Blue Öyster Cult is an American psychedelic/heavy metal band formed in the late 1960s and active as of 2006.
The members of the band began to come together in the late 1960s, as a band called "Soft White Underbelly", in the vicinity of State University of New York at Stony Brook on Long Island, New York, at the prompting of critic Sandy Pearlman. Pearlman was very influential for the band, getting them gigs, their first record with Columbia, and using his poetry as the basis of many of their songs, including "Astronomy". For a while they played under the name of Oaxaca, a province in Mexico. The band changed its name to the Stalk-Forrest Group in 1968. One single was released on Elektra Records under this name in 1969, though over one album's worth of songs were recorded. The name again changed to the Blue Öyster Cult in 1970.
