<\/p>\n As depressing as that all is, it might be worth our time if there was anything more to the Bulletboys than a couple of hipper-than-expected cover songs (O\u2019Jays and Tom Waits<\/a>), but there isn\u2019t, and it sets a bad precedent. What\u2019s next, Danger Danger? Firehouse? Funhouse? Antix? Can\u2019t do it, not in a scene that gave us superior sleaze like The Joneses or The Ultras or Blackboard Jungle or genuinely pioneering (and compellingly weird) glam-metal like Hellion.<\/p>\n Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n There is so much nonsense surrounding this band that I might as well include it all, because at least some of it has to be true. One thing I know to be a fact is that Hellion are really the unsung heroes of early Hollywood metal.<\/p>\n The ever-evolving cast of characters that did time in lead screamer Ann Boleyn\u2019s rock\u2019n\u2019roll asylum eventually filled out the rosters of half the flash metal bands on The Strip<\/a>, and their distinctive mix of sleaze and power would influence many a metal band throughout the 80s. Ann\u2019s tough, take-no-lip attitude undoubtedly inspired many a female rocker, as well. Plus, she could sing. Plus, her band had great songs. So, why weren\u2019t they famous?<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n Tough luck and haunted houses, mostly.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what happened. It was 1980 or so, and there was this rock singer, Ann Boleyn. Life was a little weird for Annie so far \u2013 she narrowly avoided the affections of serial killer Ted Bundy (maybe), her grandpa was a personal friend of Alistair Crowley\u2019s, and she was prone to witchy-womanhood herself. But at the time, she was just a solo blooze howler tryin\u2019 to make a buck in Tujunga, California.<\/p>\n No, wait, first there was Ann Boleyn, Queen of England, who had six fingers on one hand, and who was found guilty of adultery and executed by sword in 1536. Immediately after her death, her ghost began to haunt the Tower of London, eventually driving poor King Henry \u2013 who was, after all, the fucker who framed her \u2013 quite mad. She still haunts the tower. Go there and see for yourself, if ya want.<\/p>\n Several centuries later, Queen Ann, the \u201cQueen of Hell\u201d, as she became known after wandering around with her head under her arm for a cuppla hundred years, was reincarnated as a blooze singer in Tujunga. Said blooze singer was probably someone else entirely before that fateful day, but it hardly matters now.<\/p>\n Anyway, when the blues failed to pay the bills (and queens have a lot of bills), Ann decided to become a rock star. Which meant she needed a band. Word on the street has it that she auditioned for the Runaways after Joan split, but that obviously didn\u2019t happen, so she scanned the classifieds, searching for a band in need of a singer.<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n Hellion “Hell Has No Fury” Official Video – YouTube Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n Some reports have the band gigging around town as Beowulf – there most definitely was an LA Beowulf around that time, so that\u2019s probably the case. Others say the band was originally called the Alice Cooper<\/a>-inspired \u201cDed Babies\u201d. At any rate, this band o\u2019 rockers teamed up with Queen Ann and called themselves Hellion. And it was good. For about five minutes.<\/p>\n Hellion practised in a haunted house in their hometown of Tujunga. It was called \u201cThe Annie-Ville Horror House\u201d. That\u2019s trouble right there. Ann also made all her bandmates take a sacred oath of loyalty to her, which so freaked out her original bass player that he quit the band and joined the priesthood. And so on.<\/p>\n Despite a perpetually freaked-out band, Ann got Hellion\u2019s music released on a variety of early LA metal comps, including a so-rare-it-might-not-even-exist split 7\u201d with Bitch on punk label Mystic. They also threw a lotta parties at the horror house. Bands playing, cops showin\u2019 up, all that.<\/p>\n And they were not averse to cunning stunts \u2013 one newspaper clip collaged onto the back cover of their self-titled mini EP concerns a 1983 gig at the Troubadour club in LA (headlining over Social Distortion!), where they made a grand entrance \u2013 by rolling down the avenue in a tank. This is a band that was broke, remember. That, my friends, is showmanship.<\/p>\n Through varying amounts of voodoo, talent, self-promotion, and sheer luck, Hellion eventually landed their first record deal with UK metal label Music For Nations, which resulted in their 1983 self-titled mini-LP, which remains their defining moment as a band. Quite frankly, it\u2019s a fucking monster.<\/p>\n Boleyn\u2019s got a fantastically raspy growl and the band had a raw, ragged, punky edge that still sounds like it can draw blood. Despite her glammy, leather n\u2019 lace image, Boleyn attacked the material with feral intensity, and the band just cooked. There are jazzy flourishes here and there that would suggest ambition beyond the primacy on display here, but as an early flashpoint for the burgeoning glam-slam movement, it\u2019s a full-on, shoot-out-the-lights rager.<\/p>\n The EP was a minor hit in the UK, and the band gigged England, where Ronnie James Dio<\/a> happened to catch \u2018em. He was so impressed with Boleyn that he offered to produce their next record. Never happened. Ronnie J did produce a few Hellion demo tracks, but the project fizzled. Meanwhile, the band was poised to tour Europe with Hanoi Rocks<\/a> in \u201984, and then Vince killed Razzle<\/a>, and the tour, dead.<\/p>\n Soon after, Hellion, Mark 1, called it quits, and Ann founded her own record label, New Renaissance which eventually released many seminal albums by hard and thrashy bands like Genocide, Medieval, Artillery, Executioner, At War, and Whiplash. She tried many different line-ups for Hellion in the ensuing years, but none really stuck for more than an album and she spent a fair amount of time our there in the reeds (and in law school).<\/p>\n There were rumours and wild allegations throughout the 90s and beyond that Ann had died or gone crazy or quit rock\u2019n\u2019roll forever. None of it was true, however. 2014 saw the arrival of a new Hellion album, Karma’s A Bitch, and last year, Boleyn was the focus of the seventh episode of Hulu’s Into the Void: Life, Death & Heavy Metal<\/a>, which revealed that she now works as a practising attorney, representing victims of workplace harassment.<\/p>\n Not a bad ending for the reincarnated Queen of Hell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I knew when I got up this morning, I would end up writing about an LA metal band,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-641383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.loudersound.com\/media\/img\/Louder_logo_v1a_black_on_white.svg\"){kind=logo}
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\n![\"Hellion](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781603230_108_maxresdefault.jpg\")
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