out big time was with Rod Stewart & The Faces.

antiMusic: Wow, that was a somewhat weird pairing.

Joe: That was a weird pairing but they liked us. They would sabotage their opening act if they didn't do well. But we were so different from them, they didn't care. And they liked us because we bought them champagne. (laughs) They were a good bunch of blokes. And that was the first time we played for like a lot of females in the audience. And that was good because it was the year before "The Reaper" came out so it was a good setup. We were playing on lots of big stages. A lot of girls came out. And then when "The Reaper" came out, they just went bananas. That was a highlight tour, for sure. It was always fun going out with The Faces.

The Black and The Blue tour was not as good as it seemed. It was the biggest tour of the year. By the way, I'm doing a tribute to Ronnie James Dio in a few weeks with Blue Coupe. I love Ronnie. It's sad that he passed away. He was part of my upstate New York days because he was from Cortland and he played a lot of upstate New York and I saw him a lot when I was in college. And then I was shocked as hell when he took over for Ozzy. He really worked hard. And he had tremendous talent as a singer. Unbelievable voice. So I'm glad to be part of this tribute to him and helping out his charity.

But most of the time, Sabbath and BOC just feuded night after night. It was road crew versus road crew. It was just too bad. You know, when I'm out on tour I want everybody to have a good time. The opening act. All the roadies. I want the audience to have a good time. I want to look like I'm having a good time. I don't want it to be bad for any reason cuz it's tough enough just being out on the road. So it was little disappointing. But we got through it.

I loved working with Foghat. Going from Sabbath to Foghat was like, "This is what touring should be about." You know, PARTY!! (laughs) Good, good, good parties.

antiMusic: It's always mentioned in KISS history about the rivalry early on with BOC. How did the bands actually get on and was that a true story about your road manager being locked in an equipment case?

Joe: I don't know. It could be. I remember the band was locked in a van once. (laughs) There was a little police activity going on, so they put us in a truck and slammed the door and so we were stuck in this truck while things were getting heavy on stage, otherwise we might have got arrested but that was a long time ago. And that was in the South too. In the early rock & roll days, you know (laughs). I don't remember the tour manager being locked in the trunk. It could have happened though.

antiMusic: How did you get on with the band?

Joe: I feel that Ace Frehley is a good friend. I used to go to his house and we'd jam. He was without a driver's license for a while so I lived near him and I would go over to his house and we'd have a six-pack of beer and we'd play some guitar. That was about it. The other guys were a little harder-edged, you know. There was probably a lot of fun because the first tour was a three act bill. They opened for Nazareth in the middle and BOC was the headliner. And then they had their big breakthrough with KISS Alive and after that they became headliners and we would have to open shows for them. And when we were nice to them, they completely turned it around and weren't nice to us. And that got to be a drag because I thought we were better and shouldn't be opening for them but that's business and those things happen. They probably over-paid us to open their shows but� (laughs) But I thought at the time, we shouldn't be doing that. Certain bands should stick to their guns and not do certain things. Like Rush doesn't open for anybody, except maybe the Rolling Stones. They always do their own thing, their way, all the time. And they do it very well.

antiMusic: "Morning Final" (from Agents of Fortune) is my favorite song by you. What do you remember about putting that one together?

Joe: I was staying in the city. I think it might have been at Allen and Patti Smith's apartment. I got a newspaper and was reading it at practice and there had been a murder in the subway and it just happened to be at the stop just outside Allen and Patti's door, right on the corner outside their building. And I said, "This is scary. This could have been me. Maybe this is something to write a song about." So I took the incident right from the newspaper and wrote a song about it and "Morning Final" is like the newspaper. So I sat down at my old white grand piano and started playing it. It developed from me playing piano and when we cut the track, I had a demo. I did the demo on a cassette and a bit of guitar at the beginning of the song. And I had a pretty good chorus for the song. When we went in to cut the track for Agents of Fortune, I played piano. I was very sick that day but I went into to the studio anyway. I could hardly keep my head up. And Allen played bass on that song and I played grand piano. And then I overdubbed an electric piano on top of the grand piano, so there's actually two pianos there. Then we cut a vocal on it. I wasn't crazy about the vocal on it but it was okay. Then we did harmonies for it and the producer David Lucas sang along with me and I thought that was really cool. I love hearing the harmonies of his voice with me on that song. And then we have the fadeout and that great subway sound on it. And Eric does his newsboy routine. It's just perfect. Not that I knew it was going to come out like that but it just does. It flows really well.

antiMusic: Why didn't you play bass on "Shooting Shark" ? It was Randy Jackson on that one.

