antiMusic’s Morley Seaver has issued Part 3 of his interview with BLUE COUPE guitarist Joe Bouchard (ex-BLUE ÖYSTER CULT). An excerpt follows:

Q: I’m sure you had a lot of great touring experiences. The Black And The Blue tour. Opening for ALICE COOPER. What are some of the highlights of playing with other people for you?

A: "The first breakthrough tour where we really came out big time was with ROD STEWART and THE FACES."

Q: Wow, that was a somewhat weird pairing.

A: "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 OSBOURNE. 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, BLACK 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."

Read the full interview at this location.