PipemanRadio Interviews Albert Bouchard about Imaginos

0:04 Hey, you love them too? Sure? Why wake up of America. It's time for the Adventures of Pipe Man on W four cydi com WIST pond Beats is number one internet radio station. Here's your host, the Pipe Man. We're sat at all. This is the Pipe Man here on the Adventure's Pipe Man W four c Y Radio. And I'm here with our next guest, who I'm very excited because we're gonna talk about the final installment of a trilogy that's been going on, huh for thirty five years from one of the great artists of our lifetime. So let's welcome to the show, Albert Bouchard.

1:06 Well, thank you, white Man. I'm honored to be here, well honored to have you like and you know, I was thinking about this like thirty five years as it kind of it blows my mind. Does it blow your mind that here we are. It's kind of like Star Wars having a final installment of the series thirty five years later. Yeah, yeah, it's very much like Star Wars. I think that, you know, it blows my mind too, But I mean my mind has blown more that it's taken this long to do it, because originally back in nineteen eighty one or eighty two when Sandy and I Sandy Prohman, who was my manager and co writer, and basically then he conceived of this Imagineers character and this whole story.

1:56 You know, when I met him in nineteen sixty seven, he'd already started, uh working on this this concept and uh and he never stopped. Really. Uh. I have his papers from uh um from when he uh you know, that were left behind when he passed away, and uh, you know, there's all sorts of other aspects to the story that I didn't know about, and even some that I like. This this record, I made up some of the things that were that happened and and this this part of the story because I didn't have Sandy to help me guide me with doing this. And then I got the papers after the record was already recorded, and I looked and some of the things that I included here were exactly the same things as Sandy had been talking about. I'm and I just happened to come up with the same things that he did. So it was it was pretty my mind blow that in itself was mind blowing that I had so many of my friends helping me on this was also it was very gratifying. It's really happy to take my friends on this journey with me in this last imagine those journey, and that's that was really gratifying, you know. I mean I didn't get to put all my friends on there, but you know,

3:28 as many as I could possibly do, and and some some people couldn't do it, like Mark Stein from Vanilla Fudge, who was a dear friend, he was not able to do it. He didn't have time and they and the song was it required more more more work than he was able to commit to it. So so I ended up doing it myself. But it turned out okay anyway, you know, but I'm grateful to him that he he said he would do it. And you know, there was a bunch of people that a lot of people helped me out on it that people don't know about, like Lenny Kay and Patti Smith or big factor in this record.

4:15 So um, yeah, it was all all really good. I I contacted all the people that I really changed their song around, like Aldo Nova. He wasn't totally he wasn't totally happy with it, but he was really glad that I covered it. And he said, well, you know, I get it that you know, you had to change it to make it fit the story. And uh, and so he was he was okay with what I did. You know. Um, I think he was psyched that, you know that I covered the song and uh. And Richard Meltzer was fine with me changing the song to fit the story. You know, he has a cursedly Hidden Mirrors, Yeah, which kind of related. You know.

5:01 I always thought that he was, you know, and this is after the fact, because when he wrote Cursed the Hidden Mirrors, I did not know how invested Sandy was in the story of Imagineos and how he discovers his mirror that causes everybody to go insane. So you know, Richard was kind of poking fun at Sandy when he wrote the song, and uh, you know, but I changed it to make it part of the story. So that was pretty cool. That is pretty cool. I love it. And I love that the dictators are included too, because I mean that the second single off of this trans Let me see if I can pronounce it properly transmaniac Mania con Did I say him no, No, I'm like, no, it's it's in the song. It's transmniahicon. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, And as much as I knew how to say. It still was a tongue twister to me. But man, yeah you're looking at it. You're not hearing yet. That's the thing that's exactly correct. But I yeah, Actually, originally it was going to be Monster Magnet. You know the band Monster Magnet.

6:15 Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, from New Jersey. So they were going to do it. But then I guess Dave couldn't do He had some health issues so he couldn't do it, so, you know, and by then Keith roth And joined the Dictators, and of course Keith was my connection with the Monster Magnet, so he said, maybe you should have the Dictators to it. I said, yeah, Keith, that's a great idea. So one day Keith came over and we kind of did uh, just the two of us did a rhythm guitar part and lead vocal, and then I sent it to those guys and they're like, oh my god, this is great, you know, and so they got all on it, and you know, Andy played an amazing bass bar and Ross the Boss. What can I say, Ross the Boss is Ross the Boss.

7:05 I mean, he's never bad, he's always amazing. So true. Oh man, it's just It's a testament to you as an artist that you have so many great people that are collaborating with you on this because you know, they wouldn't do it if you weren't somebody that you know, was putting out music. That's absolutely incredible. You know. The funny thing is that everybody that I chose, I didn't choose because of their music, because they were great players or great singers or whatever. I chose them just because they're my friends. And I wanted my friends on this, you know, to take take this last ride on Imagineos with me. You know. Oh I think that's important too, because listen, it's been a long ride, and why not do it with your friends? Right? Yeah? It was so it was really great, you know. I mean it was people that said, like I said, you know, Monkstein said he could he would do it, and then he couldn't do it. But that's it was just fine.

