albert bouchard

I was born in 1947 to Robert Bouchard and Francis Ryan in Watertown NY. I grew up in a tiny town in upstate NY called Clayton (population 1500) but for a while my dad had a government job and we moved around a bit, living in Boston, Athens Greece, Thessalonica and Rochester NY before coming back to Clayton. I have 6 siblings, 5 brothers and one sister. We lived on a farm and had chickens and grew vegetables.

When I was a teen I had a band with my brother Joe, my cousin Teddy Streets, his cousin Eddie Bazinet and another cousin of a cousin, Steve Lalonde, called the Regal Tones. We played gigs almost every weekend and in the summer we would play almost every day. At some point we decided that we could promote dances ourselves in our barn which was mostly unused, except for our burros, Nellie and Pedro, who just slept in a couple stalls at night and spent most of their days out in the field chasing flies. We tore out all the inside walls except for the burro's stalls and made a little bandstand, strung up some lights and put a big sign out in front of the house that said "BARN DANCE TONIGHT." It was successful beyond our wildest imagination with kids coming from all over to party in our barn. After a few years of this we all went our separate ways and the barn dances were no more.

When I was in college I met Don Roeser and we formed a band with some other guys in our dorms. That band was called the Travesty and once again we went from humble beginnings to wild success. So wild, in fact, that our grades suffered proportionally. After a couple years of Travesty Donald and I left college to start another band that eventually included my brother Joe and became Blue Öyster Cult. Once again my musical endeavor was more successful than we could imagine, selling millions of records and touring the globe. After 17 years in bands together Don (now called Buck Dharma) and I went our separate ways in 1982.

I started another band that broke up before our record came out and took work as a session musician and musical director for oldies shows. I also went back to college and got a BA in music and a MA in English Literacy and took grad courses in administration. Along the way I formed a band with my ex-wife, Deborah Frost, called the Brain Surgeons. The Brain Surgeons performed from 1994 until 2006 when marital tensions pulled the band apart.

In 2008 I played some gigs with my brother, Joe, and Dennis Dunaway, legendary bass player with the Alice Cooper Group. We called called ourselves Blue Coupe.

Blue Coupe have found continuing glory with their highly acclaimed album, Tornado On The Tracks, which has multiple Grammy considerations in 2011 and 2012, including "Angel's Well" featuring Robby Krieger legendary guitarist for The Doors. And Blue Coupe continue to tour North America and Europe with such illustrious shows as the Halloween Parade in New York City where they were seen by more than a million people.

Blue Coupe released their second album in 2013, featuring Tish and Snooky from Manic Panic, Ross the Boss from Manowar and the Dictators, Buck Dharma from Blue Öyster Cult and Goldy McJohn from Steppenwolf as special guest stars. The album was recorded at the Carriage House Studios in Stamford CT and was mixed in LA by Jack Douglas (Aerosmith, John Lennon, Cheap Trick, Alice Cooper, BOC, etc.) and Warren Huart (Aerosmith, The Fray, James Blunt, etc.)

I put out my first solo record in 2014, an acoustic oriented record, featuring several tracks with no drum set at all.  I was featured on local FOX 5 News in September of 2015 for my work as a music teacher in a Public High School in Manhattan.  In early 2016 I played a half dozen shows with Blue Oyster Cult, mostly playing guitar and singing. In May of 2016 President Obama honored me at the White House for being an outstanding educator.

 In the fall of 2016 I released Beauty of the Bambo by the David Roter Method, The Roadmap Inside Your Head by Spirits Burning & Clearlight and Manic Panic Christmas by Albert and the Sleigh Riders.

By Decmber of 2017 I had released 4 more records, a re-release of Helen Wheels ARCHETYPE, a re-release of Albert & the Sleigh Riders called ITS CHRISTMAS… AGAIN, David Roter Method's ROTER'S MONSTERS and my second solo record called SURREALIST. I also started a weekly vlog called MOST COWBELL!!!. 

In 2018 the Al & Mark collaboration, Fidelis Ad Mortem came out and another Spirits Burning collaboration, this time with Michael Moorcock called AN ALIEN HEAT was released.

In 2019 Blue Coupe completed their 3rd full length album, ELEVEN EVEN, and was released on 11/11/2019. BC went to Sweden for an appearance at the Sweden Rock Festival before returning to the States to play some midwest shows. I continue to work on the last record of the Dancers At The End Of Time trilogy, The End Of All Songs with Spirits Burning and Michael Moorcock. The first two records of the series, An Alien Heat and Hollow Lands, are now available.

In 2020 I signed with Jeff Keller for personal management. His first move was to arrange for the release of the Re Imaginos album (a reimagining of my legendary Imaginos record) in November. I also played and sang on the new Blue Oyster Cult record, The Symbol Remains, and appeared in their first video from it in September 2020.

In addition to Blue Coupe, since 2006 I have recorded songs for Blue Oyster Cult, Fabienne Shine, Left on Red, Underbelly, Al & Mark, Albert & The Sleigh Riders ,Tish and Snooky, the Bouchard Bros., The Dictators, David Roter, Robert Gordon, Knuckle Head, Spirits Burning and many others.