“London Leatherboys” by Accept

Accept, the German heavy metal band, put "London Leatherboys" on Balls to the Wall, their fifth studio album, in 1983. Udo Dirkschneider sings, Wolf Hoffmann and Herman Frank play guitar, Peter Baltes bass and Stefan Kaufmann drums; the band produced, Louis Austin engineered and Michael Wagener mixed, and the writing credit goes to Baltes, Dirkschneider, Hoffmann, Kaufmann and Deaffy.

When the album reached America, its title and cover struck some as homoerotic, and this song and "Love Child" were read as being about gay people. Kaufmann said it was really about bikers: ordinary people who just look and act differently, one more minority on a record where, he said, many of the themes concerned oppressed minorities. Hoffmann shrugged the fuss off, saying the band wanted to be controversial because it made for good press.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.