Leather Leone is back with a visceral and powerful new solo album, Leather II. Released through Divebomb Records on April 13, it sees the long-time vocalist for critically-acclaimed American metal band Chastain teaming up with a quartet of top Brazilian rock musicians to create a dynamic collection of 11 metallic masterpieces.
The album is technically Leone’s second as a solo artist. Her previous solo release, issued towards the end of her initial run with Chastain, was entitled Shock Waves and released in 1989. As a vocalist, songwriting and human being, Leone said she is miles from where she was 29 years ago, and feels Leather II is more of a relaunch, revitalization and the beginning of a new, exciting phase of her life and career.
“It’s got nothing to do with the previous album. It’s not a sequel. It’s chapter two, a new beginning for sure. But really, I never really put much thought into what we were going to call the album. I was looking at it in the way I look at life – I am really comfortable being number two. I never broke really big as an artist, and even in relationships and friendships, I am one of those people who is really comfortable being a strong number two. I don’t have to be number one. So, it was kind of funny to call it number two because that sort of fits in where I see myself in the world. I like who I am, I like where I am in my life, I don’t need to always be pushing to be number one,” she explained.
That being said, Leather II is a tour de force on so many levels. Raw, edgy, pulse-poundingly heavy, but still imbued with infectious hooks and melodies, Leather II witnesses a confident artist in her element, surrounded by a group of young, hungry and very accomplished musicians whose energy and enthusiasm feeds Leone’s soul and spirit, propelling her forward to do even more music, and tour even more extensively. Lead guitarist Vinnie Tex was Leone’s primary songwriting collaborator for Leather II, but second lead guitarist Daemon Ross, bassist Thiago Velasquez and drummer Braulio all played roles in honing and tweaking their parts in the studio.
“I had the privilege of doing a co-headline tour a few years ago down in Brazil with Ross the Boss and we both used the same band of amazing local musicians, with the exception of Vinny. I was watching them and playing with them every night and we just had so much fun together and it just clicked. So, I wanted to move forward with these guys. It wasn’t something I was looking for. I didn’t really go looking for a band or to do another album, it just came to me and I grabbed the opportunity to work with these great young guys when I had the chance,” she said.
“The beauty of them is their musical tastes are very eclectic. Vinny Tex is my main writing dude and guitar player, but he is totally not into metal. His dad taught him how to play and he is more into melodic stuff and intricate jazzy stuff like Vinnie Moore and Pat Matheny. He will also listen to a lot of 1970s music like Bread and then he also plays this amazing Brazilian music. Daemon, on the other hand, is a total metalhead. He loves Dio and Zeppelin and Sabbath, that kind of thing. The bass player Thiago also plays a lot of Brazilian music, he is also going to school for theory. But these guys have all known each other. They play with people like Paul Di’Anno [ex-Iron Maiden] and Tony Martin [Black Sabbath] when they come through.
“And then the drummer, Braulio, is a death metal dude. His own band opens for groups like Cannibal Corpse and all those crazy death metal bands. But to have us all in one room was wonderful and all the influences really mesh. Although it was really me and Vinny that came up with everything, it really, really is nice to have that different feel in the room. I am such a metalhead; that’s all I see, smell, live and write – it’s who I am. It was cool to have a different perspective on the music for sure. It was very educational and at times a little frustrating, but they certainly made me better, so I really look forward to working on the next album with them. We have so much fun on the road. They all want to come to the States. They aren’t like many American musicians who sometimes have a real ego about things. They just want to play, and they don’t care where they stay, what they eat; they just want to get on stage and play music.”
Leone writes and sings by ear, so it was an interesting and enlightening experience to write with school musicians such as Tex and the rest of the Leather band. But conversely, the band respected Leone’s instincts, experience and abilities to craft meaningful metal melodies and were eager to help her make the best album possible.
“Because I do everything by ear, when I am around these trained people they bring in ideas and do things that I don’t hear in my own head, so it was really nice. And they allowed me to be myself in terms of lyrics and the tone of my songs, which are different in some ways than what I did with Dave Chastain. He mostly wrote ooga booga stuff about Armageddon and witchery, mythology and all that stuff, which I love. But as I get more into writing my own stuff, I just write about everyday things. All of the songs on this album are about situations and people I encountered when we were working on the new album,” she said.
“Black Smoke was written about when we were in the streets of Columbia and the pollution was so incredible that all of us vocalists were freaking out. Annabelle is about a young child that I saw. This baby’s eyes just latched onto mine and wouldn’t turn away from me. It was kind of a witchy sort of feeling. And it’s the closest thing I have to a ballad. I am a kid of the 1980s, so I love those metal ballads. I love songs that build, and I love things recorded so raw you can hear every pop. Annabelle was one of the first songs that Vinny and I put together and is such a favourite of mine. So, this who record came about from my experiences if meeting these people in South America.”
