Heavy Metal America

Wel­come to part one of our Heavy Metal Amer­ica Spot­light! Today we are show­ing some love to Hunt­ing­ton Beach Power Metallers, Leather­wolf! Over the com­ing weeks we will be post­ing about vari­ous bands who have pre­vi­ously gaced the Heavy Metal Amer­ica, Heavy Metal Records Canada and Heavy Metal World­wide labels, so stay tuned for the next part!

Nick­named the 'Triple Axe Attack' for their pion­eer­ing use of a three gui­tar line-up within Heavy Metal Music, Leatherwolf formed in 1981 in California.

The then "Teen" Leather­wolf, were armed with a European sound in a rather for­mu­laic L.A, and instantly stood out from the crowd. Their style was heav­ily influ­enced by the New Wave Of Brit­ish Heavy Metal (N.W.O.B.H.M) Move­ment which unfor­tu­nately for the band, was not par­tic­u­larly pop­u­lar in the States where Glam Metal reigned supreme. How­ever, this did not deter Leather­wolf who even graced the stages along­side the likes of Metal­lica, Slayer and Witch at big name ven­ues like Wood­stock and Radio City!


Need­less to say, their efforts cer­tainly did not go un-noticed and the band were quickly signed to Indie Label, Trop­ical Records who released and fin­anced the bands 1984  EP 'Leather­wolf' which con­sisted of 5 songs. In Main­land Europe, STP/Steamhammer upgraded the released to an album in 1985.

Heavy Metal Amer­ica gained the rights to the release in the UK titling it 'Endangered Spe­cies' - the name of one of the albums tracks. And the rest was his­tory.  Their debut appear­ence in Europe came in 1989 at Aard­schok­dag in Hol­land with an extens­ive  UK Tour fol­low­ing. This tour was with Japan­ese rock­ers Vow Wow with the band being her­al­ded as being from the "Led Zepel­lin and Purple school of rock" and review­ers not­ing Rush, Dio and Thrashy musical influences.

Present Day - 

Leather­wolf under­went vari­ous line-up changes as the band ditched their trade­mark style in favour of a much more bluesy sound com­plete with

Guns N Roses-esq visu­als. With the Grunge Revolu­tion tak­ing over, and the band fail­ing to achieve sig­ni­fic­ant rat­ings, Leather­wolf split up.

Front­man Michael Oliv­eri depar­ted the band in 2003 and after under­go­ing fur­ther line-up changes the band released World As ylum in 2006 to rave reviews appear­ing at Bang Your Head Fest­ival! (Ger­many) and Prog-Power Fest­ival (USA).It was not until 1999 that the band reformed with their orginial line-up for a reunion show - doc­u­mented on their live album 'Wide Open'. The band were also invited to appear at the pres­ti­gi­ous Wacken Open Air Fest­ival in Ger­many. One of the biggest high­lights of the Metal Fest­ival Cal­ender year on year.

Ori­ginal Leather­wolf mem­bers Carey and Oli­veiri rejoined the band in 2007 and Leather­wolf reis­sued 'World Asylum' with Oliveri's vocals before embark­ing on a European tour includ­ing a head­liner spot at the 9th edi­tion of Keep It True fest­ival. Back together and writ­ing new mater­ial the future looks bright for Leatherwolf.

And here is their awe­some, awe­som. awe­some self titled song, 'Leather­wolf' from their 'Endangered Spe­cies' album!  Crank it up loud! \m/

Stay tuned for Part 2 in our Heavy Metal Amer­icaSpot­light Series!