Blue Öyster Cult’s classic tune “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” was the subject of a now legendary Saturday Night Live sketch in 2000, which featured Will Ferrell on the cowbell and host Christopher Walken as producer Bruce Dickinson, who keeps demanding “more cowbell” during the recording session. Well, BOC guitarist Buck Dharma is now sharing how it affected the band and their live show.
“It’s been a 25-year journey with the cowbell and riding that horse,” Dharma tells Vulture in a new interview devoted to the sketch. “I can’t complain about any of the history and what’s happened. It’s all good.”
Dharma says when he watched the sketch for the first time he felt relief.
“Relief that it was funny and relief that it wasn’t too cruel on the band,” he says. “SNL had done some rather cruel things about Neil Diamond and other artists over the years, so I was happy it was actually hilarious. While it poked fun at Blue Öyster Cult, it wasn’t mean-spirited at all.”
And believe it or not, the sketch resulted in the band adding, you guessed it, more cowbell to their live shows.
“For 20-odd years, we didn’t use a live cowbell for our shows and never considered it,” he says. “We had to play the cowbell because there was just no getting away from it.”
He adds, “I’m grateful that as significant as the sketch is – because after 25 years, it still is – it didn’t kill the song, its original intent, or its original mood. … So I’m glad the sketch didn’t kill the song and didn’t make it one big joke.”
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