Leather Nun
Encyclopedia
The Leather Nun were a Swedish
rock
group. Careening from garage rock
to goth
and industrial
, Leather Nun became cult heroes in their native land. In the early eighties they often shocked their audiences by showing adult movies and being accompanied by strippers when on stage.
The Leather Nun (originally named "Lädernunnan") was formed in Gothenburg
, Sweden, in 1979 by Jonas Almquist (vocals), Bengt "Aron" Aronsson (guitar), Freddie Wadling
(bass), and Gert Claesson (drums). Although many people think so, Jonas Almquist claims not to have taken their name from the American underground comic Tales from the Leather Nun
. He also claims that it was not taken from the stage name of a London stripper, but chosen because "it felt just as
a clockwork name for a band who based its music on the dynamics between the
pure innocent and the black shame full ..."
Inspired by such groups and artists like John Lee Hooker
, The Mothers of Invention
, Lou Reed
, Velvet Underground, Rory Gallagher
and Mick Ronson
, The Leather Nun recorded their debut EP, Slow Death
, in 1979. John Peel
played this song each night for two weeks on his BBC radio programme.
Wadling left The Leather Nun in 1982 and joined Blue for Two. A handful of singles followed before The Leather Nun released their first LP, Alive, in 1985.
Covering ABBA
's "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme
" earned the group some respect in Sweden and Europe in 1986. Several successful tours followed. In 1988, The Leather Nun were reviewed in Rolling Stone magazine.
In 1986 the group's imported singles found their way onto U.S. college radio stations, earning substantial airplay with "Pink House", a deadpan mockery of John Mellencamp
's "Pink Houses
".
In 1987 the group released their first studio album "Steel Construction" which was critically acclaimed. Their second studio album "International Heroes" produced by Kim Fowley
gained even more airplay and success.
While releasing their third album "Nun Permanent" (produced by Mick Ronson
) in winter 1991 their record company went bankrupt and could no longer deliver copies of the album. Being without a record company The Leather Nun continued to play gigs for a few years, but never got so successful again. The group finally broke up in 1995, but has reunited on some occasions since then. In 2005 they had a short comeback, but did not release any new albums.
In 2009 Jonas Almquist reformed the band with all new members under the name "The Leather Nun: reloaded". On September, 12 2009 they played their last gig and it was over again. Jonas Almqust has now focused on his new band project Godtherapy.
Members :
Musicians who toured and recorded with The Leather Nun:
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
group. Careening from garage rock
Garage rock
Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that was first popular in the United States and Canada from about 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s, it was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name...
to goth
Gothic rock
Gothic rock is a musical subgenre of post-punk and alternative rock that formed during the late 1970s. Gothic rock bands grew from the strong ties they had to the English punk rock and emerging post-punk scenes...
and industrial
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
, Leather Nun became cult heroes in their native land. In the early eighties they often shocked their audiences by showing adult movies and being accompanied by strippers when on stage.
The Leather Nun (originally named "Lädernunnan") was formed in Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...
, Sweden, in 1979 by Jonas Almquist (vocals), Bengt "Aron" Aronsson (guitar), Freddie Wadling
Freddie Wadling
Freddie Wadling is a Swedish singer, actor and opera writer, whose over 30-year musical career spans from punk to classical ballads...
(bass), and Gert Claesson (drums). Although many people think so, Jonas Almquist claims not to have taken their name from the American underground comic Tales from the Leather Nun
Tales from the Leather Nun
Tales from the Leather Nun was a American underground comic published by Last Gasp in 1973. It was a one-shot anthology of bizarre, violent and perverted stories featuring nuns by Dave Sheridan, Robert Crumb, Spain Rodriguez, Jaxon, Roger Brand, and Pat Ryan....
. He also claims that it was not taken from the stage name of a London stripper, but chosen because "it felt just as
a clockwork name for a band who based its music on the dynamics between the
pure innocent and the black shame full ..."
Inspired by such groups and artists like John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...
, The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention were an American band active from 1964 to 1969, and again from 1970 to 1975.They mainly performed works by, and were the original recording group of, US composer and guitarist Frank Zappa , although other members have had the occasional writing credit...
, Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
, Velvet Underground, Rory Gallagher
Rory Gallagher
William Rory Gallagher, ; 2 March 1948 – 14 June 1995, was an Irish blues-rock multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and bandleader. Born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland, and raised in Cork, Gallagher recorded solo albums throughout the 1970s and 1980s, after forming the band Taste...
and Mick Ronson
Mick Ronson
Michael "Mick" Ronson was an English guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer. He is best known for his work with David Bowie, as one of The Spiders from Mars...
, The Leather Nun recorded their debut EP, Slow Death
Slow Death EP
Slow Death is the debut release by Swedish rockers The Leather Nun.-History:Singer Jonas Almquist landed a recording contract for a single with Industrial Records. He recorded "Death Threats" at Bagger Studio engineered by Magnus Bagger on December 14, 1978...
, in 1979. John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
played this song each night for two weeks on his BBC radio programme.
Wadling left The Leather Nun in 1982 and joined Blue for Two. A handful of singles followed before The Leather Nun released their first LP, Alive, in 1985.
Covering ABBA
ABBA
ABBA was a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1970 which consisted of Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Fältskog...
's "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)
"Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! ", originally titled "Been and Gone and Done It", is one of Swedish pop group ABBA's biggest disco hits. It was recorded and released in 1979 with "The King Has Lost His Crown" as the B-side. It appears on ABBA's Greatest Hits Vol...