8:09 You know. I was glad that he you know, even though it didn't work out. You know, he uh, he said he would do it. Or even Robert Gordon, who who was gonna do a song on the on the thing, and then of course he passed away before he could record his parts. Yeah, that's a bum. Yeah, I know. It's like, you know, I said, you know, when I come back from Europe, I'm gonna, you know, have you come over and you do your part, you know. So he was learning the song and then then I came back from Europe, he was already in the hospital and I'm like, oh, jeez, I can't really bring the laptop to the hospital, right. You know, It's like we had other things we had to deal with, you know, we had to talk about absolutely, you know, the afterlife and all of these other things that you know would be your concern when you're about to check out. He knew that, you know, he by that time, he was taking pellative care. So he he's like, he'd try the chemo and it just it wasn't really helping. So he said, just make me comfortable and say goodbye and let me say goodbye to my friends, which he did, which is really great. You know, it's really great that so many of us could come and hang out with him for a couple of weeks there before he before he passed. So but anyway back to back to Imaginos, and uh, you know, I do I'm so fortunate. I have so many great and talented friends and uh,

9:45 you know, and yeah, life is really good. I mean so so now that I've completed this, this promise that I made to Sandy when he was in the hospital before he passed, and a goal of mine was to put out these three records, and I had told Sandy that I would do it. So so now I've done it. Now what's left now is the other things. Like one of the things we talked about was taking this thing on the road, and so I'm starting to do that. I have three I have four gigs and later in the end of the summer, basically August thirty f m in New York City at Sony Hall and then September two in Annapolis, Maryland at the Ram's Head. September sixth I'm playing in Pauling, New York at Darryl's house, and I will probably do a recording of that thing as they do in Daryl's house. There's a lot of videos that come out of that place. It's a great sunding room and a great lighting, great place to do a video. And then September seventh is Leesburg, Virginia at the tally Ho And after that, I don't know we we don't have any more shows scheduled after that. Of course, I have a tour of Spain with a Dictator starting September twentieth, and then we don't. I don't

11:20 get back to New York until the fourth, and I have a gig with them in the fourth and then I have a record that I'm doing with a French heavy metal band called knuckle Head. I'm just doing one song, not actually not the whole album. They're recording an album and I'm gonna play on a song that I co wrote with them, So I love that. I love yeah, because I'm a rocker and the metal head and a punk. So you've just hit all of me right there. Yeah, yeah, me too. And you can add classical music to that because I also sing with a all male glee club and we do we do always every every concert, we do uh A at least one classic piece, usually a couple two or three, you know, and they're always in German or Italian or some French, you know, some some language I do not speak, and of course I have to learn it fanatically, but I love doing that actually nice, So so it's a it's it's fun challenge and uh and it's I believe it's making me a better singer, you know, having getting better control of my breath and being able to sing longer and more in tune and all that good stuff. So I love that after like forty fifty years, you still want to make your voice better because like that just says everything about you as an

12:52 artist. Oh thank you? Yeah, yeah, well, I that's what it's all about. For me. It's just growing and continuing to develop, you know, whatever it is, anything, you know, whether it's you know, being more kind and more understanding, more being a better listener. You know, I'm really working on that because I've realized you know, well, actually I realized that when I was teaching that I was not not the great listener that I thought it was. I mean, I'm I'm empathetic, but you know, my brain is you know, it's always thinking about like what I say next? Right? I also think too. When you're as good as you are, it's like some of the things that are simple to you are complex to other people, and you don't really realize it because it becomes so simple to you that it's like, why can't you understand this?

13:50 It's so easy, But to them it's not. Yeah, yeah, it's true. Well, I mean there's I make I make it some and sometimes that are kind of strange and people say, oh, you know, like, for instance, I when I first started talking about these shows that I was doing, I forgot to mention that I used to be in Blue Oyster Cult, and my manager's small DEMI you might want to do that right, small detail. I don't know if I told you last time we talked to you, but I have a I have a pretty wild Blue Oyster Cult story from when I was a lot younger than I am now. And so I'm from New Jersey originally, and there was this place art Stocks playpen in Old Bridge and I walk in there one night and there's this band playing that was gonna play they weren't playing yet, called Soft White Underbelly Wow. And I didn't know what that meant at that moment in time. That was like, I don't know, like forty years ago, I think. And then I heard the music. I'm like, holy shit, it's Blue Oye or Cult.

15:16 And I didn't even know what I walked in. I was just walking in randomly. There's this band playing. Okay, cool live band playing, And then I was like, oh my god, I can't believe that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's was our when we'd play well, a lot of times I was sucked to anybody shows were they were trying out new songs that were gonna be on the new records. So we did that quite often. It was because you know, we would write the song, who would practice them, and then we would try and do some live gigs, you know, low low pressure gigs, you know where where the audience gets to hear a song they've never heard before, right right exactly, and you know, and like what the hell is this? But but you know, even whether they liked it or they didn't, you would always learn something from doing that. So and then surprise people like me, they're like, oh my god, I get this lucky, I just randomly walked into a blue ic or cult show right right. So tell everybody how they can connect to you on the web on socials, how they can get not only the newest of the trilogy, but all of the trilogy. Yeah, well, you can go directly to Deco Entertainment, Deco Entertainment dot Com, d e Ko and then Entertainment and they have they have packages, you know, they have

16:48 you can get you know, you can get the whole thing for you know, all three volumes. I think for a certain price you can get vinyl and T shirts and all kinds of stuff. Uh uh and that's so. But now if you just if you just want to stream, you know, just go to Spotify and put I Maginos in there and you'll get you know, you'll get a bunch of albums and records and uh, it's all good. It's all part of the same thing. Well so uh and if you want to see where I'm playing, you can go to my website which is Albert Bousa dot com and beautiful. Yeah. Well, thank you for giving me a lifetime of mute great music and the rest of the world. And uh, thanks for being on the adventure as a pipe man. Oh it's my pleasure. Thank you. Hi, it's Albert Bouchad from Blue Oyster Cult and you are listening to the pipe Man on W four c Y Radio.

18:00 That all and the women thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pintment. I'm w for CUI Radio.