Special report by Martin Popoff

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT’s Joe Bouchard, like his brother Al, was a considerably contributing writer in the legendary Blue Öyster Cult, figuring prominently in ‘Hot Rails To Hell’, ‘Astronomy’ and many other of the band’s anthems. And since leaving the BOC in the late ‘80s, although he’s collaborated for many projects, he’s never put together a solo album. All that has changed – Jukebox In My Head is the name of the man’s spiffy new record, and he’ll have it on hand when he tours as BLUE COUPE (along with ALICE COOPER BAND member Dennis Dunaway and former BÖC drummer/brother Al Bouchard), Canadian dates set for mid-April in Toronto, Oshawa and finally Hamilton (see Joe’s official site for more).

“I wanted to do a record that sort of reflects where I’m at right now,” explained Bouchard. “And so it’s a collection of things that I had collected over the last four or five years, and a couple of new things, but mostly some things that developed. I wanted to have a sense of fun there, but I think it’s a more serious record than I’ve done with THE X-BROTHERS or BOUCHARD, DUNAWAY AND SMITH, reflecting on what’s going on, with me, and my musical ambitions. I don’t know, I think it’s pretty good. I figured I really had to get out and write more songs, so I started working with Dennis Dunaway more, and I worked with Ian Hunter, and then when it came down to this, I had a co-writer who co-wrote six of the songs on this record, Patti Gesmondi, Patti G, as she is known, and we started writing songs, and we hit a real stride with some of these, and next thing you know there were a stack of songs, and from that stack of songs came the core of what this album was. And I wrote a few more and picked a couple of interesting covers that nobody has ever heard, so it looks to be a great package that people will enjoy.”

What are those covers?

“The covers are a song called ‘Kickin’ A Can’, which is a song my brother Jim wrote. He’s an excellent songwriter from Boston; does a lot of acoustic music. Right now he does a lot of internet collaborations - he’s big into garage bands and pop rock. He doesn’t perform as much as he used to. But I think he is the most talented songwriter in the family; he’s written a lot of great songs. So I’m really proud of re-doing song. The other one is called ‘Dark Boat’, the last song on the album. Which gets a great reaction. And that was written by my neighbour, when I was growing up, this guy John Cook, who is another acoustic musician, artist, antique dealer, guitar dealer - does everything. And he always says he’s going to do an album, but he’s never gotten it together to do it. I would go to his house which was right next to our house up in the Thousand Islands, on the St. Lawrence river, and we would jam on his porch, and one of the songs that I was quite impressed with was this ‘Dark Boat’. It had kind of a ‘Reaper’ vibe about it.”

Jukebox In My Head features a killer veteran drummer in Michael Cartellone of DAMN YANKEES and LYNYRD SKYNYRD fame…

“OK, yes Michael… I went to a Lynyrd Skynyrd show, and it was really hard to pick a drummer. I could’ve gotten a lot of different people; a lot of great drummers. And I’m sitting there in the audience, just like anybody else, and I’m thinking boy, that is some of the best drumming I’ve ever heard. And I just like the way he works with the bass, and certain things that he does, subtle things. He’s a good solid player, but he does a lot of subtleties. And I actually saw him like a couple months later in a club, and I said, ‘I’m working on an album; I need a drummer.’ And he says, ‘Oh, call me.’ And I didn’t call him, and then he finally emailed me and said, ‘When are we going to do that album?’ He lives in New York City, and I thought, you know, that’s one reason I didn’t call, because I thought he was living in Nashville, or down in Florida where the Lynyrd Skynyrd guys live. But no, he lives in New York, so we had a couple rehearsals and talked on the phone a lot and passed demos back and forth, and he’s just a monster in the studio. Most of the songs there are one take. And there’s a lot of creativity in what he did. He did a lot of great things in Dark Boat, with the tom toms. What can I say? I was impressed. And most of the drummers that I was favouring were like jazz drummers. And I really wanted somebody who could rock hard. And Michael is the guy.”

Asked about lyrical concerns, Joe brings up opening track ‘Shadows On The Streets Of New York’. “The idea was that I’ve had a lot of friends from New York who are now gone. Specifically, I’m talking about Billy Hilfiger, who passed away from brain cancer, and then Helen Wheels, who died from an elective back surgery problem; it was very tragic. And so I said, well, these have been my friends… and also in that list is David Roter too, who I played with and performed with. He wrote ‘Joan Crawford’ and some great songs for Blue Öyster Cult, and all these guys had passed away. So I wanted to do a song that rocks hard, because they would be happy with a song that really had a good rock punch to it. So there’s a lot of Billy Hilfiger in that song; he was a great friend of mine. I went through four different versions of the song. I actually wrote a jazz version of it (laughs), but from that jazz version came some good lyric ideas, and then I went back to the more hard rock version, with a hard funk in it. There’s a lot of variety of styles on this record, but I hope that my personality and production style sort of brings it all together. I do a lot of different things - from metal to acoustic. My original idea was that this record was going to be 50% electric and 50% acoustic, but after I did the tracks with Michael, I thought I really gotta make this rock. So there’s a lot more rock than acoustic. But there is little bit of both, and hopefully it’s tied in together, and it’s going to find an audience.”

How are the other guys doing? How is Albert doing? What about rest the band?

“Albert is doing good. I played with his new band last year, UNDERBELLY, with Les Braunstein (original BOC vocalist) singing. I hadn’t played a gig with Les Braunstein since the Soft White Underbelly days. And we had this great gig playing for Tapscon, which is the Atlantic Paranormal Society. What it is, I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the Sci-fi channel, on cable, but there is a program called Ghost Hunters. So this was a convention of the Ghost Hunters and they had about 3000 people at this hotel in Florida, and of course they love the Blue Öyster Cult songs, so we played a bunch of those and had a good times. It was a great gig. And I’m not going to become a member of The Underbelly per se, but certainly if good convention type things come up, I would certainly like to do that again. We actually went on a ghost hunt, after we did the gig. These people, you would think, going to a convention of ghost hunters, are going to be pretty weird. But they were the most normal people! And then, except at midnight, they say, ‘Let’s go on a ghost hunt.’ So we went up to the attic of this hotel, and I had the night vision camera. They are very serious about it. But it was really a lot of fun. And also, our good friend Helen Wheel’s brother, Peter Robbins, who wrote a book on alien encounters that happened in England, he was one of the guests. So it was ghost hunters and alien watchers. So I can’t say that the summer has been dull (laughs). That was definitely a great weekend.”
“And Les is doing great. He does a version of ‘Astronomy’ that I thought was just fabulous. But he has his own stuff. He’s been working on a lot of theater music, and he’s written kind of a musical that involves space travel. I can say no more than that. But he’s got a lot of good songs in it; he’s still a good songwriter. I’m not sure exactly what’s going to happen next for that band, but that is what Albert is working on.”

Blue Coupe play The Silver Dollar in Toronto On April 16, Chicago’s in Oshawa on the 17th and The Pepper Jack Café in Hamilton on the 18th.

Guesting at all dates will be Gord Lewis from TEENAGE HEAD. Myself, I’ll be on hand signing and selling a range of my books at the Toronto and Oshawa dates, although the main event in terms of a book launch will be the updated edition of my Blue Öyster Cult: Secrets Revealed! book, which will also be signed by Joe Bouchard and Al Bouchard.

See www.joebouchard.com for more on Joe and his many projects.

Check out Blue Coupe live footage below:

'Don't Fear The Reaper':

'Nosferatu':