When Joe Bouchard was a music student at Ithaca College in the 60s, his brother Albert was a struggling musician living with a rock group called Soft White Underbelly. During school breaks Joe would take the bus to New York and spend a week or two living with the group in their communal band house. Often there were extended jam sessions that would go until the sun came up.
Two years later in 1970 Joe was invited to become the band's bassist. After only a year of club gigs and demo sessions, they passed an audition for Columbia Records president Clive Davis. Clive signed them on the spot to a seven record contract. They felt poised for the big time, but they decided they needed a new name. After months of intense arguments they threw the naming process into the hands of their manager, Sandy Pearlman. The name, taken from one of Sandy's writings about a fictitious biker gang, was Blue Öyster Cult.
Blue Öyster Cult was not an overnight success. From constant touring they built a growing "cult" following. They opened shows all over the United States for groups such as Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and many more. Their first breakthrough album was the 1975 live set, 'On Your Feet or On Your Knees', which delighted the intense hard rock fans they had won over the years. . In 1976, BÖC recorded one of their most popular numbers 'Don't Fear the Reaper' which in now an all-time favorite on classic rock radio. It was used in several movies including the original Halloween, and Stephen King's The Stand. In 1977, they recorded another classic, 'Godzilla', on their Spectres album for Columbia. In the early days of MTV, the BÖC video, 'Burnin’ for You', was a staple on the fledgling cable TV show. That song became a big hit also. Joe Bouchard recorded thirteen albums with Blue Öyster Cult for Columbia Records, and over the years was awarded nine gold albums and two platinum albums.
In 1986, Joe decided to retire from Blue Öyster Cult and left the band to pursue other goals. Over the years, Joe was a teacher in a private school, and worked in a music book publishing company. In 1986 he performed as a touring organist and pianist with Spencer Davis of the Spencer Davis Group. In 1998 he released his first self-produced CD for The X Brothers, entitled “Solid Citizens” on Cellsum Records. He recently released a new CD entitled "Back From Hell" featuring ex-Alice Cooper members, Neal Smith and Dennis Dunaway. He is the author of four educational music books. He also performed in an instructional video: Rock Bass for Beginners distributed by Alfred Publishing. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Ithaca College and a Master of Music degree from The Hartt School at the University of Hartford.
In 1998 one of the most popular hard rock groups of our time, Metallica recorded Joe's song 'Astronomy' on their CD "Garage Inc". This CD was immensely popular and ended up selling 5 million units. The Metallica CD as of this writing has gone five times platinum! The Blue Öyster Cult catalog continues to thrive as we enter the 21st century. Many of the early BÖC songs have been repackaged in recent compilations on Sony/Legend records like Workshop of Telescopes and The Best of Blue Öyster Cult. Since the arrival of the Internet, BÖC fans from around the world have been more active than ever. At recent count there were over 10,000 websites dedicated to or connected to Blue Öyster Cult.