By Ralph Greco, Jr.
Albert Bouchard, the original drummer and a founding member of Blue Öyster Cult, has released Imaginos III — Mutant Reformation, the final installment of the Imaginos trilogy. A concept of music and lyric close to his heart and created with lyricist and producer Sandy Pearlman, Bouchard has been part of Imaginos since its first incarnation with BOC, after which he was fired from the band. He’d later sue for the rights to Imaginos.
In 2020, he released Re Imaginos, essentially a new version of the original Imaginos. The next year, he came out with Imaginos 2: Bombs Over Germany (Minus Zero And Counting). The story ends with Mutant Reformation, the third and final act of Bouchard’s vision. And this is what the musician and I talked about in the following interview.
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It’s been a long road to get here as far as a third album, finish to Imaginos. I’m wondering what your thoughts are now that you have the album completed. Do you feel as much a sense of accomplishment as well as poignancy since Sandy Pearlman is not here to appreciate the release?
Absolutely. I feel that. Uh, yeah, it is very ironic that Sandy Pearlman is not here to enjoy this because, you know, we conceived this and started working on it so many years ago. But you know, this last record is exactly everything I wanted to happen. I made a promise to Sandy when he was dying in the hospital that I was going to do this. And then it took a long time, you know, and I thought that he was going to get better actually. I mean, I’m an unapologetic optimist. I always think that everything’s going to work out. You know? Maybe it doesn’t all the time, right? So, I promised him that I would do this. And then, when he died, it was a little hard to jump right into it, to be honest. You know, I was kind of disappointed and sad and mad, all the things that you feel when somebody who you love passes away, right? But the other thing was that there were still people that I wanted to play with, even some that I didn’t get to on this record. But I got, you know, like thirty-seven or so other musicians on it. And people will say, ‘Well, why? How come they have so many guest vocals as well?’ The reason is because I wanted to include them on my little trip here, you know, my journey, doing this, completing this record. I tried to tie all the ends together, you know, and they’ve been put out there. This record is really the end of the dream.
Although the overall Imaginos story surely has its touchstones that Sandy envisioned originally, I feel it could speak quite metaphorically to the present-day world. I’m thinking especially about what you mean by the carnage, which you use a lot here. How the themes are rather applicable to the state of things right now.
Every song that Sandy produced, wrote, or had anything to do with came from his dreams. In fact, when we initially worked on this, I was always trying to bring things into chronological order, but he didn’t want that. He wanted things to flow in the way that dreams come to you, with no order or reason, really. But yes, I am sure you can read your own stuff into this; it speaks to the listener as the listener hears it.
Like all good art does, right? It’s up to interpretation.
Definitely.
Given the history behind Imaginos and your troubles with BÖC, what would you say was the number one hindrance to completing this thing the way you wanted to complete back in the day?
I would have to say, and maybe this is biting the hand that feeds me because I’m still making a lot of money through Columbia Records, but I would say that it wasn’t Columbia Records per se, but some of the people in charge at the time really were the biggest hindrance. They really dragged their feet. They were actively against putting out the record. It didn’t fit into their concept of what they wanted from Blue Öyster Cult at the time. They went from being a record company that supported their artists and helped us along when we released the first three records. Each one sold better than the other, but they were not huge by any stretch of the imagination. They broke even basically even. But Columbia kept putting money into us and giving us more money so that by the time this thing came up, they weren’t really behind it, and they had the weight to make it known. That said, I’m glad that the band and I had the successes we had with Columbia.
I see there are some dates set for live shows, at least presently, all scheduled on the east coast. What are your tour plans exactly?
Basically, the other thing that I thought of, and certainly what Sandy and I both thought of back in the day, was that I was going to take this show off-road. I have not been able to do that recently, but yes, now we have four shows coming up. I just want to take the time to play with it a bit; it’s been like twenty years or something for a good amount of this stuff. Plus, I have gigs with the Dictators (featured on Imaginos III-Mutant Reformation. I just want to hit some of the great venues I have played, maybe even get down to Florida. People keep saying, “Please come to Florida.” And also do a west coast program. I also have to mention that Imaginos is coming out as a graphic novel.
Yes, listening to all of Imaginos, it feels perfect for a graphic novel to me, to straddle a medium like that.
That is also something that Sandy and I both wanted, and it’s already done. What happens in the book is that there’s a page or several pages of the story, and then there’s a QR code on the page that you can scan to go and listen to the song.
Oh, that’s very cool.
Yeah, it’s pretty innovative. And then the script that was being written for the Imaginos movie is being made into a video game as well.