" earned the group some respect in Sweden and Europe in 1986. Several successful tours followed. In 1988, The Leather Nun were reviewed in Rolling Stone magazine.
In 1986 the group's imported singles found their way onto U.S. college radio stations, earning substantial airplay with "Pink House", a deadpan mockery of John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp, previously known by the stage names Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American rock singer-songwriter, musician, painter and occasional actor known for his catchy, populist brand of heartland rock that eschews synthesizers and other artificial sounds...
's "Pink Houses
Pink Houses
"Pink Houses" is a song written and sung by John Cougar Mellencamp. It was released on the 1983 album Uh-Huh on Riva Records. It reached #8 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in early 1984...
".
In 1987 the group released their first studio album "Steel Construction" which was critically acclaimed. Their second studio album "International Heroes" produced by Kim Fowley
Kim Fowley
Kim Vincent Fowley is an American record producer, impresario, songwriter, musician, film maker, and radio actor. He is best known for his role behind a string of novelty and cult rock pop singles in the 1960s, and for managing The Runaways in the 1970s...
gained even more airplay and success.
While releasing their third album "Nun Permanent" (produced by Mick Ronson
Mick Ronson
Michael "Mick" Ronson was an English guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer. He is best known for his work with David Bowie, as one of The Spiders from Mars...
) in winter 1991 their record company went bankrupt and could no longer deliver copies of the album. Being without a record company The Leather Nun continued to play gigs for a few years, but never got so successful again. The group finally broke up in 1995, but has reunited on some occasions since then. In 2005 they had a short comeback, but did not release any new albums.
In 2009 Jonas Almquist reformed the band with all new members under the name "The Leather Nun: reloaded". On September, 12 2009 they played their last gig and it was over again. Jonas Almqust has now focused on his new band project Godtherapy.
Members :
- Jonas Almquist - Vocals
- Bengt Aronsson - Guitar
- Gert Claesson - Drums
Musicians who toured and recorded with The Leather Nun:
- Freddie WadlingFreddie WadlingFreddie Wadling is a Swedish singer, actor and opera writer, whose over 30-year musical career spans from punk to classical ballads...
- Bass (Original bass-player) - Ulf Widlund - Bass
- Svävarn - Bass
- ApisAPISAPIS may refer to:*Advance Passenger Information System*Armour Piercing Incendiary Shells...
- Bass - Stefan Bellnäs - Bass
- Michael Krönlein - Bass
- Nils Wohlrabe - Guitar
- Frederik Adlers - Piano/Keyboards/Producer/Arranger
- Pelle Blom - Piano/Keyboards
- Kalle Stintzing - Piano/Keyboards
- Martin HederosMartin HederosMartin Hederos, born 1972, is a founding member of Nymphet Noodlers and The Soundtrack of Our Lives. He is also a member of the duo Hederos & Hellberg together with Mattias Hellberg, as well as ex-Esbjörn Svensson Trio bassist Dan Berglund's Tonbruket collective. He has released two albums with...
- Piano/Keyboards
Discography
- Slow Death EPSlow Death EPSlow Death is the debut release by Swedish rockers The Leather Nun.-History:Singer Jonas Almquist landed a recording contract for a single with Industrial Records. He recorded "Death Threats" at Bagger Studio engineered by Magnus Bagger on December 14, 1978...
(1979, 7" EP) - Live At Scala (1980, Cassette)
- Ensam I Natt (1981, 7" Single)
- Primemover (1981, 7" Single)
- Primemover (1984, 12" Single/UK)
- Slow Death EPSlow Death EPSlow Death is the debut release by Swedish rockers The Leather Nun.-History:Singer Jonas Almquist landed a recording contract for a single with Industrial Records. He recorded "Death Threats" at Bagger Studio engineered by Magnus Bagger on December 14, 1978...
(1984, 12" Extended Version) - Industrial Records Story (1984, Comp. LP)
- 506 (1985, 7"/12" Single)
- Desolation Ave (1985, 7"/12" Single)
- Alive (1985, LP)
- Gimme Gimme Gimme (1986, 7/12"Single)
- Pink House (1986, 7/12" Single)
- Lust Games (1986, 12" Mini-LPMini-LPA Mini-LP or Mini-album is a short album, usually retailing at a lower price than an album that would be considered "full-length".-History:...
) - Gimme Gimme... Rejected Version (1986, 7/12" Single)
- No Rules (1986, Comp. LP/UK)
- Lust For Love (1987, 7" Flexi Single)
- Sounds Showcase 3 (1987, 7" Single)
- I Can Smell Your Thoughts (1987, 7/12" Single)
- Steel Construction (1987, LP/CD)
- Cool Shoes (1987, 7/12" Single)
- Lost And Found (1987, 7/12" Single)
- Force Of Habit (1987, LP)
- Dudes (1987, Soundtrack LP)
- Radio One Sessions (1988, 12" Mini-LP)
- Demolition Love (1988, 7/12" Single)
- International Heroes (1988, LP/CD)
- A Thousand Nights (1989, 7/12" Single)
- Ride Into Your Town (1990, 7/12" Single)
- Nun Permanent (1991, CD)
- Girls (1991, CD-Single)
- Gbg Punk (1993, Comp. CD)
- A Seedy Compilation (1994, Comp. CD)
- Fi-Fi Dong - A Gasolin Tribute (1995, Comp. CD)
- A Thousand Nights (1995, Comp. CD)