Bouchard opened up about the famous Black and Blue 1980 tour where his band and Sabbath alternated who would open each show and who would headline depending on their relative popularity at each venue. Clearly, this was asking for trouble, although the Blue Oyster Cult drummer says that it was the other band who caused the problems. He said: “It wasn’t OK, it was not fun. I loved Black Sabbath, I idolized Ronnie Dio, but there was a lot of tension.”

At the time, Sabbath were finding their feet after Ozzy Osbourne’s exit in 1979. The band had a new frontman, Ronny Dio, a new sound and a brand new album to promote, Heaven and Hell.

Blue Oyster Cult, meanwhile, had released their two-million-selling album Some Enchanted Evening in 1978 and had devoted fan bases in many cities, including their home turf of Long Island.

Their manager Samuel ‘Sandy’ Pearlman (who was also their original lyricist and producer) had started to manage Sabbath in 1979 and was instrumental in setting up the co-headlining tour. Unfortunately, he could not prevent the rising tensions.

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Bouchard, whose brother Joe was the band’s bassist, told Full In Bloom: “One day, for instance, we played Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. Now, as big as Black Sabbath were on Long Island, Blue Oyster Cult at that time was a bigger band on Long Island. It was justified. But when we played in the (New York) city, Madison Square Garden, they were the headliners.

“Now, what was happening every time was that when we were the headliners, they would come on late and play long – every time. And we would have to cut our set… I think that they tried to sabotage us when they would open by going out late and playing long.”

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Bouchard said it became such a problem that he even suggested to Pearlman that Blue Oyster Cult would simply step back and open every show to try and make Sabbath a little “more friendly.”

However, he also admitted there were other problems between the bands as the tour progressed. Apparently one of BOC’s crew made a comment about 5’4 Dio’s height “that he took offense to.”

Bouchard added: “Ronnie Dio is the same size as me. We’re all short, so I don’t know why he would be offended or even why the roadie would say something. It seemed a little stupid, so we had to ‘fire’ the roadie.”

Although, they actually just took the roadie off that tour so he was out of Dio’s sight. But then Bouchard also managed to antagonise Iommi.

Bouchard said: “I got into some hassle with Tony [Iommi, guitar] too. I was playing my guitar in my hotel room, and he was next door, he was mad, it’s like he’s got a hot date, and I guess I was breaking the mood. I was playing Steely Dan songs, he couldn’t handle it.”

By contrast, he got on so well with Sabbath’s drummer Vinny Appice that have been “close friends” ever since.

Bouchard himself left Blue Oyster Cult in 1981.