That was my next thought; this would work great as a game.
So, that’s all in the works. I think there’s a lot, a lot of more Imaginos to come. Who knows, there might even be an epilogue. All of Sammy’s writings are being digitized, cataloged as we speak. I have an artist friend of mine putting it all on a computer. So yeah, there’s going to be a lot more.
On a personal playing level, in what way do you think your playing has changed over the years…if you think it has actually changed at all?
I think that as far as my drumming goes, I feel it’s more about serving song for me than I ever have before, OK. It was a time period when I was very concerned that people would think that I was a good drummer. And now I don’t really care about that now. I just want it to work right. If I’m playing like a drum machine, so be it. But I think that I just bring my own little thing to it anyway, whether I’m playing mechanically or, you know, I always try to swing like even with the Dictators, you know, and they are basically very heavy, delivering simple music, but I still try to bring whatever; you know, I try. I really believe that these really fast punk rock songs should sound like they’re swinging. They should sound like Benny Goodman.
Oh, I agree. I totally agree with you. I’ve always said that about a band like Black Sabbath. There’s a lot of swing to what Bill Ward was playing. I think you can hear that swing on this new record, for sure.
There’s a lot of, I don’t know if the right word is…space…but there’s space there. Does that make sense to you?
Yes, definitely.
I mean, I’ve gotten a lot better at making records, just knowing what to take out. I had two years to make this record, and I used all two years and a little bit more. A lot of it was like redoing things and taking things out. And many of the songs we gave like three or four times to work out because I changed the key or I changed the tempo. I changed the feel, whatever to make it work better. So, like a song, like “Flaming Telepaths,” you know, to me, that version of Secret Treaties (Blue Öyster Cult’s third album, released in 1974) is perfection. I really couldn’t do anything better. But when I went to sing it, I couldn’t sing that high. I couldn’t feel comfortable singing it, so I lowered the key. And then I thought, well, you know, let’s see what it sounds like with acoustic guitars. Can it sound just as heavy? I think it does, you know, even though the back backbone and the song is an acoustic guitar.
For instance, I don’t play drums on most of the record, but I discovered this young man playing in Central Park, and I didn’t even see him. I didn’t know what he looked like or anything or how old he was. But I was running by. I was going on a run. I think I was doing it like a half-mile marathon or something. So, I heard him; I was watching my watch, trying to make good time, right? And I go by him, and I’m like, ‘Holy crap, this guy sounds like me. He’s really doing something different.’ And then I went and saw him, and I got his name. I was running, so I didn’t have a chance to write it down, so I just memorized his name, and then I went online and looked at him. And saw that on his Facebook profile, there’s a picture of him and a former drummer, the guy that used to play with me before he got too busy with this real job. So he couldn’t play with me, but this new guy, connected to me like this, could. It’s all part of, you know, the Great Spirit’s plan for me.
Going back and re-recording some older BÖC songs, songs that you’ve been involved in years ago, explain how that works from the business end of things. Do you have to go to former members, tell them what you are planning, and get their permission?
I could just do them over again, and if the guys from the band didn’t like them, that would be too bad. Once it’s been recorded; anybody can do it, and as long as you acknowledge who wrote it and pay them royalties, then you can do whatever you want. But I actually reached out to some of the people. Eric Bloom (BÖC guitarist and vocalist) gave me blanket approval to use his songs; he said, ‘Do what you want, it’s cool. You’re doing this.’ I also reached out to Richard Meltzer (rock critic and songwriter) and to Aldo Nova, and Patty Smith. So, I reached out to everybody when I was going to redo a song, so it was all good. They were all; everybody was supportive.
Do you find that anything that had gone on in the past or whatever it happens to be that was good and bad, is now just water under the bridge with the band?
What happened, happened. At the time, I felt hurt, and I know that they felt hurt. We both felt like we betrayed each other. I mean, the band and me felt like a single entity, which probably is not correct, but you know, I know they felt bad. I definitely felt bad, and you know it took a long time to get over that, or I didn’t know if you ever get over it, but it took a long time to establish my reestablished relationship with the band, and that goes through the new guys too. So yeah, but I had the opportunity in 2016 to go on tour with them, and I think that, unlike the tour that I did in 85 where there was a lot of animosity, this one, there was no animosity. We were all just really happy that we’re still alive.
That’s probably the most significant thing right there that you guys survived just like anybody else.
I guess there is always that, like the idea of how long do we get? Let’s just get out there and do it, you know? Which is great. I plan to make it to 80 at this point.
