Greg Prato, reporting for Ultimate-Guitar.com:
April 5, 2024 will mark 50 years since the release of Blue Öyster Cult's third full-length studio effort, Secret Treaties. And while it did not spawn any radio hits on par with "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", "Godzilla," or "Burnin' For You", it did include one of their best-known album tracks, the 6-minute-plus epic, "Astronomy," which Metallica would later cover on their 1998 offering, Garage Inc..
While recently being interviewed by Ultimate Guitar, one of the group's two singers and guitarists, Buck Dharma, looked back on the recording of the aforementioned LP, which also spawned such additional fan favorites as "Dominance And Submission", "ME 262", and "Harvester Of Eyes", among other heavy rockers.
"It was recorded in CBS's big studio, which was on the east side of 23rd Street or thereabouts. It was an old church, and was where they used to do their orchestral recordings. When we did the tracks there, we basically had to gobo it down to a size where we could all set up in a stage configuration and relatively close-mic the instruments. Because it was a huge, huge room.
"Also, it abutted to an apartment building, and they had a noise ordinance. You couldn't play beyond a certain hour, because it would annoy the people next door. And it was very quiet, there was not a lot of stuff going on there. In some studios, there's a lot of bustle in multiple rooms and all kinds of people running around. That wasn't the case here. So, we basically had the place to ourselves."
Dharma also shared his thoughts concerning whether he could tell at the time if Secret Treaties was destined to be a classic or not, due to the strength of the material front to back. And what does Dharma think of Metallica's cover of "Astronomy"? Find out at Ultimate-Guitar.com.
