Blue Oyster Cult (often abbreviated BOC or BOC) is an American hard rock band formed on Long Island, New York, in 1967, whose most successful work includes the hard rock songs"(Don't Fear) The Reaper", "Godzilla" and "Burnin' for You". Blue Oyster Cult has sold over 24 million records worldwide, including 7 million records in the United States alone. The band's music videos, especially "Burnin' for You", received heavy rotation on MTV when the music television network premiered in 1981, cementing the band's contribution to the development and success of the music video in modern popular culture.
Early years as Soft White Underbelly (1967-71)
The band originated as a group called Soft White Underbelly (a name the band would occasionally revive in the 1970s and 1980s to play small club gigs around the United States and UK) in 1967 in the vicinity of Stony Brook University on Long Island, New York, at the prompting of critic and manager Sandy Pearlman. The group consisted of guitarist Buck Dharma, drummer Albert Bouchard, keyboardist Allen Lanier, singer Les Braunstein and bassist Andrew Winters. Pearlman wanted the group to be the American answer to Black Sabbath. Pearlman was important to the band - he was able to get them gigs and recording contracts with Elektra and Columbia, and he provided them with his poetry for use as lyrics for many of their songs, including "Astronomy". Writer Richard Meltzer also provided the band with lyrics from their early days up through their most recent studio album. Pearlman also gave stage names to each of the band members (Jesse Python for Eric Bloom, Andy Panda for Andy Winters, Prince Omega for Albert Bouchard, La Verne for Allen Lanier) but only Buck Dharma kept his. The band recorded an album's worth of material for Elektra Records in 1968. When Braunstein departed in early 1969, Elektra shelved the album.  Eric Bloom got hired by the band as their acoustic engineer and eventually became lead singer, replacing Braunstein, through a series of three unlikely coincidences, one in which Lanier decided to join Bloom on a drive to an upstate gig where he spent the night with Bloom's old college bandmates and got to hear old tapes of Bloom's talent as lead vocalist. Because of this, Bloom was offered the job of lead singer for Soft White Underbelly. However, a bad review of a 1969 Fillmore East show caused Pearlman to change the name of the band - first to Oaxaca, then to the Stalk-Forrest Group. The band recorded yet another album's worth of material for Elektra, but only one single ("What Is Quicksand?" b/w "Arthur Comics") was released (and only in a promo edition of 300 copies) on Elektra Records (this album was eventually released, with additional outtakes, by Rhino Handmade Records as St. Cecilia: The Elektra Recordings in 2001). The album featured Bloom as their main lead singer, but Roeser also sang lead on a few songs, a pattern of sharing lead vocals that has continued throughout the band's career.  After a few more temporary band names, including the Santos Sisters, the band settled on Blue Oyster Cult in 1971 (see below for its origin).  New York City producer/composer and jingle writer David Lucas saw the band perform and took them into his Warehouse Recording Studio and produced four demos, with which Pearlman was able to get the renamed band another audition with Columbia Records. Clive Davis liked what he heard, and signed the band to the label. The first album was subsequently produced and recorded by Lucas on eight track at Lucas' studio. Winters would leave the band and be replaced by Bouchard's brother, Joe Bouchard.
what was soft white underbelly?
The band originated as a group called Soft White Underbelly (
The band originated as a group called Soft White Underbelly (