Joe: Yeah, Randy Jackson from American Idol fame. The truth is Donald had this really long song and he had this theory that if the song had this percolating rhythm to it, then it wouldn't seem as long. Nine minutes would seem like three minutes. So we cut a track and I think I played the part with a pick and I played it just the way that Donald wanted me to do it, just the way he had done it on his demo. Then they took the song to San Francisco to be mixed and they said they wanted to try a funkier bass part. I said, "Fine. That's not what I do. If you can find somebody else to do it, that's fine." So the next thing I know, they have this slap bass part and I had no idea how to do slap bass which was all the rage at the time. And he does make it percolate the way good bass players do it.

But then we shot a video of it and I had no idea how to play the bass on the song (laughs). If you look closely in the video, you'll think this guy doesn't know what he is doing (laughs). But that's OK. It's only MTV, you know? (laughs) So after the video came out, I said to Sandy, our manager, I'm going to have to learn how to play this because what if this becomes a big hit, then I'll have to play it every night. So he said, "I'll hook you up and get you a lesson with Randy Jackson." And Randy was in the studio and I happened to have a couple of days off so he took me down and in two hours gave me a thorough lesson on how to play slap bass. And it was the best bass lesson I've ever had. And he's just so good in all areas. The guy not only slaps but he's a consummate musician. What you see on American Idol is not really what he is as a musician. I mean, he went to play with Bob Dylan, Journey. He was Mariah Carey's bass player for quite a long time. Then he was going to retire and somebody said, "Why don't you go audition for this TV show?" And the rest is history. Great guy.

antiMusic: What's the deal with Allen? You never hear anything about him at all. Does he have health problems or is he just a total recluse?

Joe: I don't know anything about Allen. I talked to him very briefly in 2006 after a show at a casino in Connecticut, but he didn't want to hang out after the show. I've heard if you call his answering machine, it says flat out that he will not call you back.

antiMusic: BOC became a pretty flamboyant band in the late '70s with the lasers and lights. Did you have much of a problem adopting a stage presence as your audiences grew larger?

Joe: Yes, we ramped up the visual aspect of the band with lasers and pyro, Eric riding a Harley onstage, the 30 foot mechanical Godzilla. It was a fun show, but I don't think we changed our stage positions, i.e. choreography, much from earlier shows. Yeah we felt a little bit jealous that the show was taking over. In interviews people would be talking about the lasers and the pyro but we wanted to talk about the music more. We might have been able to do it for a few more years. Other bands can adapt to the size of the shows you're doing but if you're artists like we tried to be I think you feel like, "Well, why do we have to do it that way?" So it was kind of a come-down after all the lasers and the big shows that we had. But you just do what you have to do as a musician, you know? And I've seen Blue Oyster Cult and the other guys that they have in it --- it was a good show.

antiMusic: Who were you closest to in the band and what were your non-show days filled with when on tour?

Joe: Non-show days were pretty boring. I did bowl with Eric occasionally. He brought his own bowling ball, named Jimi, on tour with him. Occasionally we would see another band like Lou Reed, the Tubes, Bill Withers, Merrilee Rush comes to mind. Most times with Sandy at the helm, it was tracking down the best place in town for food. After a decade on the road we decided that even with only one day off on the road we'd fly home.

antiMusic: Have you played Rock Band or Guitar Hero and if so, how well do you do on your own songs?

Joe: I crashed "Godzilla" on Guitar Hero after the first minute. I was terrible. Singing "Reaper" on Rock Band I did much better, 100% I think. That was fun.

antiMusic: What are your thoughts about the movie called Roadie that features a fictional roadie from Blue Oyster Cult?

Joe: I haven't seen the movie, although I've heard about it. A friend of mine, Chris Seefried, scored original music for the movie. He says it's great. I will order it up on cable when it's available.

antiMusic: Some people consider BOC metal. I never did. Your early music was kind of raunchy but the diversity of latter material kind of splattered that classification. What category would you put BOC in the CD stores (whatever are left) of the nation?

Joe: We were most amazed that we had our own bins in the "record" stores. No more just chucking us in the A-F file. Even though we rarely were strictly metal, it's nice to note that we've influenced many metal bands, Metallica probably being the most obvious. I guess you could categorize us as hard rock, but the hits fall into a more rock/pop variety. On radio we're called Classic Rock.

antiMusic: Well, to wrap this up, what's next for Joe Bouchard in the near future?

Joe: More demos. Jukebox in my Head comes out again on September 13. And there will be a video and a remix for that. I'm working on an album with The X Brothers. It's an interesting album. It's all covers. I'm not going to try to do anything too intellectual with that. It will be a fun, fun party record. Then I've got the new solo album. The songs are all in play. It's just a matter of putting it all together and finding the right time to put it out. Then after that, we're going to do another Blue Coupe record. We've already started some tracks for that. We've got a couple of ideas --- some interesting things. It's all good. I'm busier than ever and just enjoying my summer.

Morley and antiMusic thank Joe very much for making all the time to speak with us