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Blue Oyster Cult lead singer Eric Bloom knows exactly where he was the night of April 9, 2000: Like many Americans, he was in front of the television, watching another episode of "Saturday Night Live."

Only, imagine his surprise when an announcer, in a mocking "Behind the Music" voice, says: "After a series of staggering defeats, Blue Öyster Cult assembled in the recording studio in late 1976 for a session with famed producer Bruce Dickinson. And, luckily for us, the cameras were rolling."…

…Bloom still laughs today about that skit and how it came totally out of left field.

"I even have it on tape," he said recently, "and it still pretty much blows me away. Buck has it on MP3 and we listened to it in his car one day. It's almost as funny to listen to it as watching it."

What draws the biggest laughs for Bloom is how "SNL" writers used poetic license to relive the recording session for Blue Öyster Cult's signature hit.

"It was completely fiction," Bloom said, laughing, "but that's what kind of made it bizarre. They made it all up. Funny thing is, the actor who plays the cowbell guy Will Ferrell he's got a name at the end and it says he died. I've had people come up to me and ask, 'What happened to that guy who died?' I'm like, 'Uh, there was no guy that died.

It was all fiction from beginning to end.' And Bruce Dickinson is a real guy, but he has nothing to do with '(Don't Fear) The Reaper.' He works for Sony and he's in charge of the production and remastering of all our old albums. He had nothing to do with the original 1976 '(Don't Fear) The Reaper.'

"Of course now, every time somebody talks to Bruce on the phone, they say, 'Is this superstar record producer Bruce Dickinson?' "

If there never was a Gene Frenkle, then who did play the cowbell?!

"I did," Bloom said, with a chuckle.

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Burnsey said:

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RIP Gene Frenkel

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