Blue Oyster Cult has been together for an astonishing 53 years. The beginnings of the band, then known as Soft White Underbelly, go back even further to the late ’60s.
They marked their initial 50-year milestone by playing a trio of concerts in September 2022 at Sony Hall in New York City, where they performed one of their first three albums each night as the first set, with a second set of additional classics rounding out the evening. The third show, which featured 1974’s Secret Treaties, stretched out for nearly two and a half hours.
In short, you still get your money’s worth with Blue Oyster Cult. “We have never phoned it in,” guitarist and vocalist Buck Dharma tells the UCR Podcast in an interview you can listen to below. “If there ever comes a point where we can’t perform at that level, we’ll stop.”
2025 has already been a strong year for the Long Island group, who were featured prominently in the celebration of Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary, with a four part documentary devoting an entire episode to the famous “more cowbell” sketch legendarily inspired by the band’s cowbell-heavy “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” Though it’s become a humorous pop culture reference, Dharma was inspired to write the song itself by a sobering medical issue he experienced in his younger days.
READ MORE: How ‘SNL’ Made Blue Oyster Cult Bring Back Cowbell on ‘Reaper’
The Frightening Inspiration Behind ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’
“I had been diagnosed with a heart arrhythmia and it scared me,” he says now. “The cardiologist said, ‘You know this isn’t going to kill you. You can manage this.’ And it has been managed with medication for 45 or 50 years now. But it got me thinking about dying. I wanted to write a love song, and I wanted to write something that would be sort of in the BOC sphere. [I envisioned a song with] metaphysical [and] creepy overtones. [But as far as the subject matter,] it’s personal in that regard.”
Similar to Paul McCartney writing “Get Back” for the Beatles, the song idea came quickly, though they spent a good amount of time honing the song itself. “The nuts and bolts work of ‘Reaper’ actually took about six weeks,” he explains. “But certainly the inspiration just kind of sprang out of me and I sort of knew in my head where I wanted it to go. But [it took time] to write the bridge, resolve the story and arrange the music. This was the first song I wrote on a multi-track recorder at home, the Teac 3340S.”
“We all got the [recorders] when they became affordable and it definitely changed the way the writers in the band presented their songs, compared to when you basically had to lay it out on an acoustic guitar or piano for the band,” he continues. “We would all bring in songs after that where the arrangements were a lot more conceived already and could be evaluated on that merit. I think you got a lot more differentiation [with what was being submitted] compared to how it had previously been.”
Listen to Blue Oyster Cult’s ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’
The Band’s Friendly ‘Rivalry’ With Kiss
Over the years, there’s been talk of a rivalry with Kiss, but Dharma downplays the idea that there was any serious competition. “They opened for us [at the New York Academy of Music, on December 31, 1973], he remembers. “They came in with a with a semi truck and a big crew. You know, we had a little box truck and just a backline of stuff. They were [also] big guys and BOC were little guys. They had those platform boots and these outrageous costumes. They were just astonishing to behold, I knew Gene [Simmons] and Paul [Stanley] the best. I knew Ace [Frehley] a little bit, didn’t know Peter [Criss] very well, but you know, we were New Yorkers, [so] we had a lot in common.”
Friction with Black Sabbath on the ‘Black and Blue’ Tour
It was a less harmonious moment when Blue Oyster Cult hit the road in 1980 for a series of co-headlining dates with Black Sabbath. “That tour was conceived because, at the time, Sabbath was managed by [Blue Oyster Cult manager, producer and co-founder] Sandy Pearlman,” he shares. “I don’t think, in retrospect, they were at all happy with Sandy’s management — or they also didn’t like supporting BOC and alternating [who would headline in the various] markets. You know, sometimes they would headline, sometimes we would headline. I can’t speak for Sabbath, because I don’t really know those guys, except for Ronnie Dio. We knew Ronnie pretty well. I just think it’s unfortunate. Blue Oyster Cult were huge fans of classic Black Sabbath and their whole history. They made that great Heaven and Hell record with Ronnie Dio and Martin Birch. We got to work with Martin right after he’d done [that album] and were all about it. So it’s regrettable that it wasn’t a more pleasant experience, but respect to Black Sabbath.”
There’s been plenty of music in recent years for fans to enjoy. In addition to an official release of the 2022 anniversary shows in three volumes, 2024’s Ghost Stories found the classic rockers touching up a collection of previously unreleased recordings from the ’70s and ’80s. Dharma is unsure about any further new music from the band, but put out “The End of Every Song” last year, his first solo recording since 1982’s Flat Out. “I think there’s going to be more in the future,” he says. “I don’t see myself making a 10 song long-player, but I think I will just release songs one at a time, and you know, and if it’s for posterity, that’s fine.”
Listen to Buck Dharma of Blue Oyster Cult on the ‘UCR Podcast’
Blue Oyster Cult Albums Ranked
They have never been a paint-by-numbers rock ‘n’ roll band.
Gallery Credit: Dave Swanson
