Blue Oyster Cult lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Eric Bloom met his band mates in a New York City record store nearly 50 years ago. Bloom spent his college years in upstate New York playing in bars, then moved to New York City to take a job as a booking agent, the job didn’t work out and he fortuitously ended up selling records.
Dec. 17 | 7:30 p.m. | Tickets start at $44.95
Harrah’s Lake Tahoe | Stateline, Nev.
“I moved into the band house on Christmas Day 1968 before the band was called Blue Oyster Cult,” says Bloom. The band started recording in Long Island. They released their first album in 1972 and toured with Alice Cooper.
“We’ve had lots of successes and stubbed our toes a few times,” explains Bloom of the bands decades in the business.
In the early days, the band played more than 200 gigs a year. Now seasoned veterans of the rock world, the band picks and chooses where they play and how often they tour. “We are perennial road dogs doing what we do,” he says.
With decades under his belt as a professional musician, Bloom says one of the most important lessons that he’s learned is the karmic one of cause and effect – what you put out is what you get back. “I follow the golden rule philosophy – don’t burn people and you won’t be burned back and what you do comes back to you,” he says.
Bloom says that he’s often asked when he’ll retire, but this rocker has no intention of doing so. “Why would I do that? Anyone who plays music for a long time does it because they like doing it and want to play music,” musing about guys like Tony Bennett, who is still performing at 90. “I go out and see big bands and guys in their 80s are still playing, because they love to play.”
Bloom who continues to write music, said that he’s also passionate about video games. For many years, he wrote for Massive Online Gamer Magazine (now defunct) and is currently one of the 10 industry voters for the MMO Hall of Fame, which recognizes massive multiplayer online games.
With mega hits like “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” from the “Agents of Change” album and “I’m Burning for You,” from the 1981 album “Fire of Unknown Origin,” Bloom acknowledges many of the group’s songs were inspired by the bands love of science fiction.
Bloom will be heading to the South Shore Room at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, and maybe “Godzilla” will make it into the set from the legendary Blue Oyster Cult. | harrahstahoe.com
Listen to the 1976 classic “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”
