There is no better title than Ghost Stories for what, according to what the American band says, will be Blue Öyster Cult's last album ever. The history, lyrics and imagination of the group have always revolved around the mysterious, the hidden from the eyes, the esoteric. Nevertheless, Ghost Stories it is very different from The Symbol Remains, the excellent album released in the middle of the pandemic which had caused people to cry out about a miracle after decades of recording silence. Not because of the quality of the songs, always high, but because Ghost Stories it is composed of songs conceived and recorded between the end of the 70s and the beginning of the following decade, when the group still held a first-rate role in the hard & heavy field. It goes without saying that this is also the first release to see the original lineup reunited since Imaginefor many their last true masterpiece, dated 1988.
For the occasion we had a chat with Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser, singer, guitarist and founder of the band together with Eric Bloom and Allen Lanier.
There was a lot of curiosity around Ghost Stories, both for the chance to hear the classic Blue Öyster Cult lineup at work once again, and for the thrill of finding unreleased songs from a very creative period for you in your hands. Did you remember all the songs found?
I only remembered a few songs and clearly not in detail. But listening to them again helped me open a time door in my memory and I must admit that it was pleasant. I have wonderful memories of that period in our history, often considered less important than the previous one, but which I perhaps enjoyed more. We were more aware and no longer had to prove anything. AND Cultösaurus Erectus, Fire of Unknown Origin and also The Revolution by Night they remain great records.
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Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma today. Photo: Sandra Roeser
A few years ago you made people talk about you again with a very powerful album of unreleased songs. Why not continue down that path?
Honestly, I was convinced there would be no more new albums. Decades had passed before we did one and audiences and critics confirmed to us that it could be a great way to greet our fans. Then these tracks reappeared, Richie Castellano (today's guitarist and producer of the album, ed) did an incredible job of demixing the original tracks and mixing them again, adding our new parts, without making them sound like different music than what we were making in those years. Giving coherence to songs that actually couldn't have it, coming from different sessions.
You have never focused on the nostalgia effect, nor on easy-to-consume or uninspired products. Rather you haven't made any albums for years. It had to be worth it.
I don't know if it was worth it or not. In fact our history doesn't change without this record. But it's nice to have given light and meaning to songs that would have been lost or perhaps used who knows when, without our explicit consent. In an album you try to include the best songs you have, but often the ones you leave out are no less valid. Maybe they didn't work in the context of a disc or there's simply no more space and you're forced to make choices. From some of those you start again for the next album, but many songs are lost. I think about I know Supernatural, which could have been part of all those records: it made me very nostalgic for that line-up, we had something special. And then I thought a lot about Allen (Lanier, who passed away in 2013, ed).
What set you apart so much from other American bands in the late '60s?
When we formed there was perhaps only one great American band that clearly went against the established order and the concepts of peace & love that were raging at the time: the Doors. We somehow fit into that trend, but with a sound and lyrics that, even if we wanted, could never have climbed the charts. I'm telling you about before (Don't Fear) The Reaper, clearly. We loved science fiction, horror films, we all read a lot. We talked about unmentionable things. Above all we were very eclectic, perhaps too much for the time. Each of us then wrote and sang. In short, perhaps in that we were different from the others.
It's funny, because the last time you, Bloom, Lanier and the Bouchard brothers collaborated was for Imagine, a work in some ways similar to this one. You still struggle to believe Imagine a Blue Öyster Cult record?
If you noticed, the building in the video of I know Supernatural remember the one on the cover of Imagine, but they are very different albums. I struggle to consider it our album simply because it wasn't born as such, but as a project by Albert Bouchard and Sandy Pearlman. Albert had left the group and had picked up a story about Sandy from which we had already taken several pieces previously. That's why in Imagine There are songs already well known to our audience. When Columbia refused to release what they had put together, Sandy called us to ask us to get our hands on it and release it under the name Blue Öyster Cult. But in fact it remains an album by them and by the musicians who played on it. Also Ghost Stories it was assembled, but that was us all together in a studio, with a common vision.
Is the story that Patti Smith could have been your singer true or is it some kind of urban legend? I have read and heard about it often, but always without great details.
As you know, Patti and Allen have been together for some time. It was the period in which she went around improvising readings and shows on the street, but she understood that with that talent she would go far. For that reason, at a certain point, rather than offering her a position as singer in the group, as many have written, we offered to be her backing band. I don't remember exactly why it didn't work out, but I like to think that it was better this way for both of us. And then we are left with some wonderful pieces written by her (laughs).
Almost by a twist of fate you have always remained a cult band. When you see bands that owe you a lot to fill stadiums, do you ever think you've done something wrong?
It happened a few times, but all in all it could only have gone like this, precisely because of what I was telling you just now. There was a moment when we probably could have become big, it would have been enough to compose a few more songs like Godzilla or Reapers, but we found it much more fun to do other things. Furthermore, and this may have been a mistake, we were never interested in business, in what was moving on an economic level. Like many young groups we were screwed for our naivety, but even once we matured we continued to view the economic side with suspicion. We still managed to have a good life and have fun without becoming superstars, I don't think that's a small thing.
Are we sure that there will be no more new Blue Öyster Cult albums?
As far as I'm concerned, yes. Nobody would have expected that in a handful of years we could compose a new album and a collection like this. I think closing our story with the old band is the best thing we can do. On the other hand, I'm not the only member of the group and maybe one day they will convince me. But the years pass. Now we will play these pieces live on at least one occasion, and in the meantime I have just finished my new solo song, which will be published soon. I have closed my infernal cycle, I will take everything that comes with joy, without anxiety.