As with her musical hero, the late great Ronnie James Dio, who took a very paternal interest in Leone and her career, she was raised Catholic and some of that still shines through, especially on the song Let Me Kneel, although it isn’t necessarily a religious song.
“I leave it’s meaning up to people’s interpretation. It’s a kind of cliché thing about wanting something and asking someone to acknowledge that you are good enough for it. So, it’s that Catholic thing about having me kneel down to ask for it,” she said.
The production on Leather II is raw and at times delightfully ragged, yet still well conceived and constructed. It conveys the unbridled passion that Leone brings to her craft, both in the studio on stage. And she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“There are no bells and whistles, no layering, no bullshit overproduction. I just love the rawness of it. We left some bad notes in there, which I love to do. I want people to hear that I am not a fricken’ machine. What you get is how we sounded on that particular day. The later Chastain albums, like The Voice of the Cult [1988] and For Those Who Dare [1990], my God they were so overproduced dude. But, remember that’s the way it was in the late 1980s. Those Chastain records were just overdone in my opinion. I just don’t want to do that any more,” Leone said.
“Although the last Chastain album, We Bleed Metal [2015] was cool. He was going to bring in a producer to do all these fancy things on it during the mixing and mastering stages and I just said, ‘dude, why don’t you just do it yourself.’ So, he actually sat in the studio for fricken’ weeks and did that. And I said, ‘man, I don’t know what you did, but this is the way every Chastain record should have been.’ We Bleed Metal was nice and raw – it’s beautiful.”
Leather II is also a chance for Leone to truly step out on her own, using her own name as her brand. Although still exceptionally close friends with Chastain, the band never toured when she came back from her self-imposed hiatus to record the Surrender to No One album in 2013. So, she began touring again in 2014, primarily playing Chastain material, but now is looking forward to going out on the road and being an artist in her own right and on her own terms.
She stepped away from the business in 1990 after eventually getting fed up with the rampant sexism and exploitation of female artists – particularly those in the rock and metal genre – that existed (and still exists to an alarming degree even in the #metoo era) in the music industry. Not being taken seriously as a singer and artist, she chose to leave the business for other, more rewarding and less dehumanizing ventures.
“It wasn’t really my gig back then. Now it’s my gig and it’s just me. Before, I was just a girl on the bus who sang the songs, which was fine. I did my job, got some accolades and thought things were going well. After Chastain I thought it would be easier for me to just move into something else, but it was not. I got in touch with some more aggressive bands and I found that I was not very well respected for my talent within the metal community. I used to meet with labels, back when there was a shitload of labels, but nobody was interested in allowing Leather to be Leather. It was always some preconceived idea they had. Listen, I am not a sex chick. I am not a pop chick. And I have never been one of those people wo felt that music was the only thing I could do in my life and I guess I didn’t really want to fight any more. So, I just walked away,” Leone explained.
“I was extremely proud of everything I had done but I just wasn’t up for the challenge. And I remember at one point I was doing some demos for Vixen, and this is no diss on Vixen because they are an incredible band, but when I was doing demos for them I remember saying to myself, ‘why are you doing this? It’s not even what you would do.’ So, I just closed that door and moved along, never thinking that I would really ever do it again.
“Back then, in the late 1980s, it was really an image-oriented business, and I never fit into that image. You look at Doro [Pesch] who is a dear friend of mine, it’s obvious when you look at Doro that she is beautiful. Lita Ford is a beauty, Lee Aaron was beautiful. I was just a tomboy. I used to wonder why I couldn’t just be a female James Hetfield and wear my black jeans and my black t-shirt. I think it was a lot more sexualized back then, and I didn’t fit into the industry’s mold for a female rocker, and nor did I want to.”
She said the industry has evolved, at least to a certain degree, in a more positive direction and that she feels no need to conform to someone else’s expectations of what a woman fronting her own band should look sound and act like.
“I will tell you a story of what it was like back then. I once was talking to someone from a label that no longer exists, and the guy looked at me and said, ‘you are incredibly talented, but this is what your problem is. When a guy walks into a club and hears you sing, he is blown away. But when he looks at you he doesn’t want to f*** you. So, there’s a problem.’ Yeah, so I was like whoa, I am definitely not interested in putting out that sort of image,” Leone said.
“Now it’s not as big of a deal, nor should it be a big deal. I was interested in keeping my clothes on. But in many ways in music and other parts of the entertainment business we really haven’t moved past that, and we even do it to guys now. Again, the great thing about metal is that you’re allowed to get old. Old metal bands are allowed to get old. We’re allowed to get fat, allowed to have gray hair. That’s the beauty of metal compared to pop – fans accept the aging process.”
As modest as she is, Leone is an evocative and magnetic live performer who does keep audiences focused on the stage because of her powerful presence and equally powerful voice. Specific dates for the forthcoming tour with Steve Grimmett’s Grim Reaper are still being finalized, but for more information on upcoming shows, as well as on Leather II, visit her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/LeatherLeone.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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